CS4067 Week 2 Defining the terms: Ludology and Narratology

1. CS4067 Week 2Defining the terms: Ludology and Narratology “Computer games don’t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music” K. Wilson, Nintendo Inc., 1989. So, what’s in a game?

2. The gap in the research • “What’s missing from contemporary debate on gaming and culture is any naturalistic study of what game-playing experiences are like” (Squire, 2002) - how gaming fits into people’s lives, - the kinds of practices that people are engaged in while gaming. • Few, if any researchers have studied how and why people play games, and what gaming environments are like. • Investigators might benefit by acknowledging the cultural contexts of gaming, and studying game-playing as a cultural practice. If nothing else, it highlights the importance of putting aside preconceptions and examining gamers on their own terms.

3. Game Theories • Two main Game Theories • Ludology focuses on the study of computer games as play and game activities, • Narratology revolves around the study of computer games as narratives.

4. A Game Theoretical Framework • The views between ludologists and narratologists are always contradictory, • The former argues that the pleasure of playing games lies in the gameplay, • While the latter treats narratives as the fundamental enjoyment players are experiencing during the play session • Your opinions, please…

5. Almost no doubt that narratives alone do not make a game. • Computer games require a simulation that allows the interaction between the player and the story. • Ludology states that a game is organised within its internal structure, and oriented toward a goal. Unlike traditional narrative readers, game players not only play to know the advancement of a story: their play is centred in a discovery of an open space that invites observation through the duration of temporality (Walther 2003). • According to Frasca, the structure and the goal of a game are governed by paidea† rules and ludus rules respectively (Frasca 2001). • He identifies two types of game: ludus, which refers to the games whose result defines a winner and a loser; and paidea, which refers to games that do not. • He also recognises two types of rules: paidea rules are rules established in order to play the game, while ludus rules are established in order to win or lose the game. †In ancient Greek, the word Paideia (παιδεία) means "education" or "instruction." Paideia was "the process of educating man into his true form, the real and genuine human nature.“ (e.g. encyclopædia, “Know thyself” inscribed at the Delphi. Cf. Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, vols. I-III,

6. Kinds of play • Based on Frasca’s definitions, a book is also a kind of play, as it has paidea rules: the reader must turn the page to read the next part of the text. • One can also turn a book into ludus by adding ludus rules: whoever finds page number 46 the fastest, wins. • So, a book can be a game that tells stories. After experience with the pages and the texts, one constructs a story in his or her mind. • From here we can see the fundamental difference between the focus of narratology and ludology. • Narratologists want to examine how one can tell a good story on this paidea • Ludologists choose to study the rules and mechanics of the book or perhaps the interaction between texts and readers, making the page flipping experience or text interaction more interesting.

7. Of and by the simulation • In history, designers have studied the mechanics of the book, making it more convenient, portable and able to represent more stories. • Even now the printed-paper takes different forms, from the foldable map to the paged dictionary, typography and the Joy of X. • However, there is not much one can study about the mechanisms of a book as play because of the physical limitation of the medium. People are more interested in the story told in a book. • The same concept can be applied to computer games. One can choose to study the story told by the simulation or the simulation itself (Ang, 2004).

8. Paidea rules • Books only support the construction of the narrative discourse: the stories are already written into the book. • Paidea rules of a book define how a reader can discover the story. Thus, a book is representing a story. After/whilst reading the stories, the readers construct narratives in their mind. • In a digital game however, the paidea rules define how the narrative space functions and operates. The player interacts with the space, enacts stories and constructs narratives. • Note that there are also games that represent a story like a book, such as adventure games. • Hence, the narrative in games can be categorized into two types: represented and enacted (Salen & Zimmerman, 2003). • In most modern digital games, it is usually a mixture of the two. The game represents stories with cut-scenes, and also allows the player to construct stories by playing and interacting with the objects in the game world.

9. e-learning with digital games • Based on the above arguments, e-learning could be studied as digital games. • Examined closely, it is found out that e-learning has paidea rules: click the menu buttons and scroll the text with the mouse button, etc. • Ludus rules are usually stated as the learning objective: to understand the concept of metamorphosis. Like a book, e-learning software could be paidea or ludus depending on the existence of an explicit goal. • TASK [for Friday at 10 a.m.] - But why is it not as engaging as commercial games? According to ludology and narratology, at least three reasons are identified: • The lack of the sense of narrative • The lack of semantic paidea rules • The lack of explicit ludus rules

10. Narratives • One of the reasons why an e-learning system can hardly compete with commercial games in term of enjoyment is its spatial design. • Many software designers have been trying to create an intuitive interface for the users by using narrative metaphors. • In fact, narrative interfaces have been used in the game industry since its infancy and have successfully enticed a large portion of computer users for decades. • Most e-learning software does not to take advantage of this highly effective design. • Spatial design is obviously lacking as most interfaces of traditional e-learning systems use the metaphor of a book e.g. Raptivity. • The computer screen should not be a representation of a page of book, but a window to a new world. • Learners look through the screen like through a window to a new spatial world of knowledge in which the images of real objects act coherently with virtual models (Morozov and Markov 2000).

11. Interfaces • In the case of computer game, the interface is doubled in an interesting way. • The first is the interface of the computer: the screen, the keyboard and the mouse. • An additional interface is the narrative metaphor, which illuminates the narrative space in a new dynamic and interactive medium. • The spatial design makes the first interface “disappeared”. The learners are not interacting with the keyboard or the mouse, but the story presented from the computer screen (Laurel 1993). • They are transported to a narrative space, which can be more resonant and meaningful than experiences that are actually lived.

12. characters • Anthropomorphic objects or characters are indispensable in a digital narrative environment, as narratives need human entities for the reader to retain interest (Grodal 1997). • But, how can we integrate this component into good game design? • Some designers have attempted to incorporate personification by including verbal instructions and animated agents. Characters are supposed to be user-friendly, motivating, and able to suggest task-relevant ideas (Hoorn 2003). • In some designs, there are animated human-like characters included to provide instructions. These characters are however explicit to the learning context. • Although it is fairly easy to construct this character-like figure, but the tasks at hand are to contextualise and maintain interest. Animations provide models for believable characters, but not for character interaction – TASK for Thursday– Discuss with examples – WoW etc. • We need characters that live in the narrative world, and motivate the gamers to proceed toward the ultimate goal… • TASK – what IS the ultimate goal of a game????

13. motivation • Although facts are presupposition in a narrative, these events and actions are not presented as facts; they need to be put in a causal relationship with one another to motivate the gamer. • An event needs to occur in a chain of causal relations and must follow logically from the event preceding it. • Cognitivists believe that a connection of information in a form of network is easier to remember. • Connections between units of information improve the memory of this information. Thus, narratives aid recall through the network of causal links. • Narratives also generate motivation of the gamers by engendering their curiosity and making them want to continue reading / playing.

14. user control • Most significant difference between interactive media and traditional ones is user control. • The player must experience feelings of control over actions and environment for the activity to encourage playful, exploratory behaviour. • The interactivity of a digital game provides feedback to the individual in a way that is not possible with more static technologies. [TASK: Your definition of Interactivity] • Unambiguous feedback is important for the learner to feel in control of their actions where they feel that they are in charge of mastering their environment, ruling the game.

15. Goals • Ludus rules are important in order for a digital game to be challenging, especially for naïve or inexperienced gamers who cannot identify the goal by themselves. • Goals must be identifiable and obvious for a game to be fun. The goal should however be not too easy or too difficult to attain for players over a wide range of ability levels. • One of the solutions is to create an environment without built-in goals, which is structured so that users will be able to easily generate goals (intrinsic ludus rules) of appropriate difficulty. • Example… Second Life • http://secondlife.com/ Go there? • http://secondlifegrid.net/programs/education

16. Tours of Second Life http://www.slideshare.net/sreljic/aect2007sreljic/ http://sl.nmc.org/2006/06/12/seriously-engaging-movie/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/

17. So, for Friday (WK2) at 10:00 a.m. in S114. • TASKS from today – summary discussion • Ludologist OR Narratologist? If both, how much % ? • Defining Interactive Storytelling – the cyclic process - Versus plot; • Nature of cultural knowledge transmission • Techies and Artsies and Two Cultures (Crawford, p.72) • Verb and noun thinking • Storytelling strategies: environment; data-driven; language-based; SEQUENCING – and next… • http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11263559 which is entitled: How good software makes us stupid.