“If designers had truly fascinating stories to tell, they would write novels and film scripts rather than games.”

Firstly, it is easy to see why this is true in some cases, and the author gives the example of psychological stories not being good gaming material (I would argue even this claim, if spaces afforded it). However, there are surely some types of narrative that are equally (or even best) told within the gaming environment, giving the viewer a participating role in the action. It is easy to see how participating in the action of a story–even in a small way–can leave a much deeper mark on an individual than simply seeing it or reading it, and gaming often includes both of those things as well.

The author goes on to say:

“But a stereotyped story can be redeemed by interesting player action, while a game without originality on the level of rules can be improved by narrative packaging. In the design of games, gameplay and narrative remediate each other’s deficiency.”

The first claim is easy for me to validate. Look at Super Mario Bros. or Tetris. These games have very, very little story associated with them, yet are endlessly entertaining. On the other hand, a game that doesn’t play well can be much like a book that has torn pages, with some stuck together, or a scratched DVD that skips a lot while playing. Most gamers will not suffer through bad gameplay in order to behold a gripping story. (But video gaming is still new and “gaming” is a new concept. Surely providing a good “gaming” experience will mature much like storytelling has matured.) My qualification is that it is possible that there simply has not been a game that has a story gripping enough to supercede bad gameplay.

I believe that the reason why this particular chapter caught my interest, besides being an interesting overview of the applications, implications, and possibilities of metalepsis in literature as well as in print, in video games, alternate reality gaming, computer science, etc; it is also because this sort of artifices bring awareness of different and simultaneous levels of “reality” (and I’m hesitant to use the word reality here, but for lack of a better one I will use it) that are experienced by the reader/viewer/user. Is it important or necessary for works of fiction to bring such awareness? Probably not. Is it amusing? To me it is, perhaps some people might find these intrusions irrelevant or annoying. Ultimately, it could be argued that the use of an artifice like metalepsis could pose a threat to the “veracity” of the fictional world depicted in the work, just as much as it could reinforce it by making a direct reference to the “real” world outside of the work in question. But I guess that I’m partial to the use of this kind of tricks because they appeal to my imagination, by implying that I as reader/viewer/user could also be a fictional entity. Now, why does the prospect of being an imaginary creation entertain my thoughts? That’s a good question, and one that I’m not quite sure I could answer.

I think it would be interesting to explore metalepsis as a game-feature that results from time-travel. While discussing myths of digital narratives, Ryan states that narrative relies on sequence (p124.) Later in her discussion of AI and Storyspace she explores the computational difficulties of managing “guard fields” if temporal sequence was not maintained (p140.) The dimension of time could be malleable in a fictional world and lead to great variety in game-play. An avatar could have the ability to be move temporally backwards and effect changes that will be accounted for in the narrative that has already taken place.

Borrowing concepts from object oriented programming, a player’s avatar can be internally represented in the game system as an object with distinct properties. The other entities an avatar interacts with in the game space can operate in a parameter driven way based on the current state of these properties.

The sited example is “x” arrives at “y’s” house. If they are friends “y” greets “x” and offers food and shelter. If “x” changes previous circumstances so that “x” is now an enemy of “y” the offer of food and shelter should be replaced with an appropriate response. If the story is based on parameter driven algorithms, the exact sequence of game play need not be remembered by the system, only the current state of the character as “x” relates to “y.” The avatar can jump to any point on the time-line of the fictional world and the current state of the relationship should guide the activities of any x-and-y encounter.

The idea is the player should be able to travel in time and directly modify the attributes of his previous avatar by participating in the development of his character in the story. The player can augment any previous scenario by cloning the current avatar and revisiting the action as an additional agent. This is a gamble for the player. Attempting to assist the avatar may be detrimental, end the game or it might help. The jumps in time could be regulated by the game designer as to when and how often. The cloned avatar will reunite with the main character at certain points. The properties that result from any temporal interference can be incorporated during recalculations that occur at intersections of beats in the narrative, perhaps using a flowchart architecture (p104).

On the other hand, I disagree with the argument of games being like life. Most of the games I see (guitar hero, star wars, etc) have little to do with real life. It seems to me that games take us places outside of ourselves and our lives. Caesar was mentioned in the text, and I think that is a good example of a game that doesn’t really mimic life. I doubt that I will ever have the chance to build an empire. So another question is “how are games like life?” Yes, they have spatiaiity and objects are manipulated through a tactile controller and some of the problems could be seen as symbolic of life’s problems, but do they reflect “real” life beyond the symbology?

And then I wonder, to take it one step further, is life a narrative? It certainly has the ability to jump tracks while moving in a multilinear fashion. A person’s identity is, to be believed by some, made of many different smaller identities. We have biographies in the libraries and the Biography Channel on the tube which chronicle lives of people in narrative form. I feel like I have more questions than answers after reading the text. But it was a very good text.

My attention was focused on games as narratives as my work is moving more and more into video game based story telling and bringing that vision to a film environment. Ryan is one of the few authors who splits the situation into pro’s and con’s on an equal playing field. Though I get the sense she’s more towards the con’s, games are not narratives, but that there is an exchange on ideas made this book a greater read.

Here’s the part that irked me. Her discussion on the aesthetic and function question.

“If designers had truly fascinating stories to tell, they would write novels and film scripts rather than games.” (pg 198)
While you can argue both ways on this statement, it really felt that Ryan was voting against game’s as narrative because games don’t follow the typical narrative structure. A structure set up by an intuition whom decided what is a narrative and what is not. I think a criticism to Ryan is that she failed to mention the ability for narratives to morph, and doesn’t take into consideration the institutionalization of the narrative structure. We’re stuck in a pattern of cause and effect, going flashfoward or flashbackward. We expect certain things out of a narrative. When the story doesn’t fit, then it’s not a narrative. The issue is that we need to rethink the way we look at a narrative. Look at the framing of the game to understand the story; a big issue I have been struggling with for my interactive narrative project.

Side-note: Ryan has never played The Sims. If she did, she would have known that while Sims don’t have to restock the fridge (Sims 1 not Sims 2 where restocking is required), everytime you open the door you are paying Simolians for the food. There is no infinite food system without cracking the game. The example of the fridge tends to fall flat.

In Chapter 8, there is this question that captured my attention, “are video games capable of developing narratives?” I like the the fact that on page 189 “games may not be stories, but they can be machines for generating stories.” The state of video games has evolved tremendously from the utilization of technology, stories, and game play. I read an article awhile back saying that alot of movie directors and writers are turning towards video games because of lack of opportunities in Hollywood. They contribute tremendously to the narratives of video games and I believe that what Marie Ryan argues applies to this occurrence.

If anyone has ever played the Final Fantasy series, the stories are beautifully written much like novels and hollwood movies. For me, the purpose of the gameplay is to move on to the next storyline which are truly captivating. The writers structurally build these stories to entice you to play further on but it is the videogame that generate the stories with the combination of the gameplay.

Once again, with the advent of avatars and the popularity of first person games, the narratives in video games allow more user interaction with the ability to control the narrative. One excellent example is the new video game that just came out called Mass Effect, a futuristic sci-fi game that allows the user to customize his or her characters and make the decisions that will affect the story line in various ways much like a complicated interactive architecture where a path twists and turns. But in Mass Effect, the story is almost never ending because the game allows the user to be fully immersed in the narrative and the character.

On a side note, what is extremely interesting, to me, is the use of literature, especially that of science-fiction, to describe our reality. By that I mean, we used to use other characters as avatars for something in the real world, such as such as Captain Kirk as the “humanoid earthling.” Now we use images of ourselves to describe our fictional self, such as our character in Second Life. In the next game for Star Wars (Star Wars: Force Unleashed), the visuals of a character or not manifested directly from imagination, an actor was digitized and put into a game to represent the hero.

Three Percent – article 1/30/08 7:56 AM cwp book tv titlepage
This sounds rather promising:
Daniel Menaker, former Random House executive editor and fiction editor at the New Yorker, will host a new online book show called Titlepage, the first of which appears on March 3 [. . .] Menaker will lead a group of authors in discussions that are modeled in part after Apostrophes, the popular French book discussion TV show, Charlie Rose and others. [via Shelf Awareness
I’ve ranted about this before, but a real, smart, good televised book program is one of the things this country is sorely missing. Menaker is brilliant, so I have high hopes for this . . . And hopefully he won’t have a prejudice against authors with an accent . . .

And I am still hopeful that someday it will somehow be possible to have good, interesting, well-written interactive literature (maybe there’s something now I don’t know about?). It is a very intriguing and exciting concept. Ryan’s argument that “Proust’s novels have nothing to gain by offering multiple choices…” seems a bit facile and dismissive to me. Surely, someone can write something of quality that could lend itself to interactivity and multiple choices.

*I was also getting carried away with the whole reality, fiction, non-fiction, panfictionality discussion in Chapter 2.