Fern Griffiths

Having been given the brief of pitching an experimental game, and then creating a prototype from this pitch, I have come up with a few initial ideas.  I have always had an interest in games that tell an emotional and impactful narrative so I would like to explore this area of game design within my project.  Being relatively new to making games I need to be aware of the scope of the project that I undertake and whether I have the technical skills to create a prototype of the idea in the time allowed.  As a result of this constraint, some of my initial ideas probably won’t be feasible but I still think that they are interesting ideas.

Games as a medium have unlimited potential as a storytelling method and are able to communicate ideas and thoughts in ways other mediums cannot.  Henry Jenkins argued that video games are by their nature a storytelling medium, comparable on the same level to books and films.  While not all games want or need to tell stories many do.  Jenkins writes that “a discussion of narrative potentials of games need not imply a privileging of storytelling over all the other possible things games can do” (2002:120).  He argues that games tell stories in a different way than any other media.  What makes telling stories through games unique is the way they allow “players to move through narratively compelling spaces”  (Jenkins 2002:121).

For this project I plan to explore narrative and different ways that it can be used; either from the application of narrative or the topics that game narratives can be used to explore.  As games place the player in the role of the main character it allows the player to experience events that they wouldn’t normally get to.

My initial thoughts for this project are that I want to explore narrative in some form, focusing on more serious topics like grief, feelings of loss and loneliness and overcoming trauma.  I will start my research by looking at abstract storytelling and ways of mapping narratives such as the Heroes Journey.  I will also look at ways of visual communicating emotions and feelings to the player, as well as how games can be used to help people talk about and understand serious issues.

“What is a man but the sum of his memories? We are the stories we live, the tales we tell ourselves.”
Clay Kaczmarek – Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

References:

JENKINS, Henry. “Game Design as Narrative Architecture.” Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, ed. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. 118-130. Print.