Art and Design Commons^™

Emergent Narrative In Tabletop Role-Playing Games: An Application Of Concepts, Padraig Mumper

Honors Projects

This project examines tabletop role-playing games using concepts from narratology and ludology including emergent narrative and Roger Caillois’ categories of games by applying these concepts in the creation of an adventure zine for the game MÖRK BORG. The existing literature on emergent narrative primarily focuses on video games and Avant Garde texts but tabletop role-playing games provide a novel opportunity to explore emergent narrative in new ways. The dynamic of a collaborative game with multiple players and a gamemaster provides additional challenges for designers due to variance in interpretation of the game events and the lack of a digital program …

Programming Proletarian Literature: Kobayashi Takiji’S "Kani Kôsen" And Gaming As Reading, Jacob Philip Fisher

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Abstract

This project translates a novel, Kobayashi Takiji’s, Kani Kôsen (The Crab Cannery Ship, 1929) into a video game. As a joint project between Computer Science and Japanese, its focus is to develop a game for the original Game Boy (1989) narratively based on a work of Japanese proletarian literature. Specific tools used in development were the Game Boy emulator: bgb, the Game Boy Developers Kit (gbdk), the Game Boy CPU manual, as well as a foundation in the C programming language, and some lower level systems experience. Being based on a novel, the play style utilizes text …

Metagames: Postmodern Narrative And Agency In The Video Games Of Davey Wreden, Richard J. Andrews

Honors Theses

This study aims to determine how contemporary video games utilize self-reflexive narrative techniques to explore the strengths and weaknesses of video games as an artistic narrative medium. This study combines emergent digital game theory with established literary theory about self-reflexive narrative (also known as ‘metafiction.’) This synthesis is further informed by observing first hand player interaction with self-reflexive gaming platforms. A focus on the problems of ontology and epistemology for both gamers and readers allows comparison between treatments of these problems in both digital game theory and metafictional studies. My study compares these concepts and applies them to the operations …

Secondary World: The Limits Of Ludonarrative, David Dannelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Secondary World: The Limits of Ludonarrative is a series of short narrative animations that are a theoretical treatise on the limitations of western storytelling in video games. The series covers specific topics relating to film theory, game design and art theory: specifically those associated with Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, Jay Bolter, Richard Grusin and Andy Clark. The use of imagery, editing and presentation is intended to physically represent an extension of myself and my thinking process and which are united through the common thread of my personal feelings, thoughts and experiences in the digital age.