An interesting topic that came up in class discussion based on this past week’s material was how different types of spaces in games create such unique experiences, particularly in horror games. Fullerton wrote in this week’s chapter, “As opposed to physical or mental obstacles and conflict from direct competition with other players, another type of game conflict can come from dilemma-based choices that players have to make” (pg 86). This made me think of how horror games make the player decide in their panic running from/trying to escape whatever evil is after them whether or not to stop and read the documents that essentially have the games entire storyline in them (which most people miss because they get too spooked and are just trying to survive).
Additionally, I enjoyed Jenkin’s discussion of narrative in games and also related it to how horror typically operates in gaming spaces. On the topic of environmental storytelling and spatial narrative he writes, “they can provide a staging ground where narrative events are enacted; they may embed narrative information within their mise-en-scene; or they provide resources for emergent narratives” (Jenkins). This particularly made me think of one of my favorite narrative games, Layers of Fear. In this game, the player navigates an old house with a very unsettling and spooky environment. The architecture of the house makes no sense and sometimes you would walk out of s room just to walk into the same room but slightly different, or leave a room and realize it is not the same place in the house as where you had entered from. Eventually the house changes to a full-on fever dream space with doors opening to mile high drops and melting rooms. The point of this narratively, as the player slowly realizes throughout the game, was that you, as the player, were experiencing the memories of a painter who had descended into madness from his horrible past and guilt that was stuck wondering in his own home, doomed to repeat terrible memories in a terrifying manner forever. This type of story experience would not have been possible in regular film, and truly showed the narrative power that games can have.
Works Cited:
Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games, 4th Edition. 2019.
Jenkins, Henry. Game Design as Narrative Architecture. 2004.
Horror narratives are extremely effective in game mediums because the medium forces participation from the audience and to enact the events themselves in order to advance the story. In films and books, the story of horror will still continue even if the audience member refuses to participate, and if someone becomes too scared, they can simply look away or skip the moment and continue the story. However, in games, the story will not continue if the player decides that a certain part is too scary to play through, and the player cannot simply skip that part to get to the next part of the story.
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