scholarly journals From Novels to Video Games: Romantic Love and Narrative Form in Japanese Visual Novels and Romance Adventure Games

Arts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Kumiko Saito
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Romantic Love ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Adventure Games ◽  
Narrative Forms ◽  
Female Audience ◽  
Modern Identity

Video games are powerful narrative media that continue to evolve. Romance games in Japan, which began as text-based adventure games and are today known as bishōjo games and otome games, form a powerful textual corpus for literary and media studies. They adopt conventional literary narrative strategies and explore new narrative forms formulated by an interface with computer-generated texts and audiovisual fetishism, thereby challenging the assumptions about the modern textual values of storytelling. The article first examines differences between visual novels that feature female characters for a male audience and romance adventure games that feature male characters for a female audience. Through the comparison, the article investigates how notions of romantic love and relationship have transformed from the modern identity politics based on freedom and the autonomous self to the decentered model of mediation and interaction in the contemporary era.

scholarly journals The Animation of Gamers and the Gamers as Animators in Sierra On-Line’s Adventure Games

Animation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Raz Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Free Play ◽  
Digital Gaming ◽  
Adventure Game ◽  
Adventure Games ◽  
Software Publisher ◽  
On Line ◽  
The Relationship

Produced throughout the 1980s using the company’s Adventure Game Interpreter engine, the digital adventure games created by American software publisher Sierra On-Line played an important and largely overlooked role in the development of animation as an integral part of the digital gaming experience. While the little historical and theoretical discussion of the company’s games of the era focuses on their genre, it ignores these games’ contribution to the relationship between the animated avatars and the gamers that control them – a relationship that, as argued in this article, in essence turns gamers into animators. If we consider Chris Pallant’s (2019) argument in ‘Video games and animation’ that animation is essential to the sense of immersion within a digital game, then the great freedom provided to the gamers in animating their avatars within Sierra On-Line’s adventure games paved the way to the same sense of immersion in digital. And, if we refer to Gonzalo Frasca’s (1999) divide of digital games to narrative-led or free-play (ludus versus paidea) in ‘Ludology meets narratology: Similitude and differences between (video) games and narrative’, then the company’s adventure games served as an important early example of balance between the two elements through the gamers’ ability to animate their avatars. Furthermore, Sierra On-Line’s adventure games have tapped into the traditional tension between the animator and the character it animated, as observed by Scott Bukatman in ‘The poetics of Slumberland: Animated spirits and the animated spirit (2012), when he challenged the traditional divide between animators, the characters they animate and the audience. All these contributions, as this articles aims to demonstrate, continue to influence the role of animation in digital games to this very day.

XXV. The Secret of Love's Labour's Lost

PMLA ◽  
1924 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin K. Gray
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Working Hypothesis ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
Love's Labour's Lost ◽  
Definite Statement ◽  
Made In

[In the following paper, for reasons of brevity, a working hypothesis has been presented in narrative form: wherever a definite statement of historical fact has been made in support of a literary theory, the authority has been given in the footnotes. The article aims at elucidating certain problems in Love's Labour's Lost by correlating them with certain matters of historical fact which took place in and about the year 1591. The following points constitute problems in Love's Labour's Lost: (a) date of composition and first performance; (b) The unexpected dénoûment in the postponed marriages; (c) The choice of names for the leading male characters, Navarre, Berowne, etc.; (d) The curious emphasis laid upon the killing of the deer by the Princess; (e) The similarity of the Pageant scene at the close of the play to the Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe in The Midsummer Night's Dream; (f) The satire on Euphuism and Sonnets and other courtly affectations; (g) The unique observance by Shakespeare of the unities of time and place. The ensuing narrative has been evolved by applying to these problems the following matters of historical fact: (a) Burleigh's attempts, 1589–94, to force Southampton into marriage with his grand-daughter, Elizabeth de Vere, and Southampton's successful evasion of his betrothal; (b) Southampton's flight to France, 1591, to take part in the war in Normandy; (c) The Royal Progress, 1591, to Portsmouth and certain incidents in the entertainment of the Queen at Cowdray House.]

scholarly journals Shakespeare and the Accumulation of Cultural Prestige in Video Games

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-128
Author(s):  
Andrei Nae
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Adventure Games ◽  
Complex Characters

Abstract The present article analyses the manner in which AAA action-adventure games adapt, quote, and reference Shakespeare’s plays in order to borrow the bard’s cultural capital and assert themselves as forms of art. My analysis focuses on three major releases: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, BioShock: Infinite, and God of War. The article shows that these games employ narrative content from Shakespeare’s plays in order to adopt traits traditionally associated with the established arts, such as narrative depth and complex characters. In addition to this, explicit intertextual links between the games’ respective storyworlds and the plays are offered as ludic rewards for the more involved players who thoroughly explore game space.1

scholarly journals Same but Different: Chaos and TV Drama Narratives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alison McLachlan
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Fundamental Level ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Basic Level ◽  
Mathematics And Science ◽  
The Way

<p>Complexity is a term that is now commonly used when discussing TV serial dramas and the way that, in recent years, creators and producers of this narrative form have embraced innovative and challenging strategies to tell their stories. As a result, it is also often argued that all TV serial dramas are strikingly different from one another; one of the few things that contemporary TV serial dramas have in common is their employment of complex narrative strategies. However, in this thesis, I argue that—while serial dramas are different from one another in many ways—they are also all the same at a fundamental level.  In order to examine the fundamental narrative components that all serial dramas employ, I use chaos as a framework. Chaos is a branch of mathematics and science which examines systems that display unpredictable behaviour that is actually determined by deep structures of order and stability. At its most basic level, chaos corresponds with the way in which serial dramas are both complex and simple at the same time; beneath the complexity of serial dramas are fundamental building blocks that are used to generate innovative, challenging and unpredictable narratives.  I apply the findings from my critical examination of chaos and TV drama narratives to the creation of my own TV projects, which employ the inherent structures and patterns of TV drama narratives in a way that produces innovative and complex stories. In doing so, I intend to highlight the potential of serial dramas to be endlessly creative yet consistently the same.</p>

‘Manuelzinho’, Brazil and Identity Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 33-47
Author(s):  
Vidyan Ravinthiran
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Moral Judgement ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Political Consciousness ◽  
Dramatic Monologue ◽  
Modern Identity

Analysing ‘Manuelzinho’ with an eye and an ear for its ambiguous or ironic word-choices, rhythms, and line-endings, this chapter situate its political consciousness as inextricably that of a dramatic monologue—a form in which, as Robert Langbaum tells us, there is always a tension between ‘sympathy’ and ‘moral judgement’. Events in contemporary Brazil have a previously unexamined relevance: the ‘tapping’ of telephone connections, endemic in the favelas; peasant uprisings elsewhere in the country. A historical close reading discovers a poem ultimately critical of injustice, rather than collusive with oppression; a text which challenges, perhaps, modern identity politics.

Does Anyone Really Identify with FemShep?

Gamer Trouble ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 137-170
Author(s):  
Amanda Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Mass Effect ◽  
Audre Lorde ◽  
Black Feminists ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
The Future ◽  
Female Version

This chapter argues that we should understand identity in video games as a way to value incommensurable difference rather than organized diversity. It focuses on FemShep, the female version of the Mass Effect trilogy’s Commander Shepard, who became an icon of diversity and inclusion in conversations about video games. FemShep is not a fully realized woman in her own right, but a character designed as a man and minimally altered to become a “woman.” The chapter explores the ways that Mass Effect betrays these origins through improbable animations and relationship choices, comparing it to similar oversights in Lionhead Studios’ Fable 2, and then suggests that it is the fact that FemShep is not a fully realized character that makes her a useful rallying point for political gamers. The chapter closes by drawing from Black feminists Kara Keeling and Audre Lorde to propose that “unity in difference” is the future (and past) of identity politics, and that the individualist war hero so popular in video games is no way to implement a politics of coalition and justice.

Geographies of Identity: Geographies of Identity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Darling
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Julia Kristeva ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Cultural Poetics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Subjective Agency ◽  
Narrative Forms

Geographies of Identity: Narrative Forms, Feminist Futures explores identity and American culture through hybrid, prose work by women, and expands the strategies of cultural poetics practices into the study of innovative narrative writing. Informed by Judith Butler, Homi Bhabha, Harryette Mullen, Julia Kristeva, and others, this project further considers feminist identity politics, race, and ethnicity as cultural content in and through poetic and non/narrative forms. The texts reflected on here explore literal and figurative landscapes, linguistic and cultural geographies, sexual borders, and spatial topographies. Ultimately, they offer non-prescriptive models that go beyond expectations for narrative forms, and create textual webs that reflect the diverse realities of multi-ethnic, multi-oriented, multi-linguistic cultural experiences. Readings of Gertrude Stein’s A Geographical History of America, Renee Gladman’s Juice, Pamela Lu’s Pamela: A Novel, Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, Juliana Spahr’s The Transformation, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictée, Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera, and Layli Long Soldier’s WHEREAS show how alternatively narrative modes of writing can expand access to representation, means of identification, and subjective agency, and point to horizons of possibility for new futures. These texts critique essentializing practices in which subjects are defined by specific identity categories, and offer complicated, contextualized, and historical understandings of identity formation through the textual weaving of form and content.

Factors Influencing the Adoption of Video Games in Late Adulthood

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliana Vale Costa ◽  
Ana Isabel Veloso
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Older Adult ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Cognitive Effects ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Considerable Research ◽  
Adventure Games ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Insight Into

In the video game industry, older adults tend to be avid consumers. Although considerable research has been devoted to the positive cognitive effects of video games, less attention has been paid to the older adult gamer profile. The aim of this paper is to describe a survey conducted from November 2012 until May 2013, which includes 245 gamers aged 50 and over, about their game preferences. Specifically, the authors examined: (a) what types of video games are played and (b) what leads these players to be engaged by video games. The results indicate that adventure games with problem-solving are preferred, suggesting the skills that participants would like to practise. The study provides insight into a new video gamer profile.

scholarly journals Narrative ludology: intermediality in adventure games

Em Tese ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Pedro Groppo
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Interactive Narratives ◽  
Adventure Games

<p>This paper proposes to discuss how adventure games, a subgenre of video games, have become a new medium that manages to combine elements from literature, comics, and movies in order to present highly complex interactive narratives of their own. The phenomenon of intermediality within this plurimedial medium is discussed using Irina Rajewsky’s definitions of medial transposition, media combination and intermedial reference.</p>

scholarly journals Patrolling AI Systems in Video Games

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 2479-2485
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Dynamic Game ◽  
Common Element ◽  
Path Finding ◽  
Game Engine ◽  
Adventure Games ◽  
Game Environment ◽  
Moving Obstacle

Artificial Intelligence is a common element in digital video games and it is one of the most essential component in modern games. Modern games are populated with Non-Player Characters (AI Characters) that performs different activities. Realism is dominating in games and AI behavio rs are expected to be more realistic in games. Games that has poor unrealistic AI elements are facing heavy criticism from the player bases. Further, modern games are highly dynamic. Classical games had static environment with less or no changes in it. Such environments made implementation of AI easy and simple. In modern games, Progressive terrain generation and other such content generation methods increases the complexities of building an efficient AI for games that has many changes in real time. One of the most common AI in games is Patrolling AI especially in Shooter and Adventure Games. Patroling AI involves path finding and obstacle attack or defense. RRT algorithm and its variants are highly successful Probabilistic Determination AI that produced effective results in real time robotic movement. In order to build efficient Patrolling AI for games, a real time RRT* variant called RT-RRT* algorithm was employed. The algorithm is flexible enough to add various behaviors in addition to path finding which makes it more suitable for games. The algorithm takes samples from the environment and construct the efficient path. Also the algorithm inspect the environment in run time to ensure that no moving obstacle blocks the path. In such case, it rewires and create a new path. In order to manage the dynamic obstacles, a Real Time Obstacle Handling Algorithm was designed and employed in a dynamic game environment. The algorithms inputs the obstacles types and parameters. On identifying the obstacle approaching the AI in terrain, it tells the agent to perform the needed actions. The simulations was carried out using Unity Game Engine. The model proposed helped to create efficient patrolling AI that handle two major aspects of patrolling which is Path finding and Obstacle handling. The model will be highly suitable for dynamic game environments with lots of uncertainty and emergence.

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