The document explores the appeal of wasteland spaces to gamers and their link to game spaces more generally. It discusses wastelands as non-places, which are spaces defined by certain functions rather than organic social relations. It also examines the concept of any-space-whatever, a virtual and fragmented space with infinite possible configurations. The document considers whether video games can be considered non-places or any-space-whatevers due to their virtual and changeable environments.
Simon McBurney discusses his approach to directing, stating that he sees no clear starting point or origin for a theatrical piece. He views the words on the page as not yet being theatre, and finds that ideas he had originally disappear once work begins. McBurney believes the work itself is the beginning, and that a piece grows naturally through collaboration and preparation rather than being strictly planned or imposed from the outside. This natural growth allows for uncertainty and development over time.
The document discusses concepts related to digital narratives and video games, including immersion, transformation, agency, and interactivity. It summarizes the work of theorists like Janet Murray who described how video games can provide immersive experiences through transformation and a sense of agency. Interactivity is distinguished from agency, and the concepts of immersion, transformation, and agency are defined in the context of digital environments.
The document discusses how narratives center around representations of people but that objects and spaces can also take on representational roles that influence the significance of people's actions and engage the imagination. It provides examples of how objects can become extensions of people's bodies or take on human-like qualities from anthropomorphic representations. Spaces are also discussed as having narrative potential when imbued with human associations or meanings related to identity, comfort, and fear. The document argues that considering objects and spaces can provide new perspectives for understanding narratives.
Presentation: "The Soundwalker in the Street: Location-based Audio
Walks and the Poetic Re-imagination of Space"
The development of mobile and location-based technologies
intensifies media use in public space. Media theorist Eric Kluitenberg
emphasizes this emerging trend, as he notes that the city becomes an intensified
mediatized space where the modus operandi is carried out almost without
thinking. The aim of this article is to show, with the use of location-based audio
walks as case studies, how this intensive hybridization of space on the contrary
is able to provide new possibilities to engage with space. The power of
location-based audio walks is its aesthetic and poetic potential of layering new
information over a physical space, while revealing the stories, memories and
history of specific physical locations. In doing so, these audio walks can be
seen as a poetic act: they draw together human involvement and invite
engagement with reality to such an extent that it enters consciousness and it reimagines
space poetically.
The document discusses different perspectives on narratives in new media. It explores how databases, navigable virtual spaces, and interactivity relate to traditional narratives. Some theorists argue that new media requires new models like "ergodic literature" rather than traditional narratives. However, others believe that games can still tell stories by casting the player in a role. There is debate around whether new media is inherently non-narrative due to its interactive and spatial nature, or if narratives can still be constructed through new media forms.
New York City has often been portrayed as both a utopia and dystopia in films and works of fiction. It represents the optimism of utopia as a place of progress and opportunity, as well as the pessimism of a dystopia with high crime rates and moral decay. While utopias depict hopes for the future, dystopias express fears of what may happen if problems are not addressed, with these concepts representing two sides of how cities can develop.
Technoculture and the Game: A Focus on Immersion and Murry_
The document discusses key concepts related to immersion in technology and media. It defines technological determinism as the belief that technology drives social change. It also examines the concepts of agency, transformation, and immersion as put forth by Janet Murray to understand user experiences. Agency refers to interactivity, transformation refers to identification, and immersion relates to suspension of disbelief. Other concepts discussed include engagement and presence in virtual environments.
Simon McBurney discusses his approach to directing, stating that he sees no clear starting point or origin for a theatrical piece. He views the words on the page as not yet being theatre, and finds that ideas he had originally disappear once work begins. McBurney believes the work itself is the beginning, and that a piece grows naturally through collaboration and preparation rather than being strictly planned or imposed from the outside. This natural growth allows for uncertainty and development over time.
The document discusses concepts related to digital narratives and video games, including immersion, transformation, agency, and interactivity. It summarizes the work of theorists like Janet Murray who described how video games can provide immersive experiences through transformation and a sense of agency. Interactivity is distinguished from agency, and the concepts of immersion, transformation, and agency are defined in the context of digital environments.
The document discusses how narratives center around representations of people but that objects and spaces can also take on representational roles that influence the significance of people's actions and engage the imagination. It provides examples of how objects can become extensions of people's bodies or take on human-like qualities from anthropomorphic representations. Spaces are also discussed as having narrative potential when imbued with human associations or meanings related to identity, comfort, and fear. The document argues that considering objects and spaces can provide new perspectives for understanding narratives.
Presentation: "The Soundwalker in the Street: Location-based Audio
Walks and the Poetic Re-imagination of Space"
The development of mobile and location-based technologies
intensifies media use in public space. Media theorist Eric Kluitenberg
emphasizes this emerging trend, as he notes that the city becomes an intensified
mediatized space where the modus operandi is carried out almost without
thinking. The aim of this article is to show, with the use of location-based audio
walks as case studies, how this intensive hybridization of space on the contrary
is able to provide new possibilities to engage with space. The power of
location-based audio walks is its aesthetic and poetic potential of layering new
information over a physical space, while revealing the stories, memories and
history of specific physical locations. In doing so, these audio walks can be
seen as a poetic act: they draw together human involvement and invite
engagement with reality to such an extent that it enters consciousness and it reimagines
space poetically.
The document discusses different perspectives on narratives in new media. It explores how databases, navigable virtual spaces, and interactivity relate to traditional narratives. Some theorists argue that new media requires new models like "ergodic literature" rather than traditional narratives. However, others believe that games can still tell stories by casting the player in a role. There is debate around whether new media is inherently non-narrative due to its interactive and spatial nature, or if narratives can still be constructed through new media forms.
New York City has often been portrayed as both a utopia and dystopia in films and works of fiction. It represents the optimism of utopia as a place of progress and opportunity, as well as the pessimism of a dystopia with high crime rates and moral decay. While utopias depict hopes for the future, dystopias express fears of what may happen if problems are not addressed, with these concepts representing two sides of how cities can develop.
Technoculture and the Game: A Focus on Immersion and Murry_
The document discusses key concepts related to immersion in technology and media. It defines technological determinism as the belief that technology drives social change. It also examines the concepts of agency, transformation, and immersion as put forth by Janet Murray to understand user experiences. Agency refers to interactivity, transformation refers to identification, and immersion relates to suspension of disbelief. Other concepts discussed include engagement and presence in virtual environments.
Murray analyzes the potential of digital environments for immersive storytelling in her book "Hamlet on The Holodeck". She discusses four essential properties of digital media - procedural, participatory, spatial and encyclopedic storytelling. Murray also examines how immersion and agency can be achieved through virtual world design, and argues these spaces may transform from places of gameplay to constructive collaborative environments for collective world-building.
Massively Multiplayer Online Games as Utopian SpacesJulian Kücklich
The document discusses massively multiplayer online games and whether they can function as utopian or dystopian spaces. It examines concepts like textuality, narrativity, dialogism, and realism in relation to how they are used or challenged in online games. It also discusses the relationship between players and game developers/administrators and the issue of player rights and control within these virtual environments.
Playing the game: Role distance and digital performanceeDavidCameron
This paper explores the connection between the conventions of the live role-based performance of Process Drama, and the mediated performance of online role-playing videogames.
Identity formation within digital/virtual environments is a dominant theme in cyberculture studies. Equally, the adoption of alternate identities through performance is a key concept in Process Drama. Both activities allow participants to ‘become somebody else’. Both deal with the identity shifts possible within imagined environments. This mutability of identity
provides a metaphor for considering the episodic nature of in-role performance and out-of-role reflection in both drama and videogames. The prevalence of this metaphor within popular culture texts suggests young peoples’ perceptions of performance, role and the individual are changing. Increasingly
identity maintenance is mediated through texting, screens, the Internet and multiplayer videogames.
This paper describes a reflexive qualitative analysis of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Everquest in terms of dramatic performance and role distance, focusing on identity and learning outcomes. It provides a theoretical
connection between the conventions used in the two related educational fields of Process Drama and videogames.
Draft version. This is a preprint version of the article:
Carroll, J., & Cameron, D. (2005). Playing the game: Role distance and digital performance. Applied Theatre Researcher, 6.
In this paper the idea of interconnection between the architectural elements / spatial organization and bodily experience of the users is applyed for analysing the cinematic architecture of J.Tati. It's a fragment of the research on the everyday use of public spaces and the role of the collective creativity in re-interpeting urban space (2oo9-2o15).
Šiame straipsnyje toliau gilinamasi į sąveiką tarp architektūrinių elementų / erdvinių konfigūracijų ir kūniškos erdvių naudotojų dinamikos (judėjimo ritmai ir trajektorijos). Analizuojami architektūriniai-kinematografiniai J. Tati eksperimentai bei siurealistų "unitarinės architektūros" koncepcija. Tai yra platesnio tyrimo, skirto miesto erdvių kasdieniams scenarijams bei miesto ritualams, fragmentas. Tyrimas buvo atliekamas 2oo9-2o15 metais, paraleliai aprobuojant vystomą metodologiją praktikoje (žr. Laimikis.lt veiklas, skirtas viešųjų erdvių gaivinimui Lietuvos ir uždienio miestuose).
The document discusses MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games) as potential utopian or dystopian spaces. It explores how concepts from novels like textuality, narrativity, dialogism, and realism can be applied to MMOGs. While MMOGs could create utopian social spaces, they may also devolve into dystopias if players' rights are not respected or the virtual world is not well-designed by administrators. MMOGs thus walk a line between upholding player agency and preventing corruption like cheating.
The practice of space in virtual worldsGehan Kamachi
Conférence "The practice of space in virtual worlds", donnée dans le cadre du séminaire "CRCA Exchange #3 : Alternative Realities", à l'université de Californie, San Diego, États-Unis. (2011)
The document discusses various concepts related to narrative theory, including binary oppositions, levels of narrative, and frames. It examines how some films by David Lynch seem to contradict common assumptions about causality, linearity, and character identity in narratives. The document also discusses the concepts of multiplicity, becoming, simulation, and rupturing narratives. It provides examples of artworks that demonstrate these concepts, challenging traditional understandings of narratives.
Narrative Design, the case of “Horizon Zero Dawn”Nelson Zagalo
This document discusses narrative design in the video game Horizon Zero Dawn. It begins by providing context on the role of narrative designer in video game development. It then examines the 4-layer model of narrative design proposed by Thomas Grip and Adrian Chmielarz. The document analyzes the specific narrative design of Horizon Zero Dawn, including the producers' goals of a female protagonist fighting machines on a post-apocalyptic Earth. It discusses how the narrative designer imagined the game's history, created a compelling protagonist, and paced out revelations to drive players through the game.
The document discusses several key concepts related to mazes and spaces in video games:
1) Ergodic texts require work along a path to experience them, such as unicursal labyrinths with a single path and multicursal mazes with multiple paths.
2) Affordances are things that enable certain actions, while constraints rule out actions. Good affordances cue players that interaction is possible.
3) Rhizomes have no beginning or end and favor nomadic growth over hierarchies, opposing arborescent models with vertical connections.
4) Games represent space spatially through navigation, with indoor spaces using doors and outdoors being open. Time combines play time and in-game event
Postmodernist cinema, and questions of 'reality'Robert Beshara
This paper will address the representation of various levels of ‘reality’, especially the psychological, in postmodernist cinema, particularly in the work of Jean-Luc Godard. Various theories of realism will be addressed. Reference will be made to dramatic structure, acknowledging art cinema’s debt to theatre, particularly the theories of Aristotle, Artaud, and Brecht. For instance, Godard clearly has been influenced stylistically by some of the tenets of Brecht’s Epic Theatre, such as his emphasis on presentation versus representation. The main argument of the paper is that postmodernist cinema, marked by excessive stylization in its presentation of various levels of reality, in fact manages to capture the ‘real’ in a deeper way than observational cinema and so-called ‘reality TV’
Heterotopia of the film Solaris directed by Andrei TarkovskiNicolae Sfetcu
In Solaris, within the limits of heterotopic experience, several theoretical and ontological questions are examined through approaches on each character. Berton declares one of the main philosophical themes of the movie when he tells Kelvin: "You want to destroy that which we are presently incapable of understanding? Forgive me, but I am not an advocate of knowledge at any price. Knowledge is only valid when it's based on morality." The ocean does not mean anything as an object, it simply exists. The ocean is not found in any of the human experimental approaches.
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15910.68169
PowerPoint prepared for a presentation at the “Sémiotiques et Rhétorique” workshop in Algeria in 2008, at which it was, in the end, unfortunately impossible to participate
This document contains excerpts from PKD and other authors discussing concepts related to virtuality, the virtual and actual, and the possibility of multiple universes. It explores how reversibility in games can trivialize life, how the virtual forms part of the real world, and how different levels of a cone represent different lives playing out the past. It also includes a quote from PKD imagining God wearing different universes and another discussing how a character slipped between universes in one of his novels.
This document summarizes Warren Ellis's presentation titled "Global Frequency". The presentation touches on several topics in a loosely connected way, including urbanization, digital technology, play, parkour, augmented senses, and scale. It discusses how cities are becoming "slow computers" and how technology can help people project into larger contexts by considering things at different scales or through simulation. The presentation provides examples and perspectives on how technology might augment human senses and abilities in the future.
This document discusses various topics related to games, art, and culture. It begins by defining epistemology and exploring knowledge domains. It then discusses the nature of entertainment, sport, and wrestling as spectacles. Brecht's epic theatre and liminal spaces are mentioned. The document examines what constitutes playing a game versus passive experiences. It also explores narrative, ceremonies, folklore, emotion and games. Various game designs, mechanics, and artists are summarized. In the end, the document questions whether games can be considered a form of art.
This document discusses upcoming plans and events for a class. It mentions the possibility of playing Dungeons & Dragons on November 8th or 9th. It also proposes meeting at an arcade during finals week to play games. The document asks for interest in a Super Smash Bros tournament using an older or newer game. It provides context and examples about the Proteus Effect from virtual worlds research. It also summarizes key passages from a reading by Michel de Certeau about how places come to exist through practices and use. The document gives a brief history of Second Life and considers whether it can be considered a game based on common definitions of what makes something a game. It notes declining active user numbers for Second Life compared to other
Abbas Kiarostami And A New Wave Of The SpectatorJoshua Gorinson
1) Abbas Kiarostami is often seen as influenced by Western cinema like Godard and the French New Wave, but the document argues his films are more influenced by Eastern traditions of symbolism and deconstruction.
2) Kiarostami focuses on the role of the spectator and turning the image into a mirror that reflects the spectator. He aims to eliminate the distance between the eye and reality.
3) Rather than represent socio-political issues directly, Kiarostami represents cinematic concepts and the apparatus of cinema to show how the medium works and its basic rules.
Design Fiction: Something and the Something in the Age of the SomethingJulian Bleecker
Presentation at Design Engaged 2008 of some early thinking on props, prototypes and fiction as frameworks for engaging design activities. Ideas in process.
More at: http://tinyurl.com/45sv3z
Digra 2017 keynote Playing Alternative Histories MukherjeeSouvik Mukherjee
This document discusses postcolonial perspectives on history and video games. It explores how games often portray simplified or stereotypical versions of colonial histories from a Western perspective. Alternative histories presented in games are examined, as well as efforts to rewrite histories from subaltern or indigenous perspectives. The use of games to critique and reimagine colonial narratives is also covered.
This document discusses the evolution of terms used to describe digital scholarship in the humanities, from "new media" to "digital humanities." It explores debates around how digital tools are changing scholarly practices and the nature of texts. While some argue digital methods only update traditional humanities work, others see a more significant cultural shift through new forms of interactivity, reference, and authorship enabled by digital technologies. The document also references debates around establishing game studies as a discipline and defining appropriate methodologies for analyzing digital games.
Murray analyzes the potential of digital environments for immersive storytelling in her book "Hamlet on The Holodeck". She discusses four essential properties of digital media - procedural, participatory, spatial and encyclopedic storytelling. Murray also examines how immersion and agency can be achieved through virtual world design, and argues these spaces may transform from places of gameplay to constructive collaborative environments for collective world-building.
Massively Multiplayer Online Games as Utopian SpacesJulian Kücklich
The document discusses massively multiplayer online games and whether they can function as utopian or dystopian spaces. It examines concepts like textuality, narrativity, dialogism, and realism in relation to how they are used or challenged in online games. It also discusses the relationship between players and game developers/administrators and the issue of player rights and control within these virtual environments.
Playing the game: Role distance and digital performanceeDavidCameron
This paper explores the connection between the conventions of the live role-based performance of Process Drama, and the mediated performance of online role-playing videogames.
Identity formation within digital/virtual environments is a dominant theme in cyberculture studies. Equally, the adoption of alternate identities through performance is a key concept in Process Drama. Both activities allow participants to ‘become somebody else’. Both deal with the identity shifts possible within imagined environments. This mutability of identity
provides a metaphor for considering the episodic nature of in-role performance and out-of-role reflection in both drama and videogames. The prevalence of this metaphor within popular culture texts suggests young peoples’ perceptions of performance, role and the individual are changing. Increasingly
identity maintenance is mediated through texting, screens, the Internet and multiplayer videogames.
This paper describes a reflexive qualitative analysis of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Everquest in terms of dramatic performance and role distance, focusing on identity and learning outcomes. It provides a theoretical
connection between the conventions used in the two related educational fields of Process Drama and videogames.
Draft version. This is a preprint version of the article:
Carroll, J., & Cameron, D. (2005). Playing the game: Role distance and digital performance. Applied Theatre Researcher, 6.
In this paper the idea of interconnection between the architectural elements / spatial organization and bodily experience of the users is applyed for analysing the cinematic architecture of J.Tati. It's a fragment of the research on the everyday use of public spaces and the role of the collective creativity in re-interpeting urban space (2oo9-2o15).
Šiame straipsnyje toliau gilinamasi į sąveiką tarp architektūrinių elementų / erdvinių konfigūracijų ir kūniškos erdvių naudotojų dinamikos (judėjimo ritmai ir trajektorijos). Analizuojami architektūriniai-kinematografiniai J. Tati eksperimentai bei siurealistų "unitarinės architektūros" koncepcija. Tai yra platesnio tyrimo, skirto miesto erdvių kasdieniams scenarijams bei miesto ritualams, fragmentas. Tyrimas buvo atliekamas 2oo9-2o15 metais, paraleliai aprobuojant vystomą metodologiją praktikoje (žr. Laimikis.lt veiklas, skirtas viešųjų erdvių gaivinimui Lietuvos ir uždienio miestuose).
The document discusses MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games) as potential utopian or dystopian spaces. It explores how concepts from novels like textuality, narrativity, dialogism, and realism can be applied to MMOGs. While MMOGs could create utopian social spaces, they may also devolve into dystopias if players' rights are not respected or the virtual world is not well-designed by administrators. MMOGs thus walk a line between upholding player agency and preventing corruption like cheating.
The practice of space in virtual worldsGehan Kamachi
Conférence "The practice of space in virtual worlds", donnée dans le cadre du séminaire "CRCA Exchange #3 : Alternative Realities", à l'université de Californie, San Diego, États-Unis. (2011)
The document discusses various concepts related to narrative theory, including binary oppositions, levels of narrative, and frames. It examines how some films by David Lynch seem to contradict common assumptions about causality, linearity, and character identity in narratives. The document also discusses the concepts of multiplicity, becoming, simulation, and rupturing narratives. It provides examples of artworks that demonstrate these concepts, challenging traditional understandings of narratives.
Narrative Design, the case of “Horizon Zero Dawn”Nelson Zagalo
This document discusses narrative design in the video game Horizon Zero Dawn. It begins by providing context on the role of narrative designer in video game development. It then examines the 4-layer model of narrative design proposed by Thomas Grip and Adrian Chmielarz. The document analyzes the specific narrative design of Horizon Zero Dawn, including the producers' goals of a female protagonist fighting machines on a post-apocalyptic Earth. It discusses how the narrative designer imagined the game's history, created a compelling protagonist, and paced out revelations to drive players through the game.
The document discusses several key concepts related to mazes and spaces in video games:
1) Ergodic texts require work along a path to experience them, such as unicursal labyrinths with a single path and multicursal mazes with multiple paths.
2) Affordances are things that enable certain actions, while constraints rule out actions. Good affordances cue players that interaction is possible.
3) Rhizomes have no beginning or end and favor nomadic growth over hierarchies, opposing arborescent models with vertical connections.
4) Games represent space spatially through navigation, with indoor spaces using doors and outdoors being open. Time combines play time and in-game event
Postmodernist cinema, and questions of 'reality'Robert Beshara
This paper will address the representation of various levels of ‘reality’, especially the psychological, in postmodernist cinema, particularly in the work of Jean-Luc Godard. Various theories of realism will be addressed. Reference will be made to dramatic structure, acknowledging art cinema’s debt to theatre, particularly the theories of Aristotle, Artaud, and Brecht. For instance, Godard clearly has been influenced stylistically by some of the tenets of Brecht’s Epic Theatre, such as his emphasis on presentation versus representation. The main argument of the paper is that postmodernist cinema, marked by excessive stylization in its presentation of various levels of reality, in fact manages to capture the ‘real’ in a deeper way than observational cinema and so-called ‘reality TV’
Heterotopia of the film Solaris directed by Andrei TarkovskiNicolae Sfetcu
In Solaris, within the limits of heterotopic experience, several theoretical and ontological questions are examined through approaches on each character. Berton declares one of the main philosophical themes of the movie when he tells Kelvin: "You want to destroy that which we are presently incapable of understanding? Forgive me, but I am not an advocate of knowledge at any price. Knowledge is only valid when it's based on morality." The ocean does not mean anything as an object, it simply exists. The ocean is not found in any of the human experimental approaches.
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15910.68169
PowerPoint prepared for a presentation at the “Sémiotiques et Rhétorique” workshop in Algeria in 2008, at which it was, in the end, unfortunately impossible to participate
This document contains excerpts from PKD and other authors discussing concepts related to virtuality, the virtual and actual, and the possibility of multiple universes. It explores how reversibility in games can trivialize life, how the virtual forms part of the real world, and how different levels of a cone represent different lives playing out the past. It also includes a quote from PKD imagining God wearing different universes and another discussing how a character slipped between universes in one of his novels.
This document summarizes Warren Ellis's presentation titled "Global Frequency". The presentation touches on several topics in a loosely connected way, including urbanization, digital technology, play, parkour, augmented senses, and scale. It discusses how cities are becoming "slow computers" and how technology can help people project into larger contexts by considering things at different scales or through simulation. The presentation provides examples and perspectives on how technology might augment human senses and abilities in the future.
This document discusses various topics related to games, art, and culture. It begins by defining epistemology and exploring knowledge domains. It then discusses the nature of entertainment, sport, and wrestling as spectacles. Brecht's epic theatre and liminal spaces are mentioned. The document examines what constitutes playing a game versus passive experiences. It also explores narrative, ceremonies, folklore, emotion and games. Various game designs, mechanics, and artists are summarized. In the end, the document questions whether games can be considered a form of art.
This document discusses upcoming plans and events for a class. It mentions the possibility of playing Dungeons & Dragons on November 8th or 9th. It also proposes meeting at an arcade during finals week to play games. The document asks for interest in a Super Smash Bros tournament using an older or newer game. It provides context and examples about the Proteus Effect from virtual worlds research. It also summarizes key passages from a reading by Michel de Certeau about how places come to exist through practices and use. The document gives a brief history of Second Life and considers whether it can be considered a game based on common definitions of what makes something a game. It notes declining active user numbers for Second Life compared to other
Abbas Kiarostami And A New Wave Of The SpectatorJoshua Gorinson
1) Abbas Kiarostami is often seen as influenced by Western cinema like Godard and the French New Wave, but the document argues his films are more influenced by Eastern traditions of symbolism and deconstruction.
2) Kiarostami focuses on the role of the spectator and turning the image into a mirror that reflects the spectator. He aims to eliminate the distance between the eye and reality.
3) Rather than represent socio-political issues directly, Kiarostami represents cinematic concepts and the apparatus of cinema to show how the medium works and its basic rules.
Design Fiction: Something and the Something in the Age of the SomethingJulian Bleecker
Presentation at Design Engaged 2008 of some early thinking on props, prototypes and fiction as frameworks for engaging design activities. Ideas in process.
More at: http://tinyurl.com/45sv3z
Digra 2017 keynote Playing Alternative Histories MukherjeeSouvik Mukherjee
This document discusses postcolonial perspectives on history and video games. It explores how games often portray simplified or stereotypical versions of colonial histories from a Western perspective. Alternative histories presented in games are examined, as well as efforts to rewrite histories from subaltern or indigenous perspectives. The use of games to critique and reimagine colonial narratives is also covered.
This document discusses the evolution of terms used to describe digital scholarship in the humanities, from "new media" to "digital humanities." It explores debates around how digital tools are changing scholarly practices and the nature of texts. While some argue digital methods only update traditional humanities work, others see a more significant cultural shift through new forms of interactivity, reference, and authorship enabled by digital technologies. The document also references debates around establishing game studies as a discipline and defining appropriate methodologies for analyzing digital games.
Re membering and dismembering: Memory and the (Re)Creation of Identities in V...Souvik Mukherjee
This is my presentation for the Philosophy of Computer Games Conference 2011. The accompanying paper is available at: http://gameconference2011.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/re-membering-and-dismembering-final.pdf.
Canonical conceptions of narrative might find such a story-game equation problematic but the borders between the narrative and the ludic have always been fluid and allowed varying degrees of overlap between the two. With older games, this might not have been as obvious but with the sophisticated machinic narratives developing within and through computer games, it is clear that current conceptions about narrative have to take into account the ludic and the machinic nature of stories to be able to explain the functioning of problematic forms, like the narratives created within computer games. Such changing conceptions of narrative also need to address the participatory and constructive role that the reader has in the development of the narrative. In computer games, the narratives are formed within the game system (i.e. a base narrative) but through a complex identification with the in-game protagonists whose actions (and therefore the player’s) play the story into existence, thus establishing a constant interplay between playing and reading. Keeping the above in view, this paper will try to analyse the workings of narratives with reference to computer games and other new media as well as by identifying how older media also incorporate similar characteristics, hitherto ignored. It will therefore try to re-examine some key issues that inform essential conceptions of narratives and also show how Alice, in both kinds of texts, plays a videogame.
Over the last three months, the author has:
1) Engaged in various virtual reality activities including slaying dragons, fighting the mafia, ruling the Roman Empire, and playing god to a minor tribe.
2) Read about narrative structures in computer games and how games can tell stories.
3) Explored the relationship between story and gameplay in computer games, discussing major game characteristics and structures.
4) Analyzed examples like Max Payne and Alice that blend story and gameplay.
Sherlock Holmes returns after seemingly dying in a battle with his archenemy Professor Moriarty. Watson is shocked to see Holmes alive and demands an explanation for how he survived. The document then discusses different representations and interpretations of Sherlock Holmes in various narratives and video games. It analyzes the concepts of endings, virtual reality, and metempsychosis in relation to Sherlock Holmes stories. One video game mentioned combines the Holmes stories with Lovecraftian elements.
Souvik Mukherjee is a researcher who received his PhD from Nottingham Trent University studying videogames as an emerging storytelling medium. He currently works as a Learning Technology Trainer at Nottingham Trent University and is designing an interdisciplinary Masters course on videogames. His research interests include videogames as narratives, how literary and film theory relate to videogames, and using videogames for learning and teaching.
Egoshooting, Presentation at Magdeburg Games conference 2009.Souvik Mukherjee
EgoShooting in Chernobyl:
Identity and Subject(s) in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R Games
As the player 'walks into' a first-person shooter, does she retain her real-life identity or is the 'I' (or 'eye') that sees not so simple after all? Even as the case for the complexity of identity-formation in videogames builds up, FPS games, nevertheless, are singled out as representing a seamless first-person identification that is unique to videogames. This paper develops on earlier research to reveal major problems in such a claim: it argues that the very conception of subjectivity has always been problematised in the FPS and that the genre itself self-consciously keeps pointing this out. The recently-released FPS, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl (called SOC, hereafter) and its second-part 'prequel' are important cases in point.
In SOC, the player enters the game after being dumped for dead and picked up by a passing body snatcher who sells him as a 'live' corpse to the local trader. He wakes up as an amnesiac and devoid of any identity save for a message on his PDA that says, 'kill the Strelok'. The gameplay, then, is the player's quest for identity. Ironically, however, one of the game endings reveals that Strelok is the player himself. Further, in the second game, the player will again find himself being asked to kill Strelok: his own 'self' in the first game. Who, then, is the 'I' in these games and who shoots whom? This paper finds a more appropriate representation of this phenomenon in the German term for FPS: 'egoshooters'. In this scenario, it is a term that can be translated both as 'I, shooter' or 'I-shooter', thus further complicating notions of player-subjectivity and identity.
To take this a step further, the very notion of 'player' is brought under scrutiny in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games. SOC derives its tale from the Russian sci-fi novel, Roadside Picnic, and Tarkovsky's film Stalker. In both these pre-texts, the lone explorer protagonist moves through the Zone, a landscape that is 'alive' and reacts to the actions of those who travel on it. The Stalker's experience in the Zone is comparable to the player's moment-to-moment survival attempt in the face of the feedback loop created between player and Zone (game) in SOC. The formation of identity is influenced by the machine code that makes up the game program. Identity is, therefore, complicated further with the realisation that the 'I' in the FPS is after all a machinic selfhood. These complex planes of subjectivity cannot be analysed by the limited critical appartus of immersion and seamless identification as used by current game theory . In this context, the Gilles Deleuze's concept of identity as a continual actualisation of potentialities emerges as a more apposite framework for understanding the complex subjectivities of the FPS shown in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games. The Deleuzian framework will also illustrate how instead of being exclusive or 'new', videogames develop on questions of identity already addressed by earlier narrative media.
SOUVIK MUKHERJEE
NOTTINGHAM TRENT UNIVERSITY
UNITED KINGDOM
Strategies for Effective Upskilling is a presentation by Chinwendu Peace in a Your Skill Boost Masterclass organisation by the Excellence Foundation for South Sudan on 08th and 09th June 2024 from 1 PM to 3 PM on each day.
LAND USE LAND COVER AND NDVI OF MIRZAPUR DISTRICT, UPRAHUL
This Dissertation explores the particular circumstances of Mirzapur, a region located in the
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9
Changes in vegetation cover refer to variations in the distribution, composition, and overall
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it describes the bony anatomy including the femoral head , acetabulum, labrum . also discusses the capsule , ligaments . muscle that act on the hip joint and the range of motion are outlined. factors affecting hip joint stability and weight transmission through the joint are summarized.
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This is part 1 of my Java Learning Journey. This Contains Custom methods, classes, constructors, packages, multithreading , try- catch block, finally block and more.
How to Make a Field Mandatory in Odoo 17Celine George
In Odoo, making a field required can be done through both Python code and XML views. When you set the required attribute to True in Python code, it makes the field required across all views where it's used. Conversely, when you set the required attribute in XML views, it makes the field required only in the context of that particular view.
How to Setup Warehouse & Location in Odoo 17 InventoryCeline George
In this slide, we'll explore how to set up warehouses and locations in Odoo 17 Inventory. This will help us manage our stock effectively, track inventory levels, and streamline warehouse operations.
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This document provides an overview of wound healing, its functions, stages, mechanisms, factors affecting it, and complications.
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Complications of wound healing like infection, hyperpigmentation of scar, contractures, and keloid formation.
1. My image of the ideal gamer In the ludic world of peace and plenty
2. But gamers are weird ... they prefer this instead This paper, therefore, explores the experience of wasteland spaces ,their appeal to gamers and how the wasteland experience links to the experience of game spaces in general
6. '[l]ike the network players of Doom , Euralille users emerge from trains and cars to temporarily inhabit a zone defined through their trajectories, an environment to " to just wander around inside of ".‘ Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 2001
7. 'everything proceeds as if space had been trapped by time, as if there were no history other than the last 48 hours of news; as if each individual history were drawing its motives , words and images from the inexhaustible stock of an unending history in the present.‘ (Augé, 1995) Supermodernity ‘stems simultaneously from overabundance of events, spatial overabundance and individualisation of references’ (Augé. 1995)
8. 'the abundance of verbiage and documentation really does make it possible to identify Chateaubriand's holy places as a non-place, very similar to the ones outlined in pictures and slogans in our guidebooks and brochures.’ (Augé, 1995)
9. Are Videogames Non-places? Problems: The players and the administrators weave the stories of their characters together, and the intruder, the stranger strolling by and deciding to linger finds that there is history to each and every one of the characters about him, history on several levels, just as it is to the people in a flesh-world geographical space. [...] while it’s a long stretch to claim that a MUD is a physical place, to claim that it is a social place is easier . Not the least of signs to that is what I mentioned before, the territorial behaviour . There is also the social behaviour , the way the inhabitants tend to seek each other out in certain clusters , which are resistant to outside pressures or attempts to split them . (Torill Mortensen, ‘The Geography of a Non-place’ , 2003)
11. When a videogame instance is reloaded, even if the event actualised is similar to the one before it, there are still changes in the surrounding conditions ( singularities ) and all the different factors influencing the event make it different. Paradoxically, temporality in videogames is a complex mesh of events that are different while remaining the same . The present-ness of videogame events is a remarkable phenomenon but it gets problematised with the saves, reloads and respawns of the player's persona.
12. When a videogame instance is reloaded, even if the event actualised is similar to the one before it, there are still changes in the surrounding conditions ( singularities ) and all the different factors influencing the event make it different. Paradoxically, temporality in videogames is a complex mesh of events that are different while remaining the same . The present-ness of videogame events is a remarkable phenomenon but it gets problematised with the saves, reloads and respawns of the player's persona.
13.
14. Any-space-whatever in Bresson’s Pickpocket : 'Longchamp and Gare de Lyons are vast fragmented spaces [...] which correspond to the affects of the thief’ ( Deleuze, 1994)
I’ve always wondered why instead of preferring to chill out in a ludic utopia,
very many gamers prefer the wasteland as their favourite scenario for videogame environments. I mean look at the recently popular titles - Fallout 3, Borderlands, Stalker, Bioshock among them – they’re all set in wastelands. So I thought I’d ask myself ‘why?’.
Located on the opposite extreme of the utopic Garden of Eden or the Land of Cockaigne with their symbolism of progress and plenty, the conception of the wasteland has been that of a space without fixed meanings. Post-apocalyptic wastelands are especially characterised by a lack of the sense of place and are vast, cold expanses of ruined landscape as seen in films like The Road (2009) or in stories like Ray Bradbury's 'There Will Come Soft Rains.'
The multiplicity of meanings is of course characteristic of the wasteland in general: a most notable example is T.S. Eliot's poem, The Waste Land (1922) . As a critic comments, ' The Waste Land doesn't have a narrative; instead, it has the scent of a narrative, hovering in the air like a perfume after someone has left the room’ (2007: 49).
The many interpretations of Eliot's poem are illustrative of this because the stories in The Waste Land are too many by far. According to Michel deCerteau, 'Stories constantly transform places into spaces or spaces into places and also organize the play of changing relationships between places and spaces. The multiplicity and the implicit constant movement that characterise wastelands make them categorisable as spaces in Certeau's model. However, for Marc Auge for anything to be a ‘place’ it should have identity, relations and history. His typical examples of non-places would the areas of transit, plurality and lack of identity or social ties - supermarkets, airports, train terminals etc. Wastelands would also be classed as ‘non-places' according to Augé's description. Sans identity and definition, they are zones that are throbbing with a multiplicity of possible meanings. Even when there is a sense of history or myth in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, it is found to be spurious. The identity and bearings being lost, the myth becomes a superficial token and almost a fabrication of the words which surround it. The 'wish-granter' myth in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R game is one such fabrication. Returning to the story(ies) of Fallout 3 , the player encounters ruins of monuments in Washington that have all but ceased to have any meaning in the wasteland. There are, of course, small groups of people who cling to distorted history and myth: for example, the renegade ex-slave called Hannibal Hamlin has saved the stone head of Lincoln's statue as an icon of freedom but most of his speeches about Lincoln are inaccurate. This is similar to Russell Hoban's post-apocalyptic novel Riddley Walker (1980) , where the whole of human history has been distorted and summarised into a brief incantation.
Recently, videogame spaces have also been compared to non-places. Sybille Lammes compares the player to the cartographer-tourist who is constantly mapping the narrative space while travelling; as Sebastian comments in his paper the changing map also changes the narrative and I argue that this also means that the player’s identity cannot remain fixed. The player is a flaneur figure - a person truly at home when displaced amongst a crowd. The flaneur is Lev Manovich’s metaphor for the internet-surfer. Characteristically, for both Lammes and Manovich, the flaneur internet-surfer moves through what Auge calls non-places. The comparison is extended by both to videogames. Manovich points out that '[l]ike the network players of Doom , Euralille users emerge from trains and cars to temporarily inhabit a zone defined through their trajectories, an environment to "to just wander around inside of".‘ Narrowing down the focus to wasteland-videogames makes the parallels clearer. In fallout 3, the protagonist’s name is interesting: Lone Wanderer. There is no further identification except for the fact that the wandering makes up what the player becomes / is perceived as. In a distinction made by Auge, the player ‘passes by’ in-game locations , such as Rivet City in Fallout 3 or Mosale Seto in Far Cry 2, instead of ‘passing through’. Instead of 'passing through', as one would do in a city with its distinctive history and culture, one would 'pass by' a non-place. Augé points to the experience of the driver on the bypasses who sees the city as it is constructed for him through images and words on billboards and signs. this implies that there are no remembered places as 'everything proceeds as if space had been trapped by time, as if there were no history other than the last 48 hours of news; as if each individual history were drawing its motives , words and images from the inexhaustible stock of an unending history in the present’. (1995: 109). Memory has little to do with non-places.
This presentness and multiplicity is the result of supermodernity which 'stems simultaneously from overabundance of events, spatial overabundance and individualisation of references’. (i will need to come back to this in a slightly different light later on) What is more obviously true for the wasteland scenarios may also be seen to apply to games with other scenarios thus making the wasteland a possible metaphor for conceptions of ludic space. I’ll look at two examples here. Following current discussions of videogame narratives as spatial as Sebastian point out, many games can be compared to theme-park environments. Michael Nitsche comments about battle games such as Medal of Honor that they resemble a ‘kind of world war 2 theme park ride’ . Now note Bolter and Grusin on how theme-parks are non-places: Nonplaces, such as theme parks and malls, function as public places only during designated hours of operation [...] When the careful grids of railings and ropes that during the day serve to shepherd thousands of visitors to ticket counters or roller coasters stand completely empty, [s]uch spaces then seem drained of meaning. In another different example, the environment of Assassin’s Creed is as far removed from wastelands as anything. Yet the links will be evident when i show you the next slide.
This is Altair ibn-Ahad of Assassin’s Creed surveying Jerusalem from atop a very high perch and taking loads of information through his eagle vision. (point out link between ibn-ahad and lone wanderer) Augé comments on Chateaubriand's visit to Jerusalem where he claims that 'the abundance of verbiage and documentation really does make it possible to identify Chateaubriand's holy places as a non-place, very similar to the ones outlined in pictures and slogans in our guidebooks and brochures.’ He might as well be referring to Altair.
As we engage more with the concept, some problems however emerge. As Mortensen points out, the total lack of social interaction in Auge’s non-places does not necessarily apply to videogame spaces. Especially in shared game spaces.
One of the different types of spatialities that Nitsche outlines is called 'fictional space [and it] lives in the imagination, in other words, [it is] the space “imagined” by players from their comprehension of the available images’ (2008: 16) This corresponds to the construction of space from a narrative, as described by Certeau. Only this narrative might be drawn from the player's non-game world or from an anthropological place outside the game. While Augé is right in differentiating the non-place from the anthropological place, at least as far as videogame spaces are concerned, it is important not to look at them as watertight and not to ignore the powerful impact of imagination in building a sense of identity in the game space - even more so in the wasteland scenario with its enlarged space of possibility. There is another issue related to Augé's concept: not much is said about whether non-places can actually become anthropological places. One would like to think of the many small railway stations and transit points that later became huge cities; Kenya's capital city, Nairobi, which started as a small railway station, is a case in point. Within the non-place, despite the solitary contractuality that Augé points out, it is possible for deeper human bonds to develop. Ian Bogost in outlining his theory of 'Unit Operations' as the base for the functioning of videogames, discusses Steven Spielberg's movie, The Terminal (2005) , where he finds a parallel to unit operations occurring in the New York City Airport (2006: 15). In the film, an East European called Viktor Navorski is forced to live in the airport's international arrivals lounge until the US immigration agencies can resolve his situation. However, although living in Augé considers a typical non-place, Navorski builds many bonds and his life intertwines with those of many others. The terminal becomes, for him, a 'place' as good as any other.
Another aspect in which Augé's conception of non-places struggles to describe the gamer's spatial experience is connected to the complex temporality of videogames. As noted earlier, Augé describes the temporality of the non-place as one where space seems to be trapped by time and where individual histories are, as it were, drawn from the inexhaustible stock of an unending history that is contained in the present moment. Curious as it may sound, in Augé's non-place, all history is subverted by an infinitely extended present. Seen in relation to videogames, there are both parallels and differences. Paradoxically, temporality in videogames is a complex mesh of events that are different while remaining the same. The present-ness of videogame events is a remarkable phenomenon but it gets problematised with the saves, reloads and respawns of the player's persona. While it is true that the entire history of the game can experienced as parallel moments in the present, it does not necessarily have to be so. Games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003) and Assassin's Creed are some games which play with and subvert the linear experience of time. With each repeated event (in a reload), the same event is nevertheless experienced as different. Gilles Deleuze, in Difference and Repetition (1994), provides a framework that helps in understanding this. To simplify, events exist as multiplicities and in a situation of 'real virtuality', which implies the existence of a virtual mesh of events where all events can potentially become real but only some will be actualised depending on the possibilities that are available and the conditions surrounding the event (which Deleuze calls 'singularities'). Deleuze's rather complex concept of difference and repetition, which I discuss at length elsewhere (Mukherjee, 2008), is important in drawing a framework for the peculiar temporal structure of videogames. When a videogame instance is reloaded, even if the event actualised is similar to the one before it, there are still changes in the surrounding conditions (singularities) and all the different factors influencing the event make it different. The narrative and consequently the spatial experience are also different. The videogame wasteland cannot be described solely as a non-place as Auge’s description is too restrictive. As my co-panellist, Sebastian Domsch, points out, spaces can evoke narratives and that in videogames often a lack of a concrete and unambiguously recognisable reference makes them successful in evoking narrative. Which is precisely what the wasteland environment provides.
Another aspect in which Augé's conception of non-places struggles to describe the gamer's spatial experience is connected to the complex temporality of videogames. As noted earlier, Augé describes the temporality of the non-place as one where space seems to be trapped by time and where individual histories are, as it were, drawn from the inexhaustible stock of an unending history that is contained in the present moment. Curious as it may sound, in Augé's non-place, all history is subverted by an infinitely extended present. Seen in relation to videogames, there are both parallels and differences. Paradoxically, temporality in videogames is a complex mesh of events that are different while remaining the same. The present-ness of videogame events is a remarkable phenomenon but it gets problematised with the saves, reloads and respawns of the player's persona. While it is true that the entire history of the game can experienced as parallel moments in the present, it does not necessarily have to be so. Games like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003) and Assassin's Creed are some games which play with and subvert the linear experience of time. With each repeated event (in a reload), the same event is nevertheless experienced as different. Gilles Deleuze, in Difference and Repetition (1994), provides a framework that helps in understanding this. To simplify, events exist as multiplicities and in a situation of 'real virtuality', which implies the existence of a virtual mesh of events where all events can potentially become real but only some will be actualised depending on the possibilities that are available and the conditions surrounding the event (which Deleuze calls 'singularities'). Deleuze's rather complex concept of difference and repetition, which I discuss at length elsewhere (Mukherjee, 2008), is important in drawing a framework for the peculiar temporal structure of videogames. When a videogame instance is reloaded, even if the event actualised is similar to the one before it, there are still changes in the surrounding conditions (singularities) and all the different factors influencing the event make it different. The narrative and consequently the spatial experience are also different. The videogame wasteland cannot be described solely as a non-place as Auge’s description is too restrictive. As my co-panellist, Sebastian Domsch, points out, spaces can evoke narratives and that in videogames often a lack of a concrete and unambiguously recognisable reference makes them successful in evoking narrative. Which is precisely what the wasteland environment provides.
While Auge tends to see the non-place as a homogenous desingularising space, the videogame wasteland, as well as other environments without concrete references, are not as homogenous. In fact, adapting the notion of the fragmented and identityless space, Deleuze speaks of a space that has lost its homogeneity. This loss of homogeneity makes it rich with possibilities and what Deleuze calls the ‘pure locus of the possible’. I link this to Salen and Zimmerman’s ‘space of possibilities’ concept which they deem integral to game design. At the same time, it links to the primacy of the spatial stories in videogames and their role as the staging ground for emergent narratives. I am going to link this to a slightly less discussed Deleuzian concept of space. Deleuze calls it the ‘any-space-whatever’ and despite the differences already pointed out, he uses ‘fragmented space’ like racecourses and railway stations, which Auge calls non-places, as examples. The ‘any-space-whatever’, as it were, occupies the place between perception and action and is, I suppose, key to Deleuze’s concept of spatialised cinema more than his temporal conception of cinema. Again, a parallel with the preference for spatial narratives as opposed to sequential narratives in videogames, which Sebastian’s paper expresses so strongly, is evident here.
In the affective zone of the any-space-whatever, the possibilities are actualised under the influence of the surrounding singularities, as described earlier. Some elements influence the transition from affection to action more than others and can be looked at as ‘event triggers’; however, it is important not to see the ‘trigger’ in a narrow sense. For me, this trigger is the network of interacting singularities. Like the non-place, the any-space-whatever is represented by fragmented zones that do not have any fixed meaning; they are usually liminal areas which are used for transit and where the traveller's relation with the space is that of solitary contractuality. The difference, however, lies in that the any-space-whatever supports difference and it need not constrain all history to an eternal present as Augé claims to be the case with the non-place. The any-space-whatever is not orientated in advance and it can create linkages in an infinite number of ways. Therefore, it does not preclude possibilities of Navorski making an anthropological place out of an airport lounge or of the videogame player converting the non-place of the game into a social place. After the possibility within the any-space-whatever is actualised, it is possible to perceive identity in the spatial experience of the videogame.
While, as Deleuze’s and Auge’s examples show, any fragmented and identityless space can serve as possibility spaces; I would like to return to our earlier description of the wasteland scenario as providing a very obvious expression of this phenomenon. Although the wasteland scenario has many similarities to the non-place described by Augé, this needs to be modified / supplemented by the Deleuzian concept of the any-space-whatever. As the player enters the vast expanse of the wasteland, he or she is in a zone of possibility. The wastelands in Fallout 3 or the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games are zones invested with a multiplicity of meanings and randomness. At the same time, they are mostly bereft of any inherent identity or character - much like the transit points, theme parks and terminals that Augé describes. However, seen as an affective space or any-space-whatever, the wasteland is not devoid of potential to contain its own social places just as the airport lounge is converted into a home for the stranded protagonist of The Terminal . Looking at the main quests of games like Fallout 3 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl , it is evident that the preferred aim of the game's plot is the restoration of fertility to the wasteland. The same goes for most wasteland narratives: Eliot's poem ends with a clamour for eternal peace or shantih . The preferred ending is, however, just one possible outcome among the many that the wasteland holds in its affective space. Seen is such terms, the similarities with videogame spaces are quite clear and the popularity of the wasteland setting in videogames is, therefore, hardly surprising. As such, when the experience of the Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3 becomes representative of other experiences of ludic spaces, one can start thinking of the wasteland as a metaphor for videogame spaces and the way in which they are experienced.
While, as Deleuze’s and Auge’s examples show, any fragmented and identityless space can serve as possibility spaces; I would like to return to our earlier description of the wasteland scenario as providing a very obvious expression of this phenomenon. Although the wasteland scenario has many similarities to the non-place described by Augé, this needs to be modified / supplemented by the Deleuzian concept of the any-space-whatever. As the player enters the vast expanse of the wasteland, he or she is in a zone of possibility. The wastelands in Fallout 3 or the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games are zones invested with a multiplicity of meanings and randomness. At the same time, they are mostly bereft of any inherent identity or character - much like the transit points, theme parks and terminals that Augé describes. However, seen as an affective space or any-space-whatever, the wasteland is not devoid of potential to contain its own social places just as the airport lounge is converted into a home for the stranded protagonist of The Terminal . Looking at the main quests of games like Fallout 3 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl , it is evident that the preferred aim of the game's plot is the restoration of fertility to the wasteland. The same goes for most wasteland narratives: Eliot's poem ends with a clamour for eternal peace or shantih . The preferred ending is, however, just one possible outcome among the many that the wasteland holds in its affective space. Seen is such terms, the similarities with videogame spaces are quite clear and the popularity of the wasteland setting in videogames is, therefore, hardly surprising. As such, when the experience of the Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3 becomes representative of other experiences of ludic spaces, one can start thinking of the wasteland as a metaphor for videogame spaces and the way in which they are experienced.