Through the looking glass
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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.
Transcript of Through the looking glass
Through the Looking-Glass,
Darkly
Reading Alice in the Computer Game
“ there were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from side to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a number of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook. “I declare it’s marked out just like a large chessboard!” Alice said at last.”
1.Alice meets R.Q. R.Q. to K.R's 4th 2.Alice through Q's 3d (by railway) to Q's 4th Tweedledum and TweedledeeW.Q. to Q.B's 4th (after shawl) 3Alice meets W.Q. (with shawl)W.Q. to Q. B's 5th (becomes sheep) 4Alice to Q's 5th (shop, river, shop) W.Q. to K. B's 8th (leaves egg on shelf) 5Alice to Q's 6th (Humpty Dumpty) W.Q. to Q.B's 8th (flying from R. Kt.) 6Alice to Q's 7th (forest) W. Kt. takes R. Kt.R. Kt. to K's 2nd (ch.) 7W. Kt. takes R. Kt. W. Kt. to K. B's 5th 8Alice to Q's 8th (coronation)R. Q. to K's sq. (examination) 9Alice becomes QueenQueens castle 10Alice castles (feast)W.Q. to Q. R's 6th (soup) 11Alice takes R. Q. & wins
A Simple Game Tree for Noughts and Crosses
Narrative structures
‘ …growing , dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time. We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in others I, and not you; in others both of us. In the present one you have arrived at my house; in another you find me dead ...’ - J L Borges, ‘The Garden of the Forking Paths
Rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, ) : artist’s impression
American McGee’s Alice: Two instances of gameplay
Quake iii Arena
Alice
By Robert Graves
She set herself, with truly British pride
In being a pawn and playing for her side,
And simple faith in simple stratagem,
To learn the rules and moves and perfect them.
• “the classical game model is no longer all there is to games. With the appearance of role-playing games, where a game can have rules interpreted by a game master, and with the appearance of video games, the game model is modified in many ways.” (Jesper Juul, Half Real,
The MIT Press, 2005)
Rules Play Narrative
Derrida’s concept of Supplementarity
Beyond the Debate : A Different Approach to Computer Games
Alice: Sims Scenario
Conway’s Game of Life
Sims 2: University
Configuration(player)
Response(machine)
The Cat and the Handkerchief
It was terribly hot. I lay in the shade of a tree, feeling quite limp. I had put down my handkerchief on the grass: I reached out for it to fan myself, when suddenly it called out ‘Miaouw!’
Here was a pretty puzzle. I looked and found that it wasn’t a handkerchief any longer. It had become a plump ginger cat with bushy whiskers, staring at me in the boldest way.
‘Bother!’ I said. ‘My handkerchief’s turned into a cat.’‘What’s bothering you? answered the Cat. ‘Now you have an egg and then suddenly it turns into a quacky duck. It’s happening all the time.’I thought for a while and said, ‘But what should I call you now? You aren’t really a cat, you’re a handkerchief.’‘Please yourself’ he said. ‘You can call me a cat, or a handkerchief, or even a semi-colon.’
From A Topsy-Turvy Tale by Sukumar Ray (trans from Bengali by Prof Sukanta Chaudhuri)
Thank you
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