Réflexions sur les jeux avec sucre en poudre, poivre en grain… et un peu de vitriol.
This paper re-frames virtual interactive characters as “subjective interfaces” with the purpose of highlighting original affordances for interactive storytelling through conversation. This notion is theoretically unpacked in the perspectives of narratology, interaction design and game design. Existing and imagined scenarios are presented in which subjective interfaces are elevated as core
[suite...]
Les jeux ne sont pas exempts de discours, de valeurs et de représentations idéologiques qui peuvent être organisés sous forme de rhétorique visuelle et linguistique, mais également sous forme de rhétoriques procédurale et processuelle rendues possibles grâce à l’interactivité. La rhétorique procédurale « fait faire » des actions au joueur
[suite...]
This paper lays out a unified framework of the ergodic animage, the rule-based and interaction-driven part of visual representation in video games. It is the end product of a three-year research project conducted by the INTEGRAE team, and is divided into three parts. Part 1 contextualizes the research on graphics
[suite...]
In this essay, we shall try to step back from a blinding cinema-centric approach in order to examine the impact such a framing has caused, to question its limitations, and to reflect on the interpretive communities that have relied on film (communities we are part of, due to our film
[suite...]
This chapter chronicles the history of Canada’s video game industry, across its main regional clusters (Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto; Québec City, Ottawa-Gatineau, London and Edmonton). The dynamics of inter-provincial competition, fueled by tax credits and proximity to United States hubs, is discussed, as well as the growth and transformations throughout the
[suite...]
Ce rapport rédigé pour les musées de la civilisation de Québec en 2014 aborde trois grandes questions autour des jeux vidéo: quels sont leurs effets sur les individus? Quelles mutations sont en cours dans ce monde? Quels types de culture et de société instaurent-ils?
[suite...]
“Back in the day”, as we might say, Espen Aarseth warned game studies researchers against “theoretical imperialism” (1997, p.16), that is, the blind copy-pasting of theories from another field onto games, as if they were a kind of literature, or a kind of cinema. To rework the old spatial metaphor
[suite...]
I currently see two promising ways in which narrative game research could productively bridge the contents/expression, object/process divide: 1) by studying particular narrative figures or tropes, such as the fail/retry cycle in games, or a phenomenon I recently coined “pandiegetic conspiracies”, where it seems like the entirety of the fictional
[suite...]