As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Essay: Ludonarrative Dissonance Explained and Expanded
Jezixo
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
Hello all. I'm not sure if this is the right section for this thread, please let me know if I should move it.
I posted this original essay on The Escapist forums a week ago and got a decent response, so it occurred to me to show it here as well. Kind of like a world tour, except the performer is an essay, the tour bus is Google Chrome and there are only two gigs so far.
So!
Hello everyone. This essay on "Ludonarrative" was originally for a blog I was going to start, but that was a few months ago and I've been sitting on this for a while, so I decided to just dump it here. It's completed, apart from the examples section at the end which I suppose I could do if this proves interesting. Basically I've dumped it "as is" straight into this post.
I've tried to ease the eyes by using spoiler tags. I have no idea if it will work and may have to come back to edit it.
Constructive criticism, deconstructive criticism and general debate are welcome!
Without any ado, let's GO!
-Jezixo
Ludonarrative Theory – An Introduction
With this article I aim to define the term ‘ludonarrative’, and to explore some of its potential to aid videogame discourse. Let me first explain the basics of ludonarrative; what it is, why it’s important. Then I’ll move on to some examples of how knowing the meaning of this word, and using it correctly, can make it easier to conduct intelligent and accurate discussion about how videogames work and why they sometimes don’t. I’m not going to give a history of the term’s usage, or where it came from, since that can be found elsewhere. The short version: all credit to Clint Hocking, he invented the word but failed to excavate its full potential. The definition I am about to give is based primarily on his original usage but contains a few new elements. Collaborative discussion is how progress is made, after all.
Deconstructing the Word
Breaking down the Ludo
Breaking down the Narrative
Ludonarrative Dissonance
Ludonarrative Alienation
Conclusion
-Jeremy Watssman (2012)
I posted this original essay on The Escapist forums a week ago and got a decent response, so it occurred to me to show it here as well. Kind of like a world tour, except the performer is an essay, the tour bus is Google Chrome and there are only two gigs so far.
So!
Hello everyone. This essay on "Ludonarrative" was originally for a blog I was going to start, but that was a few months ago and I've been sitting on this for a while, so I decided to just dump it here. It's completed, apart from the examples section at the end which I suppose I could do if this proves interesting. Basically I've dumped it "as is" straight into this post.
I've tried to ease the eyes by using spoiler tags. I have no idea if it will work and may have to come back to edit it.
Constructive criticism, deconstructive criticism and general debate are welcome!
Without any ado, let's GO!
-Jezixo
Ludonarrative Theory – An Introduction
With this article I aim to define the term ‘ludonarrative’, and to explore some of its potential to aid videogame discourse. Let me first explain the basics of ludonarrative; what it is, why it’s important. Then I’ll move on to some examples of how knowing the meaning of this word, and using it correctly, can make it easier to conduct intelligent and accurate discussion about how videogames work and why they sometimes don’t. I’m not going to give a history of the term’s usage, or where it came from, since that can be found elsewhere. The short version: all credit to Clint Hocking, he invented the word but failed to excavate its full potential. The definition I am about to give is based primarily on his original usage but contains a few new elements. Collaborative discussion is how progress is made, after all.
Deconstructing the Word
The shortest useful explanation I can manage is the following. ‘Ludonarrative’ consists of two parts, ‘ludo’ and ‘narrative’. ‘Ludo’ is a Latin word which roughly translates into ‘game’. Games are comprised entirely of rules, and I’ll explain this in a moment. Narrative is, as it sounds, a story. In a more general sense it’s the context of events, the meaning behind the action. Thus, ludonarrative refers to an imagined ‘whole’, of which every videogame is comprised, which consists of both gameplay (ludo), and story (narrative). The interaction between gameplay and story is a vast field of discourse ripe for harvest, and harvest we shall.
First though, let’s talk about what ludonarrative is not, and what the translation ‘game story’ might suggest it to be. It isn’t the player’s journey, the experience that the player has while playing the game. Similarly, ludonarrative is not the plot of the game, as ‘game story’ might also suggest. To avoid this confusion it might help to think of ludonarrative not as ‘game story’ but rather ‘game/story’. It’s a term which doesn’t refer to one thing, but rather two things being joined together. Like ‘biophysics’, or ‘space-time’. Another thing which ludonarrative is not, is optional. As long as there is some sort of context to the action, there will be a ludonarrative. A game consisting entirely of narrative, without any ludo, is a movie or a book. It’s feasible for a game to have no narrative and be entirely ludo, pure gameplay, but it’s uncommon. You might argue that a game like Bejeweled or Tetris is pure gameplay, but that discussion leads down a rabbit hole of trying to define narrative which doesn’t lead anywhere fun and certainly doesn’t do so quickly. The kinds of games we’re most likely to talk about, the ones we play most often, including casual games like Farmville or Angry Birds, have enough narrative for there to be a ludonarrative worth talking about.
So, back to explaining what it is. I mentioned earlier that ‘ludo’ basically translates into ‘game’, and that a ‘game’ is no more or less than a collection of rules. A handy Wiktionary search backs up this definition: ‘Game: A pursuit or activity with rules performed either alone or with others, for the purpose of entertainment’. What distinguishes a game from other activities or pursuits is the presence of rules. But it’s important to think of rules as being more than purely restrictive, as in ‘No one may walk on the grass’. Rules also allow behaviour, such as the implied rule ‘You may walk on the path instead’. Take chess, for example. Without rules, the pieces and board are meaningless. But just as there is a rule which states pawns cannot move sideways, there is also a rule which states that they can move forward. Rules determine the interaction between player and system, and between player and player. There is no interaction in a game, whether computerised or played on a board, which is not facilitated by some rule.
First though, let’s talk about what ludonarrative is not, and what the translation ‘game story’ might suggest it to be. It isn’t the player’s journey, the experience that the player has while playing the game. Similarly, ludonarrative is not the plot of the game, as ‘game story’ might also suggest. To avoid this confusion it might help to think of ludonarrative not as ‘game story’ but rather ‘game/story’. It’s a term which doesn’t refer to one thing, but rather two things being joined together. Like ‘biophysics’, or ‘space-time’. Another thing which ludonarrative is not, is optional. As long as there is some sort of context to the action, there will be a ludonarrative. A game consisting entirely of narrative, without any ludo, is a movie or a book. It’s feasible for a game to have no narrative and be entirely ludo, pure gameplay, but it’s uncommon. You might argue that a game like Bejeweled or Tetris is pure gameplay, but that discussion leads down a rabbit hole of trying to define narrative which doesn’t lead anywhere fun and certainly doesn’t do so quickly. The kinds of games we’re most likely to talk about, the ones we play most often, including casual games like Farmville or Angry Birds, have enough narrative for there to be a ludonarrative worth talking about.
So, back to explaining what it is. I mentioned earlier that ‘ludo’ basically translates into ‘game’, and that a ‘game’ is no more or less than a collection of rules. A handy Wiktionary search backs up this definition: ‘Game: A pursuit or activity with rules performed either alone or with others, for the purpose of entertainment’. What distinguishes a game from other activities or pursuits is the presence of rules. But it’s important to think of rules as being more than purely restrictive, as in ‘No one may walk on the grass’. Rules also allow behaviour, such as the implied rule ‘You may walk on the path instead’. Take chess, for example. Without rules, the pieces and board are meaningless. But just as there is a rule which states pawns cannot move sideways, there is also a rule which states that they can move forward. Rules determine the interaction between player and system, and between player and player. There is no interaction in a game, whether computerised or played on a board, which is not facilitated by some rule.
Breaking down the Ludo
Let’s apply this thinking to videogames, in order to understand what we should count as part of the ‘ludo’. In videogames, ‘ludo’ includes the control scheme. In Call of Duty, there’s a rule which says, ‘if you push the correct command for “walk forward”, your character walks forward’. There is also a rule which says, ‘if you press the “fire” button, and there is ammunition available, your character will fire their weapon’. And another which says, ‘if you fire when your crosshair is over an enemy, that enemy will get hit’, along with myriad sub-rules to determine whether that enemy will really get hit, if the bullet will hit something else, be off target, or do any damage. But you get the idea. Everything which involves the player’s interaction with the game is facilitated by rules.
Along similar lines, we can also include player choices into the ludo, as when the player is given an option. This can be found on a grand scale in the likes of Mass Effect, where the player is asked whether to kill or not kill certain characters, and on a micro scale in the middle of a fight in Halo, where the player is (implicitly) asked what weapon they want to use, whether to enter a vehicle, whether to push forward or hold back, and all things in between.
The final part of ludo to be discussed here is consequence, which, although out of the player’s control, is the second half of the interaction cycle. You might also call it ‘feedback’. Consequence is what happens when a player makes a choice, and it results from rules. If a player pushes forward on the left thumbstick, the consequence is that the character will probably walk forward. These three parts of ludo – controls, choice and consequence – are not the only ones. One could disassemble the ludo in a number of ways, but for now these terms are more than sufficient. To express the meaning of ludo in a videogame in a single statement, I would say this; ludo is everything which is determined by rules.
So, what happens when you choose to spare the life of a character when the game gives you the option? Perhaps later on, that character will return and influence the narrative. Their return is a consequence of a ludic choice, but it forms part of the story. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s talk about this idea of ‘the story’.
Along similar lines, we can also include player choices into the ludo, as when the player is given an option. This can be found on a grand scale in the likes of Mass Effect, where the player is asked whether to kill or not kill certain characters, and on a micro scale in the middle of a fight in Halo, where the player is (implicitly) asked what weapon they want to use, whether to enter a vehicle, whether to push forward or hold back, and all things in between.
The final part of ludo to be discussed here is consequence, which, although out of the player’s control, is the second half of the interaction cycle. You might also call it ‘feedback’. Consequence is what happens when a player makes a choice, and it results from rules. If a player pushes forward on the left thumbstick, the consequence is that the character will probably walk forward. These three parts of ludo – controls, choice and consequence – are not the only ones. One could disassemble the ludo in a number of ways, but for now these terms are more than sufficient. To express the meaning of ludo in a videogame in a single statement, I would say this; ludo is everything which is determined by rules.
So, what happens when you choose to spare the life of a character when the game gives you the option? Perhaps later on, that character will return and influence the narrative. Their return is a consequence of a ludic choice, but it forms part of the story. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s talk about this idea of ‘the story’.
Breaking down the Narrative
What is narrative? The easy answer is ‘everything else’. The slightly less easy answer is ‘the context’. It’s the meaning which is placed on the rules. Without meaning, the rules are less interesting. Of course, games can survive without any context, as I mentioned earlier. The rules themselves can be engaging enough. Chess for example, beyond the vague notion that the game represents a war, has no context. The only meaning in the game is the one which players bring to it, usually that victory goes to the smarter player. So, it is true that a game can be hugely popular and engaging whilst employing almost no narrative whatsoever.
But the addition of narrative is what has transformed videogames from idle pastimes and the obsession of a few into a multi-billion pound industry, loved by many, accepted by most and known by all. Something magical happens when narrative is added to ludo, and this is what makes ‘ludonarrative’ such an important concept. I’ll get to explaining that magic a bit later on. To sum up what I just said; Tetris and Bejewelled are fascinating, fun and absorbing, but games like that (mostly ludo with little narrative) are not responsible for the swell in popularity of videogames. Narrative-heavy games like the Zelda adventure games, the Call of Duty series, Final Fantasy, Pokémon and just about every major release nowadays, form what you might call the ‘cultural core’ of videogames.
Let’s continue to pick apart what narrative is. It is cutscenes, in which the gameplay stops completely and the story is advanced. That much is obvious. It is also dialogue, which (with some very rare exceptions) is beyond the player’s control and serves only to further story or reveal character. In the example of Mass Effect, in which the player chooses their character’s words, the actual speaking is still beyond their control. They make the choice, and then the speaking happens. Only in a game like Facade, where the player physically types out the words that they want to say, could it be argued that dialogue is a part of the ludo. It’s fortunate for the immediate future of game discourse that Facade remains mostly a tech demo, because tracking the difference between ludo and narrative in that instance would require ten essays. Excluding Facade, games do not give the player direct control over speech, and so dialogue remains part of the narrative.
The final aspect of narrative is graphics. We have become accustomed to thinking of narrative as something which consists of words, which is why dialogue and cutscenes are so obviously aspects of narrative. But the graphics of a game provide most of the context, and that context is what the story is built from. For instance, the Metroid series was for a long time devoid of any dialogue or in-game exposition. It has almost no words in it, but it still has a narrative. Let’s look more closely at Metroid to find out a) what the game would be like without graphics or sound and b) what happens when you remove the narrative elements from a game.
Case Study: MetroidBut the addition of narrative is what has transformed videogames from idle pastimes and the obsession of a few into a multi-billion pound industry, loved by many, accepted by most and known by all. Something magical happens when narrative is added to ludo, and this is what makes ‘ludonarrative’ such an important concept. I’ll get to explaining that magic a bit later on. To sum up what I just said; Tetris and Bejewelled are fascinating, fun and absorbing, but games like that (mostly ludo with little narrative) are not responsible for the swell in popularity of videogames. Narrative-heavy games like the Zelda adventure games, the Call of Duty series, Final Fantasy, Pokémon and just about every major release nowadays, form what you might call the ‘cultural core’ of videogames.
Let’s continue to pick apart what narrative is. It is cutscenes, in which the gameplay stops completely and the story is advanced. That much is obvious. It is also dialogue, which (with some very rare exceptions) is beyond the player’s control and serves only to further story or reveal character. In the example of Mass Effect, in which the player chooses their character’s words, the actual speaking is still beyond their control. They make the choice, and then the speaking happens. Only in a game like Facade, where the player physically types out the words that they want to say, could it be argued that dialogue is a part of the ludo. It’s fortunate for the immediate future of game discourse that Facade remains mostly a tech demo, because tracking the difference between ludo and narrative in that instance would require ten essays. Excluding Facade, games do not give the player direct control over speech, and so dialogue remains part of the narrative.
The final aspect of narrative is graphics. We have become accustomed to thinking of narrative as something which consists of words, which is why dialogue and cutscenes are so obviously aspects of narrative. But the graphics of a game provide most of the context, and that context is what the story is built from. For instance, the Metroid series was for a long time devoid of any dialogue or in-game exposition. It has almost no words in it, but it still has a narrative. Let’s look more closely at Metroid to find out a) what the game would be like without graphics or sound and b) what happens when you remove the narrative elements from a game.
For the uninitiated; every Metroid game is about a lone bounty hunter landing on a hostile alien world, with a singular objective, usually to defeat the lurking evil in the planet’s depths. She has to explore ancient ruins to improve her abilities and delve deeper underground. Once she has grown strong enough, she gains access to the final boss, her main objective, which she then fights, and after that the game ends.
It’s a simple story, no good on paper. But the addition of graphics, sound and music, not to mention the interactivity inherent to videogames, transforms this bland A-B journey into a fantastical adventure through varied and gorgeous locations, which satisfies the innate human desire to explore in a way few other games do. The third Metroid game, Super Metroid, is widely considered to be one of the best videogames ever. Clearly, this game has had a cultural impact. All this, using only a basic story and very little text. What does this have to do with narrative
Let’s suppose a hypothetical version of the game were made in which the main character, the environment and enemies were all represented by different colours and sizes of squares and circles. The result would be to remove the implicit narrative that makes those games so compelling. Rather than a story about a lone bounty hunter exploring a strange and hostile planet, we would have a circle exploring a series of squares. The player who enjoys the standard Metroid experience has no problem understanding why the main character needs to go from room to room, eliminating opposing forces and upgrading their abilities. Conversely, the player who sees nothing but squares and circles sees no inherent reason for the gameplay. It would seem they are required to jump through hoops for no reason other than that the game dictates they must.
The problem in this imagined narrative-free version of Metroid, is that there is no narrative to suspend the players’ disbelief, which means that the arbitrary rules the game imposes – for example you can only fire triangles at enemies if you have enough triangles, you can find more triangles lying about – don’t make logical sense, and seem too complicated to remember. As soon as those triangles become missiles however, it becomes in some way acceptable; you can only fire missiles if you have enough ammunition, and there are ammunition dumps lying around the environment. In this instance the player can accept a fairly convoluted new rule, because the narrative combines with their latent real-world knowledge (missile launchers need ammunition) to help them understand the rule. It also makes narrative sense, which helps suspend their disbelief and allows them to be immersed in the game’s world.
In any case, I don’t feel I need to labour this point much more. It should be clear by this point that adding narrative to the ludo enriches the experience. I have already stated that ludo-only games like Tetris have their place, and we will now leave behind that subset of gaming as we engage with the more difficult concepts in ludonarrative theory. First, a nice diagram to illustrate what I've been saying.
Yes, it's a Microsoft Word diagram. No, the underlining doesn't mean anything.
It’s a simple story, no good on paper. But the addition of graphics, sound and music, not to mention the interactivity inherent to videogames, transforms this bland A-B journey into a fantastical adventure through varied and gorgeous locations, which satisfies the innate human desire to explore in a way few other games do. The third Metroid game, Super Metroid, is widely considered to be one of the best videogames ever. Clearly, this game has had a cultural impact. All this, using only a basic story and very little text. What does this have to do with narrative
Let’s suppose a hypothetical version of the game were made in which the main character, the environment and enemies were all represented by different colours and sizes of squares and circles. The result would be to remove the implicit narrative that makes those games so compelling. Rather than a story about a lone bounty hunter exploring a strange and hostile planet, we would have a circle exploring a series of squares. The player who enjoys the standard Metroid experience has no problem understanding why the main character needs to go from room to room, eliminating opposing forces and upgrading their abilities. Conversely, the player who sees nothing but squares and circles sees no inherent reason for the gameplay. It would seem they are required to jump through hoops for no reason other than that the game dictates they must.
The problem in this imagined narrative-free version of Metroid, is that there is no narrative to suspend the players’ disbelief, which means that the arbitrary rules the game imposes – for example you can only fire triangles at enemies if you have enough triangles, you can find more triangles lying about – don’t make logical sense, and seem too complicated to remember. As soon as those triangles become missiles however, it becomes in some way acceptable; you can only fire missiles if you have enough ammunition, and there are ammunition dumps lying around the environment. In this instance the player can accept a fairly convoluted new rule, because the narrative combines with their latent real-world knowledge (missile launchers need ammunition) to help them understand the rule. It also makes narrative sense, which helps suspend their disbelief and allows them to be immersed in the game’s world.
In any case, I don’t feel I need to labour this point much more. It should be clear by this point that adding narrative to the ludo enriches the experience. I have already stated that ludo-only games like Tetris have their place, and we will now leave behind that subset of gaming as we engage with the more difficult concepts in ludonarrative theory. First, a nice diagram to illustrate what I've been saying.
Yes, it's a Microsoft Word diagram. No, the underlining doesn't mean anything.
Ludonarrative Dissonance
To sum up what we define as ludonarrative; ludo is what the player is allowed to do, and narrative is why the player should do it. These two halves of the ludonarrative can gel together with various degrees of success. The least successful combination of ludo and narrative leads to ludonarrative dissonance, the presence of which in Bioshock led Clint Hocking to write his fateful blog post and coin the term in the first place.
Ludonarrative dissonance already has a fair amount of discourse devoted to it so I’ll keep the explanation brief. If the ludo and narrative don’t agree, you get dissonance. Once again, consider ludo as “what the player is allowed to do” and the narrative as “why the player should do it”. If the player is allowed or required to do something, but only given a reason not to do that thing, we get dissonance. If the player is told they can’t do something, but there appears to be every reason why they should, we get dissonance.
In LA Noire, the player character is a hard working, straight laced detective. During gameplay, he can commandeer civilian cars for no reason and drive on the pavement, smashing through postboxes, lampposts and mowing down civilians, which is never mentioned in cutscenes and has no effect on the story: this is dissonance. In Metroid, where the ludo revolves around exploring areas and becoming stronger, if the main character suddenly and without warning produced a hugely powerful weapon out of nowhere to fight the final boss, this would be dissonance – the narrative disagrees with the ludo. In the Uncharted series of games, main character Nathan Drake is a loveable rogue. In the gameplay, he kills people ruthlessly.
Ludonarrative ResonanceLudonarrative dissonance already has a fair amount of discourse devoted to it so I’ll keep the explanation brief. If the ludo and narrative don’t agree, you get dissonance. Once again, consider ludo as “what the player is allowed to do” and the narrative as “why the player should do it”. If the player is allowed or required to do something, but only given a reason not to do that thing, we get dissonance. If the player is told they can’t do something, but there appears to be every reason why they should, we get dissonance.
In LA Noire, the player character is a hard working, straight laced detective. During gameplay, he can commandeer civilian cars for no reason and drive on the pavement, smashing through postboxes, lampposts and mowing down civilians, which is never mentioned in cutscenes and has no effect on the story: this is dissonance. In Metroid, where the ludo revolves around exploring areas and becoming stronger, if the main character suddenly and without warning produced a hugely powerful weapon out of nowhere to fight the final boss, this would be dissonance – the narrative disagrees with the ludo. In the Uncharted series of games, main character Nathan Drake is a loveable rogue. In the gameplay, he kills people ruthlessly.
But if we can have dissonance, it stands to reason we should be able to have resonance too. Much less has been written on this. Ludonarrative resonance is when the ludo and narrative fit together extremely well, so well that they cannot be separated. The player is allowed to do something, and given ample reason why they should. This is where that ‘magic’ comes in. A well-told narrative creates a story which a listener wants to believe in. A well made game interacts with the player in a satisfying way. A game with ludonarrative resonance, where these two elements are combined successfully, allows the player to interact with a story they want to believe in, in a satisfying way. When this works, and usually it does so by degrees and in short bursts as part of a larger, more clunky game, the feeling is without parallel. The glow of a perfectly attuned ludo and narrative is what has kept me, in my short and sheltered life, tethered to videogames like an addict to his drug. It is a feeling of being there. For those who haven’t experienced it (or more likely, those who have experienced it and didn’t realise) it’s easy to rationalise.
Summer blockbusters thrive on the feeling of involvement; when the hero is running along the roof of a speeding train, the viewer feels that they are there, even if their rational brain knows they aren’t. Being in control of the character’s movements, adding the possibility of failure multiplies this feeling. On looking back, the non-rational side of a player’s brain can’t decide whether it was the character or the player who ran along the train. To an adult it sounds cheesy, and to an easily incensed tabloid newspaper it sounds terrifying, but this is a core truth of videogaming. It is the reason the blurbs on the back of most game boxes are written in the second person rather than the third – it is “you” that must topple the evil dictatorship, not “the character”.
Resonance is by no means easy to achieve, especially since there are about a million variables. How much of a story should (or can) be in the player’s control? That simple description I gave – resonance is when the player is allowed to do something and given ample reason why they should – is almost comical in how it underplays the complexity of the situation. Put simply, achieving this isn’t easy. It requires a narrative the player wants to believe in, and it requires gameplay that allows them just enough freedom to feel involved, but not so much freedom that they can undermine the narrative.
No game can allow complete freedom on the player’s part (such a game would be infinitely big, and the code infinitely complex) and modern hardware can barely provide a convincing impression of this kind of freedom. This is why designers must create a game which has small, contained methods for a player to interact with the narrative, and which never asks (or appears to neglect to ask) what the player thinks should happen next. In practise, this means always asking the specific question and never the general one. Should the hero take the left route, or the right? (There is no option to turn around and go home.) Which of the enemies should the hero kill first? (There is no option for them to surrender.) Ludonarrative resonance occurs when the player is given just enough freedom that they feel their actions are their own, and the narrative is interesting enough that they want to engage with it. Finally, it requires that the narrative gives good reason for the player to do what they are allowed to do.
Summer blockbusters thrive on the feeling of involvement; when the hero is running along the roof of a speeding train, the viewer feels that they are there, even if their rational brain knows they aren’t. Being in control of the character’s movements, adding the possibility of failure multiplies this feeling. On looking back, the non-rational side of a player’s brain can’t decide whether it was the character or the player who ran along the train. To an adult it sounds cheesy, and to an easily incensed tabloid newspaper it sounds terrifying, but this is a core truth of videogaming. It is the reason the blurbs on the back of most game boxes are written in the second person rather than the third – it is “you” that must topple the evil dictatorship, not “the character”.
Resonance is by no means easy to achieve, especially since there are about a million variables. How much of a story should (or can) be in the player’s control? That simple description I gave – resonance is when the player is allowed to do something and given ample reason why they should – is almost comical in how it underplays the complexity of the situation. Put simply, achieving this isn’t easy. It requires a narrative the player wants to believe in, and it requires gameplay that allows them just enough freedom to feel involved, but not so much freedom that they can undermine the narrative.
No game can allow complete freedom on the player’s part (such a game would be infinitely big, and the code infinitely complex) and modern hardware can barely provide a convincing impression of this kind of freedom. This is why designers must create a game which has small, contained methods for a player to interact with the narrative, and which never asks (or appears to neglect to ask) what the player thinks should happen next. In practise, this means always asking the specific question and never the general one. Should the hero take the left route, or the right? (There is no option to turn around and go home.) Which of the enemies should the hero kill first? (There is no option for them to surrender.) Ludonarrative resonance occurs when the player is given just enough freedom that they feel their actions are their own, and the narrative is interesting enough that they want to engage with it. Finally, it requires that the narrative gives good reason for the player to do what they are allowed to do.
Ludonarrative Alienation
One last possibility remains, and this is one which, to my knowledge, remains unexplored. I will call it ‘ludonarrative alienation’. Alienation, I propose, is when the ludo and the narrative neither conflict with each other, as in dissonance, nor harmonise with each other, as in resonance. Instead, neither gains anything from the presence of the other. The ludo does its thing, the narrative does another. Where dissonance causes frustration, and resonance causes involvement, alienation does very little at all. If anything, it causes boredom, ennui. If a videogame only has an engaging ludo, the player might enjoy that on its own merits. If it only has an interesting narrative, the same could be said. But in both instances there is something missing, and that thing is resonance. Ludonarrative alienation occurs when the player is allowed to do something but is given no strong reason why they should, or where the reasons they are given are insufficient. This happens most often when the player is not engaged by the narrative. It can also happen when the ludo is too restrictive – for instance if the game only requires the player to “press x to succeed” – in which instance they player does not feel like they are engaging with the narrative themselves; they are given reason to do something but are forced, not allowed, to do it.
Unfortunately, ludonarrative alienation is by far the most common of the three possibilities described here. For every moment in a videogame where the ludo and narrative meet, there are twenty where they do nothing at all. For people like me, these odds are enough to justify playing a videogame when I could watch a movie or read a book. For others, it is not.
Unfortunately, ludonarrative alienation is by far the most common of the three possibilities described here. For every moment in a videogame where the ludo and narrative meet, there are twenty where they do nothing at all. For people like me, these odds are enough to justify playing a videogame when I could watch a movie or read a book. For others, it is not.
Conclusion
Lets sum up these ideas before we move onto some examples:
LUDONARRATIVE RESONANCE
The player is allowed to do things and given a strong reason why they should do them.
LUDONARRATIVE ALIENATION
The player is allowed to do things and given no strong reason why they should do them.
LUDONARRATIVE DISSONANCE
The player is allowed to do things which they are only given reason not to do, or disallowed from doing things they are only given reason to be able to do.
We now have just enough words in our arsenal to attack the majority of games and start discussing them. I’ve included some examples to help understand how the ideas I’ve just outlined might be used. Of course, it should go without saying that this is not some attempt at a solve-all solution to videogame discourse. It is just one component. Knowing that the ludo and narrative should interact does not necessarily imbue one with a knowledge of how to make this possible. It should also be said that a game which exhibits ludonarrative resonance might still fail for a number of reasons and vice versa. The examples below might make this clearer.
I will make one last point before moving on. There have been plenty of calls in videogame journalism for videogames to have better narratives, to be “better written” as it were. This is fair. But developers, or perhaps publishers, are still churning out risible material. I suspect this is because the idea of a “fantastic story” seems too difficult to achieve, and that they feel they have better things to focus on. I won’t get into that argument here, but I do want to point out that, given the framework I’ve just established, it isn’t necessary for a game’s story to be award-worthy or intelligent or even sensible in any way, in order for the game to achieve ludonarrative resonance.
The only requirement is that the player is engaged by it, and that they are given the ability via the ludo to interact with it. For proof that a story can be badly written and still be engaging, I refer the reader to any soap opera with viewership in the millions. This does not excuse the likes of the Modern Warfare games, and their terrible narratives – it simply moves the focus from ‘how badly written those games are’, to ‘how the ludo of those games fail to allow the player to engage with their badly written narratives’. In short, it is not simply sloppy writing that developers are being asked to fix, it is badly designed gameplay.
LUDONARRATIVE RESONANCE
The player is allowed to do things and given a strong reason why they should do them.
LUDONARRATIVE ALIENATION
The player is allowed to do things and given no strong reason why they should do them.
LUDONARRATIVE DISSONANCE
The player is allowed to do things which they are only given reason not to do, or disallowed from doing things they are only given reason to be able to do.
We now have just enough words in our arsenal to attack the majority of games and start discussing them. I’ve included some examples to help understand how the ideas I’ve just outlined might be used. Of course, it should go without saying that this is not some attempt at a solve-all solution to videogame discourse. It is just one component. Knowing that the ludo and narrative should interact does not necessarily imbue one with a knowledge of how to make this possible. It should also be said that a game which exhibits ludonarrative resonance might still fail for a number of reasons and vice versa. The examples below might make this clearer.
I will make one last point before moving on. There have been plenty of calls in videogame journalism for videogames to have better narratives, to be “better written” as it were. This is fair. But developers, or perhaps publishers, are still churning out risible material. I suspect this is because the idea of a “fantastic story” seems too difficult to achieve, and that they feel they have better things to focus on. I won’t get into that argument here, but I do want to point out that, given the framework I’ve just established, it isn’t necessary for a game’s story to be award-worthy or intelligent or even sensible in any way, in order for the game to achieve ludonarrative resonance.
The only requirement is that the player is engaged by it, and that they are given the ability via the ludo to interact with it. For proof that a story can be badly written and still be engaging, I refer the reader to any soap opera with viewership in the millions. This does not excuse the likes of the Modern Warfare games, and their terrible narratives – it simply moves the focus from ‘how badly written those games are’, to ‘how the ludo of those games fail to allow the player to engage with their badly written narratives’. In short, it is not simply sloppy writing that developers are being asked to fix, it is badly designed gameplay.
-Jeremy Watssman (2012)
Jezixo on
0
Posts