Abstract
Video games that incorporate other games in their game-world create interlacing fictional levels. These can be used to engage with concepts of “gameness” from within the game itself without abandoning the aesthetic illusion created by the macrogame, in which the minigame is embedded. In my paper, I delve into the question why we are willing to immerse ourselves in video game worlds even if they contain elements that overtly emphasise the fictionality of these games. I explore concepts of illusion as well as interlacing fictional levels from a theoretical perspective before I research various modes of games within games with or without an impact on the gameplay of the macrogame as well as their relationship to illusion. The outcome of my paper will be a comprehensive study of the critical potential of minigames, which is accomplished by discussing a large corpus of different video games.
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Notes
- 1.
In the context of my paper, “we” is used to denote players of video games.
- 2.
Following Grant Tavinor [1], narrative video games are regarded as fiction and defined as a work ‘in which the characters, places, events, objects, and actions referred to are fictional rather than real. A strong fictive thesis might claim that videogames are essentially fictions in that they necessarily depict fictional characters, places, objects, events, and actions’ [1]. The world created in (narrative) video games consequently differs from reality due to its status of being fictional, yet might be referred to by other terms than fiction, such as Roger Caillois’s description of them as ‘a second reality or […] a free unreality’ [2].
- 3.
The defining characteristic of minigames is that they are embedded in another game, wherefore they differ from independent minigames as, for example, defined by Clark Aldrich [3].
- 4.
My understanding of “gameness” is based on Sébastien Genvo’s argument that ‘gaming-oriented devices must convince the recipient of their playfulness through pragmatic markers that meet certain cultural representations of the activity and incite to consider this object as a game’ [4]. In other words, the game must contain elements that suggest to the player that it is a game. These characteristics are further defined and discussed by Genvo, particularly with regard to the concept of “ludic ethos”, which ‘invites us to understand how individuals are guided in their play activity by some “pragmatic markers”, and how structures build a universe of specific values to be accepted as a game’ [4].
- 5.
Following Werner Wolf [5], illusion is not to be understood as a deceptive mode but as the aesthetic process of creating a world that differs from reality. While the immersion of the recipient in this illusion created by the medium is desired, an awareness of its difference from reality and, thus, a reflective, conscious, and critical stance counterbalances a potential delusion.
- 6.
These five features are shared by play, games, sports, theatre, and rituals [7]. As Fernández-Vara notes, there are exceptions to this definition, such as, for example, online poker, which includes monetary gain and, hence, productivity.
- 7.
The similarity between the real and the game-world depends on the game’s deviation from reality. Games can depart from reality to a large extent while they are still being perceived as believable; this, however, is only the case if they follow their own inner logic, regardless of how much they differ from reality.
- 8.
Similar concepts are Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief” [9], Kendall L. Walton’s “make-believe” [10], Peter Lamarque’s “Thought Theory” [11], and, yet more extensive, Wayne C. Booth’s “fictional pact” [12]. These theories were developed to describe the relationship between a fictional text and the reader, yet for video games, the situation is entirely different, mainly due to the agency of the player in the creation of the story. In order to avoid terminological ambiguities, Wolf’s concepts of distance and participation are therefore more beneficial to a description of the potential interaction with illusion.
- 9.
Although I focus on narrative video games, illusion is also possible in non-narrative games. In Tetris [16], for example, players are still willing to accept that the purpose of the world they enter is to put blocks of various shapes atop each other. However, no (complex) narrative is told.
- 10.
Brian McHale describes narrative structures of ‘forking paths’ as ‘nesting or embedding, as in a set of Chinese boxes or Russian babushka dolls’ [18]. Wolf [5] also speaks of “Chinese-box structure”. This metaphor is adopted here since it depicts the relationship between the individual fictional levels and their interdependence.
- 11.
These added levels can but need not be hypodiegetic. Games within games are hypodiegetic if they possess their own narrative elements, i.e. if they fulfill all elements of narrative as defined by Gerald Prince: ‘The representation (as product and process, object and act, structure and structuration) of one or more real or fictive events communicated by one, two, or several (more or less overt) narrators to one, two, or several (more or less overt) narratees’ [19]. The inclusion of Maniac Mansion in Day of the Tentacle generates a hypodiegetic narrative structure due to the minigame’s fulfilment of Prince’s definitional aspects, while the game of connecting pipes in BioShock does not.
- 12.
The metaphor of the mirror is later also utilised by Lucien Dällenbach: ‘the mise en abyme is any internal mirror reflecting the narrative as a whole by simple, repeated or specious duplication’ [21]. Mieke Bal suggests to abandon the term mise-en-abyme as it does not depict ‘the totality of an image, but only a part of the text, or a certain aspect. […] I suggest we use the term “mirror-text” for mise en abyme’ [22].
- 13.
Abbreviated to GTA hereafter.
- 14.
The minigames in GTA Vice City are unplayable.
- 15.
The game also occurs in GTA V, yet it is not playable.
- 16.
The high scores can be seen and are saved on every machine of the same type. This would not happen in reality unless the machines are connected.
- 17.
Abbreviated to Zelda hereafter.
- 18.
It is important to note that for Link, these activities are real-life practices, wherefore they are termed “simulations” and not “games”.
- 19.
A Clawshot is a latching device with which Link can hang off suspended objects such as trees or walls. A Double Clawshot allows him to shoot a second latch once hanging on the first.
- 20.
In Final Fantasy VIII, Quezacotl is a winged Guardian Force.
- 21.
Easter Eggs – “treasures” hidden within games – need not be games per se. They can be, for example, extra money as in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past [48], where a hidden room, “The Chris Houlihan Room” [49], contains extra Rupees. While Easter Eggs need not be games, their discovery follows game-like structures because they are hidden and not actually part of the main game. Their detection is akin to a treasure hunt and very often treasures are awaiting the inquisitive player.
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Rockstar Games: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)
Rockstar Games: Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)
Rockstar Games: Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
Rockstar Games: Grand Theft Auto Online (2013)
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Fandom: Top Secret Room. https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Top_Secret_Room
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Seiwald, R. (2019). Games Within Games. In: Zagalo, N., Veloso, A., Costa, L., Mealha, Ó. (eds) Videogame Sciences and Arts. VJ 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1164. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37983-4_2
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