Narrative Space in Videogames

Abstract

The space in videogames is not a visual extension of conventional narrative structures, as in traditional media, but it becomes a tool to organize the tale. The possibility of exploring space and acting on it makes the videogame the closest medium to the embodied experience of a story. This feature attributes a central role to the spatial representation that help the player in the construction of meanings which are necessary to understand the narration. The spatial suggestions become a formal and structural code of visual signs, able to emphasize tones and atmospheres and/or to express emotional valances. Starting from these considerations, the research aims to analyze the relationships between visual representation and narrative language in videogames. The survey methodology includes a comparative analysis of videogame spaces, starting from the main types of stories: realistic, verisimilar and unrealistic. This distinction allows to identify three macro-groups of spatial representations. The empathetic/anempathetic spaces reproduce perceptions similar to those existing in a physical space. The utopian/dystopian spaces propose perceptions that do not coincide with existing reality but that are potentially realizable in certain space-time conditions. The impossible/elsewhere spaces, finally, offer perceptions that not only do not coincide with reality, but that are also impractical in the physical world. This research underlines how the scientific area of representation can contribute significantly to the study of videogame, understood as a narrative form in which the drawing of the space is applied as an irreplaceable modality for the construction of a visual code of thought.