Literary Gaming Refigured
Submission Type
Panel
Start Date/Time (EDT)
20-7-2024 4:45 PM
End Date/Time (EDT)
20-7-2024 5:45 PM
Location
Hypertexts & Fictions
Abstract
The decade since the publication of Ensslin’s (2014) Literary Gaming has seen radical transformations in the games industry – both in the indie and AAA sectors. Experimentation with narrativity, exploration, navigation, remediation, dialog, character psychology and textual materiality have led to entire waves and genres. Most prominently, the walking simulator and the literary point-and-click have transgressed their respective niches and entered the mainstream. In turn, these developments have given rise to new waves of scholarship in literary gaming that have emphasized the ludexical, readerly, and philosophical elements of games like Dear Esther, Pentiment, and Disco Elysium (e.g. O’Sullivan 2023; Milligan 2019; Kagen 2022; Novitz 2021). These developments call out for a reassessment of what literary games are and can be, how specific (trans-)regional and (trans-)cultural influences shape their development and reception, and what waves and genres have been forming in the relatively short history of this art form. This panel addresses these questions from a multi-disciplinary angle, aiming to capture the status quo as well as to speculate where literary games are headed in a future steeped within artificial intelligences and metaverses.
In preparation for the panel, participants will be offered to experience a short interactive exposé planned in Ren'Py (downloadable with STARS) to hunt for clues about the upcoming talks.
The panel will consist of five short contributions (8 min. each), followed by a roundtable discussion with audience interaction and live curation. We will open with a brief introduction to the history of literary games and aspects of functional ludostylistics, highlighting key trends and scholarship. This will be followed by four lightning talks offering different perspectives from the panellists’ own research:
- “Books and book-like objects in literary games” examines how bookish elements are used as framing devices and artifacts. Looking at The Bookwalker and Pentiment, this paper investigates what walking within books and interacting with them means in literary games, and how these processes construct a bookish player.
- Tabletop role-playing games and videogames share a long history of cross-adaptation. This talk will discuss the emergence of “Inner World Simulators”, a hybrid form drawing from the narrative modes of TRPGS and videogames.
- Philosophical games could be described as a literal walking through a history of yourself: in Dear Esther and What Remains of Edith Finch the player characters deal with lost subjectivity and family failure.
- Generalized and more specialized language models are capable of putting forward rudimentary forms of text-based adventures that the user can interact with, within the LM's provided interfaces. This paper explores the narrativity of the “reconfigurative objects” that occur when “playing” a language model.
The ultimate goal of this panel is to distil a theory of contemporary literary gaming and to envision future developments of this fast-evolving subfield of digital-born literature.
Recommended Citation
Ensslin, Astrid (2014) Literary Gaming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kagen, Melissa (2022) Wandering Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Milligan, Chloe (2019) “From Codex to Ludex: Paper Machines, Digital Games, and Haptic Subjectivities.” Publije: e-Revue de critique littéraire, vol. 8, no. 1, //revues.univ-lemans.fr/index.php/publije/article/view/141 Novitz, Julian (2021) “Disco Elysium as Gothic Fiction”, Baltic Screen Media Review 9, 32-42. O’Sullivan, James (2023) “Literary Games, Walking Simulators and the New Wave of Digital Fiction”, in A. Ensslin, J. Round and B. Thomas (eds) The Routledge Companion to Literary Media. New York: Routledge, pp. 255-267.
Literary Gaming Refigured
Hypertexts & Fictions
The decade since the publication of Ensslin’s (2014) Literary Gaming has seen radical transformations in the games industry – both in the indie and AAA sectors. Experimentation with narrativity, exploration, navigation, remediation, dialog, character psychology and textual materiality have led to entire waves and genres. Most prominently, the walking simulator and the literary point-and-click have transgressed their respective niches and entered the mainstream. In turn, these developments have given rise to new waves of scholarship in literary gaming that have emphasized the ludexical, readerly, and philosophical elements of games like Dear Esther, Pentiment, and Disco Elysium (e.g. O’Sullivan 2023; Milligan 2019; Kagen 2022; Novitz 2021). These developments call out for a reassessment of what literary games are and can be, how specific (trans-)regional and (trans-)cultural influences shape their development and reception, and what waves and genres have been forming in the relatively short history of this art form. This panel addresses these questions from a multi-disciplinary angle, aiming to capture the status quo as well as to speculate where literary games are headed in a future steeped within artificial intelligences and metaverses.
In preparation for the panel, participants will be offered to experience a short interactive exposé planned in Ren'Py (downloadable with STARS) to hunt for clues about the upcoming talks.
The panel will consist of five short contributions (8 min. each), followed by a roundtable discussion with audience interaction and live curation. We will open with a brief introduction to the history of literary games and aspects of functional ludostylistics, highlighting key trends and scholarship. This will be followed by four lightning talks offering different perspectives from the panellists’ own research:
- “Books and book-like objects in literary games” examines how bookish elements are used as framing devices and artifacts. Looking at The Bookwalker and Pentiment, this paper investigates what walking within books and interacting with them means in literary games, and how these processes construct a bookish player.
- Tabletop role-playing games and videogames share a long history of cross-adaptation. This talk will discuss the emergence of “Inner World Simulators”, a hybrid form drawing from the narrative modes of TRPGS and videogames.
- Philosophical games could be described as a literal walking through a history of yourself: in Dear Esther and What Remains of Edith Finch the player characters deal with lost subjectivity and family failure.
- Generalized and more specialized language models are capable of putting forward rudimentary forms of text-based adventures that the user can interact with, within the LM's provided interfaces. This paper explores the narrativity of the “reconfigurative objects” that occur when “playing” a language model.
The ultimate goal of this panel is to distil a theory of contemporary literary gaming and to envision future developments of this fast-evolving subfield of digital-born literature.
Bio
Astrid Ensslin is Professor of Digital Cultures and Communication and Director of the Digital Area Studies Lab (DAS|LAB) at the University of Regensburg (Germany). Among her key works are Literary Gaming (MIT Press, 2014) and Reading Digital Fiction: Narrative, Cognition, Mediality (with Alice Bell, at press with Routledge). https://astridensslin.wordpress.com/
Sebastian R. Richter is currently working as a graduate research assistant on DIMAS with Astrid Ensslin at the University of Regensburg. His PhD-thesis deals with coping strategies of failure in video games and existentialism. He is an associated researcher for DAS|LAB in Regensburg. In addition he experiments with digital theater as a music theater director.
Kübra Aksay is a lecturer and Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the objects of recordings within video games, such as in-game diaries. She is an associated member of DiGRA and DAS|LAB (Regensburg), and has been convening the monthly meetings of the colloquium Reading Games in Freiburg since 2019.
Fiona S. Schönberg holds a BA in Film & English Literature Studies, an MA in Mediendramaturgie (Media Dramaturgy). She is a novelist, script writer and (narrative) game designer from Germany, as well as a PhD candidate at Regensburg University and an associated researcher for Regensburg University’s Digital Area Studies Lab.
Miriam Scuderi is a student assistant researcher at JGU and Master of Arts student in American studies. They hold a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Culture and American studies. Their research interests are split between economic history and digital humanities, with a focus on digital narratology.