Literary gaming /
Ensslin, Astrid,author.
This book examines literary videogames, hybrid digital artifacts that have elements of both games and literature, combining the ludic and the literary. These works can be considered verbal art in the broadest sense (in that language plays a significant part in their aesthetic appeal); they draw on game mechanics; and they are digital-born, dependent on a digital medium (unlike, for example, conventional books read on e-readers). They employ narrative, dramatic, and poetic techniques in order to explore the affordances and limitations of ludic structures and processes, and they are designed to make players reflect on conventional game characteristics. Ensslin approaches these hybrid works as a new form of experimental literary art that requires novel ways of playing and reading. She proposes a systematic method for analyzing literary-ludic (L-L) texts that takes into account the analytic concerns of both literary stylistics and ludology. After establishing the theoretical underpinnings of her proposal, the author introduces the L-L spectrum as an analytical framework for literary games. Based on the phenomenological distinction between deep and hyper attention, the L-L spectrum charts a work's relative emphases on reading and gameplay. Ensslin applies this analytical toolkit to close readings of selected works, moving from the predominantly literary to the primarily ludic, from online hypermedia fiction to Flash fiction to interactive fiction to poetry games to a highly designed literary auteur game. Finally, she considers her innovative analytical methodology in the context of contemporary ludology, media studies, and literary discourse analysis.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Ludicity and literariness in the digital age -- Ludic books and literary "games" -- Methodology and structure -- Playing with rather than by rules -- Ludology and its philosophical foundations -- Playfulness as aesthetic tool and weapon -- Games, play and literature -- Literature born digital -- Art games versus game art -- Between ludicity and literariness -- Cognitive frameworks for reading and gameplay -- Viewing axolotls : approaching the ludic in digital literature -- The literary-ludic spectrum -- Approaching functional ludo-stylistics -- "The pen is your weapon of choice" : ludic hypertext literature and the play with the reader -- Alea : Deena Larsen's Firefly -- Ilinx : Richard Holeton's Figurski at Findhorn on Acid -- Mimicry : Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl -- Agon : Robert Kendall's clues -- Discussion -- "Love poem or break up note?" : ludic hypermedia fiction and loss of grasp -- Heuristic ergodicity in games and digital interactive art -- Analyzing loss of grasp : fallaciousness, heuristic ergodicity and cybertextuality -- "Your innocence drifts away" : anti-ludicity and ludic mechanics in the Princess Murderer -- Antiludicity as subversive design practice -- "Clicking" damsels in distress : the Princess Murderer and its antiludic agenda -- Of windsighs and wayfaring : Blue Lacuna, an epic interactive fiction -- IF as the classic hybrid between adventure game and literary narrative -- Blue Lacuna : epic, novel and game -- A ludostylistic approach to analyzing Blue Lacuna -- The paradox of poetic gaming : evidence of everything exploding -- Digital detournement in game art and art games -- Pop-surrealism and poetry gaming : Jason Nelson's evidence of everything exploding -- From paidia to ludus : The Path, a literary auteur game -- To game or not to game : slowness, drive and allusive fallacy -- The Path : transmediation, tragedy, trauma -- A ludostylistic analysis of The Path.
This book examines literary videogames, hybrid digital artifacts that have elements of both games and literature, combining the ludic and the literary. These works can be considered verbal art in the broadest sense (in that language plays a significant part in their aesthetic appeal); they draw on game mechanics; and they are digital-born, dependent on a digital medium (unlike, for example, conventional books read on e-readers). They employ narrative, dramatic, and poetic techniques in order to explore the affordances and limitations of ludic structures and processes, and they are designed to make players reflect on conventional game characteristics. Ensslin approaches these hybrid works as a new form of experimental literary art that requires novel ways of playing and reading. She proposes a systematic method for analyzing literary-ludic (L-L) texts that takes into account the analytic concerns of both literary stylistics and ludology. After establishing the theoretical underpinnings of her proposal, the author introduces the L-L spectrum as an analytical framework for literary games. Based on the phenomenological distinction between deep and hyper attention, the L-L spectrum charts a work's relative emphases on reading and gameplay. Ensslin applies this analytical toolkit to close readings of selected works, moving from the predominantly literary to the primarily ludic, from online hypermedia fiction to Flash fiction to interactive fiction to poetry games to a highly designed literary auteur game. Finally, she considers her innovative analytical methodology in the context of contemporary ludology, media studies, and literary discourse analysis.
Internet games
Digital media
Interactive multimedia
Hypertext fiction
Fantasy games
Play (Philosophy)
Intermediality.