Journal Research

I have started to carry out my research in preparation for my dissertation and have been looking at various different journals. I have also created a Google document to store all my findings (links etc) in order for an easy to find/navigate document that I can use when writing out my dissertation.

So far I have managed to find two that stand out too me:

http://gac.sagepub.com/content/6/2/103.full.pdf+html

http://gac.sagepub.com/content/6/3/203.full.pdf+html

These are titled:

• 'Narrative Structures in Computer and Video Games: Part 1: Context, Definitions, and Initial Findings'
• 'Narrative Structures in Computer and Video Games: Part 2: Emotions, Structures, and Archetypes'

The reason these two have stuck out to me is because after reading only a small part in the first article I realized that my project was somewhat different to what I had originally thought it was.

'A story is defined as:
 ... a sequence of events involving entities. A story is bound by the laws of time; it goes in one direction, starting at the beginning, moving through the middle, and arriving at the end ... the only time involved is the time it takes to read [the story], and the only order is that of the structure of the essay (Abbott, 2002, p. 195).'


'While a narrative is defined as:
 ... the representation of an event or a series of events. ... when we read a narrative, we are aware of, on the one hand, the time of reading and the order in which things are read, and on the other hand, the time the story events are supposed to take and the order in which they are supposed to occur (Abbott, 2002, pp. 13-14).'

Upon reading this I felt they my game was not essentially a game but more a narrative story. Further progression in the article (and others I read) discussed games at a level that involved characters, emotions, gameplay etc which my project will not really be consisting of. Now that I have read this I am more confident to call my final piece an interactive story with a well thought narrative as oppose to a game.

Personal Notes

These two articles have been a great find in my beginning stages of lookign at journals. Over the next few days I will continue looking at these two journal articles as well as looking at others

To Look For

• Textuality of Horror
• Creating Suspense
• Pacing an interactive story
• Horror Techniques