“Virtual (Un) Realities:
Gothic in the Interactive
Narrative”
David Langdon
USW Postgrad Conference 2014
The Question
The Gothic
“How Has the Gothic Continued to Function
Within the Interactive Narrative?”
The Interactive Narrative
The Core Terminology
The Gothic
“one element which[…] crops up in all the relevant fiction, and that is
fear.” [The Literature Of Terror, David Punter]
“A Gothic novel usually takes place […] in an antiquated or seemingly
antiquated place […]Within this space, or a combination of such spaces, are
hidden some secrets from the past (sometimes the recent past) that haunt the
characters, psychologically, physically, or otherwise at the main time of the
story.” [Intro to The Cambridge Companion To Gothic Fiction, Jerrold E. Hogle.]
“I think that a generation’s weird fiction [...] gives us valuable
information about the society in which it appears. If you show us what
terrified a generation […] then nine times out of ten a great many other
decisions that were made during the time that fiction was being
published- legal, moral, economic, even military- come into perfect
focus.” [Steven King, Intro to Michel de Houellebecq’s Against the World, Against
Life.]
“A mode which reflects its
current society’s suppressed
fears and/or desires by
constructing fantastic
scenarios (utilising recurrent
tropes) that elicit an emotional
response from the audience.”
The Interactive Narrative
• Many types of interactive narrative exist. Forms include hypertext
fiction, visual novels and video games.
• The problem is: more choice= less cohesive message, which
impairs the form’s ability to include a social dimension.
• However, video games are capable of utilising the actions the
player is required to take to support complex themes and
concepts.
• This then led me to posit a theory of game narrative; the binary
narrative system.
Game Narrative
Action Narrative- (what
we do)
Graphical
Interface
Elements
Auditory
Context Narrative- (why we’re doing
it)
Textual
Behavioural
Documents
Gameworld
Design
Musical
Cues
Cinematic
Cutscenes
Voiced
Dialogue
Sound
Effects
Entity Behaviours
Avatar
Modifications
Gameplay
Scripted
gameplay
sequences
In Simpler Terms…
Action Narrative
Context Narrative
“What we’re doing”
“Why we are doing it”
The Methodology
• Having established a definition of Gothic, a focus within the
interactive narrative and an approach to analysing these texts,
the next step was to apply these within selected case studies.
• In order to be considered for inclusion in the study, games
had to fulfil several conditions.
• First and foremost, they had to possess a context narrative and be ‘narratively
designed’- actively attempting to tell a story in addition to functioning as a game.
• Secondly, it had to be possible to link the game’s contextual narrative element to an
existing Gothic work, or the existing Gothic canon.
• Finally, the game’s action narrative had to make some attempt to engage its players
in a deeper or more complex way than in a typical game.
• From this, it may be extrapolated that the Gothic of the interactive narrative is
dependant on both action and context narrative elements. It can only occur
when these two narratives intersect or support one another.
• A Gothic theme constructed or suggested by the context narrative can be
extended or developed within the action narrative. The ‘emotional appeal’ of
the Gothic can be defined as the attempts of the action narrative to place the
player in the same contextual emotional state as the protagonist.
• In order to illustrate this, I will conclude with a brief discussion of two of
the games I have studied.
The Case Studies
Case Study 1: Amnesia: The Dark
Descent
• The game’s villain is an amalgam
• This title is heavily based within the
Gothic tradition.
• The setting combines core thematic
tropes; the torture chambers and
medieval prisons of the eighteenth
century are combined with
laboratories and secret passages of
the nineteenth century.
of various archetypes; sadistic
scientist, unearthly vampire,
charismatic seducer.
• Trauma and guilt, something
endemic to twentieth-century
Gothic, form the game’s thematic
core.
• This Gothic construction is aided by
the action narrative, which makes
the player vulnerable, fragile and
relatable.
• This empathy in turn heightens the
impact of the game’s core social fear:
the problematization of learning.
•
• Simple effects, such as having to
physically manipulate the mouse to
open doors, create a greater sense
of empathy between player and
avatar.
The game creates a scenario where we are made
curious, then traumatised by both the process and
results of learning; a representation of core fears and
desires of the Information Age.
Case Study 2: Eternal
Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
• The game’s context narrative is heavily inspired by the
writing of H.P. Lovecraft.
• The plot spans centuries, following various individuals discovering a sinister plot surrounding
terrifying extra-dimensional entities.
• Insanity is a major theme of the game, in line with the genre of ‘cosmic horror’.
• The action narrative reflects and supports this by actually simulating errors, glitches and
misleading gameplay in line with virtual ‘sanity’ levels.
• The player is given a sense of the emotional state their avatars are placed into
contextually by the design of the actions they are asked to undertake.
• This in itself brings up a host of fears relevant to modern society, including…
• ‘Cosmic Horror’- given a modern-day update; the context narrative’s horrible entities are
able to transcend the limits of the (game) universe itself!
• ‘System Malevolence’- the idea that the system we’re engaging with is able to feign
error undermines our trust in the computerised systems that we have recently come to
rely on.
• ‘Virtual Unreality’- the player’s sense of objective reality is undermined by this simulation
of a potentially real event.
• It is my hope to extend these theories across
further case studies, arriving at a definitive
blueprint for the continuing function of the
Gothic in the modern day.