The first chapter that ive read

Chapter 6 in The video game theory reader.

Stories for eye, ear, and musceles: Video games, media, and embodied experiences.

By: Torbern Grodal

This bok is about videogames and consists of different cahpters written by different autors. The chapter that i have read discusses the different ways to tell a story mainly focused on video games.

The first part of the chapter explains that different settings and narratives affects how people emotionly get involved in storys. And to make a good story it is necessary to get the person emotionally involved or they will lose interest and stop playing. It is also important to present different goals for the player to accomplish so that the story progresses.

Later on the author explains that a story can’t be presented as to obvious for a player. Because if you can predict the future the player loses interest in the story or the outcome of the hero’s actions, it’s important to keep the tension and leave some imagination for the player, which is also explained as an important part in telling stories in movies.

Another part that engages a player into a game is in different ways is the viewing point for the player. If you play in a first person view the player is emerged into the game as being the hero and gives the illusion of being more in control. Whereas a third person view gives the impression of helping the games protagonist through his quest and gives a more overlooking perspective of the game.

The above-told components are mainly used to engage and interest a player for a game. Other important factors for games are how much a player is able to interact with the game and influence the outcome while playing. If a game gets to repetitive in game play and the player feels that there is no more worth to experience or se the player stops playing the game.

My own thoughts about the chapter:

This was a fun chapter to read because I myself play a lot of videogames and recognize the things that the author explains, so it was easy to relate to it. And I somewhat got a better understanding for the games that I never bothered to finish. I can also agree on the explanations about how stories in games are told and se the resemblance to storytelling in movies.