Renata Gomes, "The Design of Narrative as an Immersive Simulation"

(In Worlds in Play)

- Attempt to generate cinema-style narrative in games has caused a new form/concept of narrative to emerge: immersive simulation
- Agency allows player to be part of the story universe
- Story is more than just a theme
- Two kinds of narrative game: character-oriented and simulation games
- Presence = greater potential for agency? (Why?)
- Affordances: surface is "stand-on-able," for example (Gibson)
- Character-oriented games have a clear journey/goal, sims do not
- "System history" as narrative in sim games
- "Poetic potential of simulation games"
- Narrative as an index of emergence in a complex system? (Personal narratives/narrativization)
- Eisensteinian ideal of pure formal discourse/communication/rhetoric could be achieved through simulation?