Real-time hermeneutics: meaning-making in ludonarrative digital games

Abstract

Digital games are a relatively new medium. While they have been around for over half a century, they only became a major part of the culture relatively late. Like every other medium before, games also have struggled to find an expressive language of their own. Some of the expressive styles of other media are still relevant for games, but new ones have to be created specifically for videogames.This dissertation is a study of how ludonarrative videogames, videogames that combine game elements with narrative elements, express and convey meaning. This is done as part of game studies, a multidisciplinary approach to studying games. The purpose is twofold: to build a foundation for better understanding of meaning-making in games, and to provide game designers with tools for analyzing issues related to meaning.This study uses philosophical tools to analyze meaning in games. The philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer is used to compare the meaning-making in games to the interpretation of works of art. The theory of the interpretive process is based on the idea of the hermeneutic circle. Wittgenstein’s concept of language-games is used in examining how games should be defined and how their relations to each other should be understood. These philosophical methods are combined with the study of procedurality, narrativity and players.This study shows that ludonarrative games are procedural systems that are interpreted both during gameplay and as a part of the surrounding cultural context. The result of this interpretation is neither predetermined by the game designer nor fixed during gameplay, but potentially open for endless reinterpretation as players interact with the game in new ways and as the cultural context changes. In order to convey meaning, ludonarrative games can borrow expressive tools from other media, for example by using perspective in the way it is used in cinema.Additionally, this study provides guidelines for designing meaning. It is shown how meaning can be used as a game mechanic, and how games contain unique ways of expressing things that would be hard to convey in other media.