flâneur, a walkthrough: Locative literature as participation and play


Løvlie Anders Sundnes
2012 DiGRA Nordic '12: Proceedings of 2012 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

This paper presents an experiment in facilitating public contributions to an experimental system for locative literature called textopia. Discussing approaches to collaborative writing and the relationship between games and art, the paper presents the development and the testing of a game designed to foster participation in the system. The game is based on the recombination of found texts into literary compositions, integrating the act of exploring the urban environment into the act of writing, as well as into the medium that is studied. The resulting texts are read as a form of situated, poetic documentary reports on the urban textual environment. The experiment also draws attention to the importance of live events in building a literary community.

 

End of story? Quest, narrative and enactment in computer games


Løvlie Anders Sundnes
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Espen Aarseth recently claimed that all games referred to as ’narrative games’ could better be described as ’quest games’. The writer of this paper suggests that Max Payne is a possible counter-example to this hypothesis; i.e. a game with a strong focus on narrative which is not easily understood as a quest game. The writer suggests that this, and other similar games, could better be understood in terms of a theory of ’enactment’, which is seen as related to, but not similar to theatrical acting. Extending this idea, the concept of ’the estrangement effect’ in theatre theory is used to analyze a collection of small computer games from the perspective of theory about ”serious games”.