The Technical, Social, and Cultural Affordances of Intellivision

Dawn of Machinic Cyclicality: Life as We Don’t Know

This paper engages with the question of cyclical time, and more specifically, how the re-imagination of collectives introduces an essential agency in conceptualizing time by diving into the narrative of the video game Horizon: Zero Dawn (2017) to examine the ways in which entanglements of different forms of life (such as the coexistence of humans, nonhumans and technology) as planetary collectives challenge the fixed structure of time through the incorporation of agency as a decisive factor in shaping cyclical time. The first section explores the complexity of the human-nonhuman coexistence in relation to discourses of the Anthropocene, Capitalocene and Chthulucene. The second section engages more specifically with the ways in which these newly conceived entanglements challenge notions of time by allowing for productive ways to transform our understanding of endings and the potential of innovative cyclicality to arise.

Cause, Effect, and Player-Centric Time

Dots, Fruit, Speed and Pills: The Happy Consciousness of Pac-Man

Spanning 30 years and 40 individual videogames across a range of platforms, Pac-Man is one of the most recognizable of all videogame characters and a pop–culture icon. In spite of its widespread popularity, the game receives little sustained academic engagement or analysis. In an attempt to address this, the paper argues that in its classic iterations Pac-Man generates complex notions of space and time which are indicative of changing cultural, ethical and political considerations in wider society. This is explored through recourse to Borges’ work on labyrinths, Bauman’s discussion of the ethical position of videogames, Poole’s rejoinder and Ritzer’s critique of consumerism, ultimately arguing that the dynamics, themes and leitmotifs evident in Pac-Man are experienced by gamers, consumers and citizens described in Marcuse’s One Dimensional Society, whereby the welfare and warfare state coalesce to generate the Happy Consciousness.

Temporal Frames: A Unifying Framework for the Analysis of Game Temporality

This article introduces the notion of temporal frames as a tool for the formal analysis of the temporality of games. A temporal frame is a set of events, along with the temporality induced by the relationships between those events. We discuss four common temporal frames: real-world time (events taking place in the physical world), gameworld time (events within the represented gameworld, including events associated with gameplay actions), coordination time (events that coordinate the actions of players and agents), and fictive time (applying socio-cultural labels to events, as well as narrated event sequences). We use frames to analyze the real-time/turn-based distinction as well as various temporal anomalies. These discussions illustrate how temporal frames are useful for gaining a more nuanced understanding of temporal phenomena in games.

Mapping Time in Video Games

Video games can position players in a specific time and space. This paper will argue that the experiences of both are closely interdependent. As a consequence, we need to re-evaluate our models of time in video games. The discussion will exemplify the suggested interdependencies of temporal and spatial experience. The result is a playercentered perspective towards time in game spaces.

‘Remembering How You Died’: Memory, Death and Temporality in Videogames [Extended Abstract]

Death is an intrinsic part of gameplay. On considering the role of killing, dying and negotiating the 'undead' in videogames, one cannot be faulted for noting in them an obsessive engagement with the act of dying. It is almost a prerequisite that the player's avatar has to 'die' many times in the process of unravelling the plot. Instead of the traditional tying and untying (desis and lusis) of narrative plots, held sacrosanct since Aristotle, videogame narratives are characterised by 'dying and undying'. The sense of an ending, as literary theorist Sir Frank Kermode calls it, is constantly frustrated by its absence in videogames. Western conceptions of ending, whether Hellenic or Judaeo- Christian, are based on telos and a linear temporality. In a culture where death is a grim finality and where resurrection is only possible by the divine, videogames seem to shockingly trivialise death by adding to it the perspective of multiplicity. Videogame theorist, Gonzalo Frasca, observes that from the perspective of real life, this reversibility can be seen as something that trivializes the "sacred" value of life. This paper argues against such a conception and in doing so, it shows how videogames point to a different but equally serious view of death and endings that has so far been largely ignored due to an occidental bias.

Teleporters, Tunnels & Time: Understanding Warp Devices In Videogames

The warp is a device that reframes notions of time and space. It is a common cultural artefact, one that audiences have come to recognise and believe in through various media. We accept the bed in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the Tardis in Doctor Who, the supralight speed engines of science fiction, as time/space travel devices in order to get characters from A to B, to advance their progress along the story path. The warp as a path device can also be seen in board games such as Snakes and Ladders, where both the snake and ladder sections break the linearity of moving the character piece from square to square regularly up and down the game-board. It is therefore natural that such a time/space device has continued and been reconstructed within videogames. The virtual gameworld is itself a place able to reconstruct time and space; both Juul and Atkins discuss how players’ perceptions of time and narrative elements within the videogame can be rearranged, but the warp, a significant ‘re-arranger’, is rarely discussed further or in detail. The warp is used as a common device within videogames to transport the player from their location to somewhere else within the gamespace. Although commonly acknowledged through the hidden tunnels within Super Mario Bros, the warp is not a straightforward device, and can manifest itself in various ways during gameplay. It may be found in deliberately installed puzzles, and by the ‘aberrant player’. It may be a way of avoiding danger, of ‘jumping’ over sections previously achieved, or even of cheating. It may be the punishment for straying from a ‘good path’, or the reward for a particular act. Whatever its use or function, the warp exists within the virtual world as a means of managing time, space and narrative. The warp turns paths experienced by the player into fixed ‘tracks’, where navigational control is removed whilst in the warp sequence, and understanding the warp in this way allows us to further understand the player’s relationship with the game paths they are moving along, the stories they move within. This paper discusses the multiple characteristics of the warp by identifying its use in contrasting videogame genres. These characteristics open up ways of discussing the aesthetics of the warp experience for the player and how its use affects path structures as well as time and narrative elements within videogames. The discussion will include both the built in, deliberately installed ‘puzzle-based’ warps and the ‘inadvertent warps’ sought by those seeking to discover more of the games ‘algorithm’.

And Then You Wait: The Issue of Dead Time in Social Network Games

Playing social network games involves a lot of waiting time; time where you can do nothing meaningful in the game and have to wait for certain things to grow, friends to send you gifts, or energy to refill. This paper addresses whether we the notion of dead time as introduced by Juul (2004) can be helpful in theorizing about this waiting time in social network games. It starts with a discussion of game time in general and continues with a discussion on how time works in social network games. Then it will address the notion of dead time. It is concluded that waiting time can indeed be seen as similar to dead time and that especially the playing time layer and perceived time layer from Tychsen & Hitchens (2008;2009) are helpful in understanding waiting in social network games.