Storytelling In Storytelling

Tom Bissell, in his essay, “Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter” has described video games and how they are unique and different from movies, books, or even interactive films. Bissell says “I came to accept that games were incompetent with almost every aspect of what I would call traditional narrative.” This is showing the readers that even though there is a plot and story line, as characters can control and alter the story line or outcome by what you do or see throughout the game.

Using persuasive writing, Wright begins to influence his audience that game play is a beneficial source of entertainment not a wasteful one. Playing video games increases creatively, self esteem and improve problem solving skills of the players. Video games are becoming test runs that appear or feel close to the real thing. Where you can control everything with added effects like magic or future technology. Games have the potential to exceed almost all other forms of entertainment media. They tell stories, play music, challenge us, allow us to instantly communicate and interact with others. Encourage us to create things, connect us to new communities, and let us play with people across the world. Unlike most other forms of media, games are inherently tangible. According to Wright young children spend their days in imaginary worlds, substituting toys and make believe into the real world that they are just beginning to explore and understand. Wright states that games are the result of imagination and that they consist of rules and goals. Generation of teenagers has grown up with different set of games. Teenagers use the scientific method rather than reading the manual first. Games today maybe a person’s only place to express a high-level of creativity and growth. Older generations have a lot of criticisms for games, the games can help a person learn to think on his or her own.

Storytelling continues to be an integral part of Native American culture, providing us with an understanding of what was important to the Native Americans. Through their stories, Native Americans expressed an understanding of the environment, and the relationship that existed between themselves and their environment. These stories also provide us with a look at Native American legends, history, and a collection of knowledge critical to their survival. Native American stories are deeply rooted in their relationship with Mother Earth. Their many years connected with land, life, water and sky has created many stories explaining these important bonds with Mother Earth. From ancient times the Native Americans have looked to their

Normally when one thinks about observing a creative activity they immediately think of sports or the arts, their mind being flooded with images of dancers gliding across a stage, painters swiping their brush across a canvas, or strong-abled bodies dribbling a ball down a field. All of these activities are undoubtedly creative, but as American society has grown and changed with advancing technology, so has the way people are able to engage in creative processes and events. In the last fifty years, the gaming world has exploded, bringing with it a new form of creativity. From electronic gaming to board games and live action role playing games (RPG), these new forms of competitive entertainment have been laying the foundations for a new outlet of creativity.

Tom Bissell presents an article in 2010, to college students of which is “Why Video Games Matter.” Bissell isn’t intending for the argument to be about video game criticism, the history of the gaming, or an assessment of anything. On the contrary, he wants to articulate his own opinions and thoughts on what playing games feels like, why he plays them, and the questions they make him think about. Being a gamer myself, I have also endured the struggles of what being obsessed with a video game feels like. It is understood that when first purchasing a video game, all one thinks about is getting home and popping it in the console, disregarding everything else that is happening in the vicinity.

Creativity and a vast imagination allows many adventures to go on inside the mind. Audrey Taylor, a 13-year-old, loves to go on exhilarating “journeys” with the characters Mario and Luigi. Influenced by video games, her ability to pull off convincing imitations of many characters has improved greatly as she had started playing at the age of 7. “Their lives were interesting,” she stated. “I just wanted to be a part of that and experience it in my own way.” Although this skill may not seem to contribute much to other subjects, her imagination and creativity could greatly assist her in career of gaming and as an aspiring author. She is already on her way to achieving this as she spends her free time writing unique and artistic pieces.

Journey, an indie game released in 2012 by thatgamecompany, is not especially known for stellar dialogue between characters. Rather, the game’s narrative is explored by the players as they travel through the levels. Players have to make their own conclusions on where to go, what to do, and what the purpose is for their journey. The atmosphere of the game is immersive, and the developers actively tried to invoke the player’s sense of wonder and adventure as they progressed through the game. This is only further aided by the orchestral soundtrack composed by Austin Wintory. Overall, the game is well worthy of being called a work of art. Smuts also agrees that, “Since the primary goal of most game design is to enhance such aesthetic experiences, it would seem that we have good reason to evaluate games as art works” (Smutts).

Video games change the way people can interact with a narrative. Braid is a puzzle video game that communicates its narrative through snippets of text and game mechanics. Braid plays with perception and truth like other fiction novels but the medium also allows it to play with time and its affects on perception. This video game uses special game mechanics to deepen the player’s understanding of the given text in order to tell a story.

Every story has must be formed with a sort of backbone for it to make sense or come together cohesively. That backbone can be referred to as the elements of storytelling which every good story must consist of. These elements of storytelling are exposition, narrative spine, theme, arc, and plot and character. Here are the meanings of these elements and examples of how they play out in different storytelling aspects. Explosion is something ever story must begin with for your audience to understand where the story is headed.

It is also assumed that the act of telling a story can provide insight into past, present and future events (Espinoza, 1997). By going through this process, individuals can find the importance of certain events and assign roles to people who are a part of their story. This act can allow a client to find new meaning and understanding to their reality (Espinoza, 1997). Not only is a

In addition to presence, our suspension of disbelief can aid in creating an immersive game experience (Breda, 2008). Suspension of disbelief is important to all forms of entertainment, allowing users to look past a medium’s inconsistencies and barriers to immersive. Examples include: accepting the impossible stunts in a movie, supernatural elements in a book, or even visual bugs in a video game. Wirth et al. suggest that actions as simple as feeling the book’s pages while reading, or seeing the method of interaction (mouse and keyboard) can distract the user from the experience (Wirth et al., 31). As participants in a medium, we choose to overlook certain features of the experience, disengaging our critical eye to better interact with the

Many video games use visuals to mentally immerse gamers into a virtual world filled with seemingly living, breathing people, animals, or cities. According to Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey, game designers for Tale of Tales, video games increasingly develop into a true medium of artistic expression (Lamb). In just forty years, video games transformed from an abuse of the new computer for entertainment purposes into a sophisticated form of popular art. The development of video games recently produced results that arguably equal other similar, representational arts. Video games share many qualities with other forms of art, but they are also artistically significant in their own way. “This seems to be something

Rather than viewing the aforementioned gamer’s practices as grounded in a particular context (e.g., a living room or a video game or an affinity space), focused on a particular activity (e.g., writing or watching a video), ortied to a particular modality (e.g., print, digital), it is possible to conceptualize such practices as part of a transmedia ecology in which participation in literate practice is distributed across time, space, and media platform, and coheres around a particular storyworld. A traditional storyworld is a fictional universe with invented characters, settings, and characteristics that has been

Egenfeldt-Nielson (2014), suggests that studying games from a lens of exploration, will fill the space that ludology and narratology fail to fill. This failure is identified by the limitations of each of the two fields where they separately focus more on different genres of games. Narratology seems to have its strength in studying systems like adventure games where storytelling and narrative plays a more important role in overall gameplay experience. In this type of game a ludic point of view has less to contribute to the discussion, however, ludology is better suited to analyzing games of strategy and action genres. Therefore limiting our views to those of only ludology and narratology leaves a gap in our understanding. All game genres should

Besides art based on nature, storytelling is the heart of Waldorf education. Children under seven years are introduced to fairy tales and nature stories. As they progress to an elementary stage, they are introduced to folk fairy tales where they learn about diverse cultures, fables which teaches them moral values, and folk fairy tales about ancient times and historical events These stories form the basis of basic education.