routes and maps - Ruben Meintema

Transcription

Navigating Virtual Worlds
The role of spatial structures in the conception of cognitive maps and routes by
video game players
February 17, 2010
Ruben Meintema, 1387871
[email protected]
Institution: University of Groningen
Curriculum: Literary and Cultural Studies, RMA
Course: M.A. Thesis
Supervisors: Dr. Miklós Kiss, Prof. Dr. Joost Raessens
Contents
List of figures
3
Introduction
4
§1: Across media, across dimensions
§1.1: Space across media
§1.2: The present discourse on space in video games
§1.3: Video games in four dimensions
§1.4: Concluding remarks
7
7
11
14
15
§2: An approach to video game space
§2.1: Cognitive maps and routes in video games
§2.2: The ontology of video game space: ‘Liquid Architecture’
§2.3: Game space as a theatre for actions
§2.4: Player/space relationships: ‘physical’ participation
16
17
20
25
29
32
§3: Structures of the virtual world
§3.1: Fragmentary space without continuity
§3.2: Fragmentary space with linear continuity
§3.3: Fragmentary space with non-linear continuity
§3.3.1: Overworlds
§3.3.2: Warp rooms
§3.4: Continuous space with cuts
§3.5: Continuous space without cuts: seamless space
§3.6: Continuous space without boundaries: looped space
§3.7: Alternative spaces
§3.8: Heterotopias
32
33
36
37
38
43
45
48
54
56
57
61
§4: Beyond the virtual world
§4.1: Narratological boundaries of video game space
§4.2: The other side
61
62
66
70
Conclusion
70
Bibliography
Ludography
75
81
2
List of figures
1. La tentative d’impossible by René Magritte (1928)
22
2. Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega MegaDrive: Sonic Team, 1991)
Green Hill Zone, In-game view
35
3. Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega MegaDrive: Sonic Team,1991)
Green Hill Zone, Level map
35
4. Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo Entertainment System:
Nintendo, 1988) World 1, Overworld view
39
5. Final Fantasy VII (Sony PlayStation: Square Soft, 1997) Battle Mode
40
6. Final Fantasy VII. Town Mode
40
7. Final Fantasy VII. Overworld Mode
41
8. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (Sony PlayStation:
Naughty Dog, 1997) Warp room
44
9. Metroid: Zero Mission (Nintendo GameBoy Advance:
Nintendo, 2004) Map view
46
10. GTA: San Andreas (Sony PlayStation 2: Rockstar, 2005)
First-person view of the city of San Fierro.
50
11. Super Mario Bros. Minus World
60
12. The X-files game (PC: Hyperbole studios, 1998) In-game view
63
13. Three levels of the conventional narrative situation
64
14. Eskelinen’s four types of (narrative) situations
65
15. From interactivity to participation in computer games
65
16. Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes (Nintendo GameCube:
Silicon Knights and Konami, 2004)
69
3
Introduction
“There is no doubt about the influence of architecture and structure upon human
character and action. We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape
us.”
Winston Churchill1
Visiting an unknown city can be a troublesome operation. Finding the way (while
occasionally getting lost) takes a considerable effort of one’s navigational skills. Video games
usually consist of large and elaborate spaces as well, sometimes very similar to an unknown
city; the game The Getaway (2002) features a large part of Central London and the City
District as a fully navigable play space. Most video games also take a considerable effort of
the player and his navigational skills.
Humans (but some animal species as well) navigate through environments by
depending on cognitive instruments that help them to know one’s place and find the way.
Two general strategies could be deployed; constructing a cognitive route and constructing a
cognitive map. A cognitive route is constructed from a subjective point-of-view. It is a
memory of the trajectory between one location and another location in an environment. It is
based on landmarks, and it is usually a one-way solution; it functions less when reversing the
route, because landmarks could be located behind the observer. A cognitive map is a
construction from an objective point-of-view, as it does not incorporate the observer but
rather the locations of the environments and their interrelations.2
The Getaway has been designed to resemble a city that exists in real life, but most
games feature spatial structures that are fictional and designed for performing other functions.
These spatial structures, the architecture of video games, determine the player’s actions and
movement. They determine the trajectory of the player through space and his exploration.
Spatial structures in video games could also encourage or discourage the conception of a
cognitive map or a cognitive route. In this study I will analyse the spatial structures of video
games, and show how different structures demand different navigation strategies from the
player. The result will be a typology of spatial structures of video games, with regard to their
role in the construction of cognitive routes and cognitive maps by the player.
This is a novel approach to the subject of space in video games. Several studies like
Wolf (1997), Poole (2004), and Kampmann (2007), have treated space as a perceived object
that could be observed by a certain perceiving subject. This is an approach that is much
indebted to the way space is perceived in fine arts and film. The studies of Taylor (2003) and
Hendriks (2004) have argued for a more “player-centred” approach, which takes the
experience of the player in game space into account. But these approaches do not view game
space as a “navigable space,” as the Russian new media theorist has already pointed out in
2001, and problems of navigation, place determination, and spatial orientation are not
addressed to in this approach. In my approach I view game space not as an object that could
be perceived by a subject, but rather as an environment that could be navigated by a
participant. By viewing game space that way insights could be gained about the behaviour of
the player in game space, his orientation, navigation, exploration and eventually cognitive
appropriation of this space.
This approach to space is not exclusive to video game studies. In fine arts a painting
could be seen as to force the spectator to enter the picture and assign him a place in the space
1
Jenny Preece, Online communities. Designing usability, supporting sociability (Chichester, etc.: John Wiley &
Sons, 2000) xv.
2
John O’Keefe and Lynn Nadel, The hippocampus as a cognitive map (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) 74.
4
of the painting, as shown by Michel Foucault’s analysis of Las Meninas by Velásquez.3 In
Film Studies especially space is being treated according to the approach in the present study;
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson argue that one of the main functions of continuity
editing, and especially the 180º system, is not only to know where the characters are in
relation to each other, but more importantly to know where the viewer is in relation to the
story action.4 Also in films, the viewer has conduct cognitive operations in order to construct
the film space. The viewer participates in hypothesis-forming about the space and his own
relations to it, and Julian Hochberg compares this process, in which the viewer ‘constructs’
space on the basis of ‘textual’ cues from the film, to cognitive mapping: “The task of the film
maker is therefore to make the viewer pose a visual question, and then answer it for him.”5
Warren Buckland goes further in this direction by viewing film space from a cognitive
semiotic approach, and analyses how the spectator determines his position in the fictional
geography of the film by using ‘textual’ spatial cues.6 He furthermore uses the concept of the
‘tactile body image’ to determine the relation to the visual space of the film.7
The difference between film and video games, however, is that the video game player
has to actively navigate the environment, while the film viewer necessarily has to be led
through the environment by the director and the camera. Thus the need for all the above, the
conception of a cognitive map and a determination of the player’s position in the fictional
geography becomes more acute; without it he is not even able to play the game. Also the
concept of the ‘tactile body image’ fits the context of this study perfectly, because the player’s
relation to his avatar is different in this respect to the relation of the reader or viewer to a
character in a book or a movie, respectively, as we shall see in §2.4.
Although cognitivist processes and cognitivist concepts play a large role in my study,
my method should not be viewed as a cognitivist method. In the present study I am following
a functionalist approach. In functionalist analysis the work under investigation is viewed as a
human-made object, that functions to fulfil human purposes. Instead of the ‘atomistic’
approach of (neo-)structuralism, the functionalist approach aims at understanding the material
structure of the whole art work (its overall form) in the light of the purposes we take it to be
trying to fulfil.8 We take game space to be an environment, which the player necessarily needs
to navigate in order to participate in the game. Humans navigate (extensive, elaborate, and
complex) environments by constructing cognitive routes and cognitive maps. The overall
structure of the space, its architecture, constitutes the ‘textual’ cues on the basis of which
these cognitive constructs are being produced, and thus determines the construction of
cognitive maps and routes by the video game player. I will analyse the structures of game
space with regard to the functions they fulfil in aiding (or consciously complicating) the
navigation of the player through these environments, based on cognitive maps and routes.
This thesis itself is structured as follows. In the first chapter I will place the current
study in the discourse on space in arts and literature studies in general, and in video game
studies in particular. It will become apparent that ‘space’ in all kinds of forms and contexts
has become a popular subject in the Humanities (and beyond), to the extent that there has
3
Michel Foucault, The order of things. An archaeology of the human sciences (New York: Vintage Books,
1970) 5.
4
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film art. An introduction (New York, etc.: McGraw-Hill, 2008) 234.
5
Quoted in: David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, The classical Hollywood cinema: film style &
mode of production to 1960 (London: Routledge, 1985) 59.
6
Warren Buckland, ‘Orientation in film space: a cognitive semiotic approach,’ Recherches en communication 18
(2003) 89.
7
Warren Buckland, The cognitive semiotics of film (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 70.
8
David Bordwell, ‘Neo-structuralist narratology and the functions of filmic storytelling,’ in: Marie-Laure Ryan,
Narrative across media. The languages of storytelling (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press,
2004) 203-205. This approach could also be observed in the above studies on space in film.
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even been talk of a ‘spatial turn.’ In video game studies the subject of space has also gained
more and more prominence, and a ‘spatial turn’ could be recognized in the study of video
games as well. As I have pointed out above, the discourse on space in video game is unable to
understand one important function of the game space: to afford, determine, and guide the
spatial behaviour and the navigation of the player through the fictional environment. Neither
‘objectivist’ approaches nor ‘player-centred’ approaches are able to explain this important and
basic feature of the spaces of video games. At the end of this first section I will shortly attend
to the subject of time in video games, with regard to how this other important aspect
determines the experience of the progression of the player through the game space.
The second section will consist of the main theoretical part of this thesis. In this
section I will first explain the terms ‘cognitive map’ and ‘cognitive route’ and how they could
be used in fictional and non-fictional navigation. Then I will discuss the ontology of virtual
space, and how this effects the perception of the space by the viewer. The perceptual clues
for navigating the space rely for a great part on the visual rendering of it. I will explain this
visual rendering by discussing the ‘atoms’ of which the architectures are built, and show how
this could be viewed from different ontological angles. In §2.3 then I will explain how the
structure of the space is determined by the actions that are available in it. We shall see that
game spaces do not mimic ‘real’ physical spaces, but that they have a logic entirely of their
own. The possible actions determine the structure of the designed space, but also the
behaviour of the player in it, so this is a crucial aspect for the construction of cognitive maps
and routes. The final subsection will be devoted to the relationship between the player and his
avatar, as the avatar is the ‘tool’ through which the player acts in the fictional world. It shall
be argued that this relationship works differently in games than in other media, due to
medium-specific characteristics, and that these result in a ‘quasi-physical’ relationship.
In the third section is then I will finally attend to the spatial structures in the video
games themselves, while insights gained from the previous theoretical section into account. I
will propose a typology of two basic spatial structures, with a number of eight subtypes and
two kinds of complications on these types, with regard to the function of player navigation. In
§3.1 I will discuss Fragmentary spaces without continuity, which consists of a level-based
structure without spatial continuity between levels. In §3.2 I will attend to Fragmentary spaces
with linear continuity, a kind of level-based structure that keeps the levels somehow together,
but that fails to produce a single navigable space. In §3.3 then Fragmentary spaces with nonlinear continuity will be analysed, which allows for navigating back and forth through a levelbased spatial structure. In subsection §3.4 I will first come to treat Continuous space with
cuts, a space that is not level-based and thus forming one single whole, but that is still
separated by obstacles that divide up the environment. Continuous space without cuts then is
the ideal of many game designers nowadays, and this type will be treated in §3.5. In §3.6 I
discuss a type of continuous space without boundaries. Continuous space without boundaries
is very uncommon, but it functions as a device for ‘magical’ or ‘astronomical’ effects. In §3.7
and §3.8 I will attend to three possible complications of these basic structures; Alternative
spaces and Heterotopias, respectively. In Alternative space there is a parallel world added to
the game environment, and in Heterotopias there is a spatial anomaly, that does not fit the
structure or logic of the rest of the game space.
In the fourth and final section I will discuss one further elaboration of game space,
namely the occasional intrusion of the diegetic space of the video game into the physical
space of the ‘real’ world. I will argue that game space should be viewed as having
‘narratological’ boundaries that determine the involvement of player, designer, and characters
in the diegetic space. Although the video game necessarily involves a transgression of these
boundaries, due to medium-specific characteristics, some designers consciously seek after this
as a trademark of their style. After a theoretical discussion of the narratological boundaries of
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game space, I will attend to examples in which these boundaries are intentionally
transgressed.
I will conclude this study by synthesizing the results of the different sections, and
providing a multi-layered answer to the main research question of the role of spatial structures
of video games on the construction of cognitive maps and cognitive route by video game
players. I will furthermore offer a perspective of further research based on this study, for
example connecting the results of this study with a cognitive approach that investigates the
cognitive behaviour of players, and a connection of this study to a narratological approach
into the spatial structures of the stories of video games.
§1: Across media, across dimensions
In this first section §1 I will lay out some of the main strands of the discussion on
video game space. This is in order, because it is needed to draw a map of the present
discourse on game space, so that the gaps could be filled and unknown territory could be
explored (to use a spatial metaphor). In §1.1 I will first offer a broad orientation on the subject
of space as it has been discussed in relation to linguistics and historical and sociological
theory. I will also show a broad overview of how space works in other media, like literature,
film, sculpture, architecture, music. I will furthermore compare the way a fictional world is
evoked in literature and in games, and the special role of the concept of ‘rules’ therein.
After this broad introduction of the subject of space across media, I will focus once
again on video games, and analyse the discussion on this subject within the context of
gaming. Because of the relevance of space to this new medium, there already exists a
relatively large body of writing on this subject. However, I will show how the discussion has
failed to produce an approach that is able to deal with practical problems of player navigation,
although attempts have been made in this direction. My academic contribution to this
discourse will be the realization that games are not simply spaces that could be perceived, but
that they are really environments that could only be understood by participation, exploration,
and appropriation.
After that I will devote my attention to that other dimension of games; time. Without
time, the space of the game would be static and non-interactive. Any study of game space
would be incomplete when the subject of time would be neglected, because the experience of
the player of this space is always linked to his movement (by participation and exploration)
through this environment, and movement is always involving both spatial and temporal
dimensions. Furthermore, it shall be argued in §1.1 that games have characteristics of both
‘spatial’ and ‘temporal’ forms, just like film. But game time has been viewed too much from
the perspective of film time. There has been a critique on this view on game time, and it has
been proposed to look at time from a player-centred perspective. The temporal experience is
then linked to the advance of the player through the game space, so that also this aspect of
video gaming has been traced back to the subject of space. Knowing your place in the game’s
environment thus also involves knowing the moment in your advancement.
§1.1: Space across media
The Russian author Vladimir Nabokov remembers his first gleam of consciousness,
when he became aware of the older age of his father and mother: “I felt myself plunged
abruptly into a radiant and mobile medium that was none other than the pure element of
time… an environment quite different from the spatial world, which not only man but apes
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and butterflies can perceive.”9 Nabokov imagines this personal experience to be a re-iteration
of a moment far back in pre-history: “the beginning of reflexive consciousness must surely
have coincided with the dawning of the sense of time.”10 In other words, time is intrinsically
human, and space is a kind of perception that stands lower on the evolutionary ladder.
But space is still the basis of our entire perception and conception, including that of
time. One could observe above that Nabokov refers to time as an “environment.” Likewise,
the cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have shown how temporal
conceptions are always essentially spatial. In our everyday language there are roughly two
different conceptions of time: the moving observer metaphor and the moving time metaphor.11
Both are essentially spatial. In expressions like ‘Time is flying by’ the moving time metaphor
is clearly used, and in utterances as ‘I am leaving the past behind me’ the speaker makes use
of the moving observer metaphor. The latter conceives time as a path that the subject travels.
Not only time but also other concepts are spatially conceived in our everyday language and
everyday perception. That means that we are still inherently spatially oriented animals.
In studies of language and culture, space has become an important theme. The French
philosopher Michel Foucault writes: “The great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as
we know, history: with its themes of developments and of suspension, of crisis, and cycle,
themes of the ever accumulating past, with its great preponderance of dead men and the
menacing glaciation of the world. […] The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch
of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity.”12 With simultaneity, time collapses back into
one single moment, and history and time are laid out spatially. If Foucault is right, and space
is the dominant theme, instead of time (or history), then we could also understand the
utterance of Nabokov better, who was more interested in the ‘realm’ of time, being a child of
the nineteenth century.
We could also understand texts better that are “obsessed” with space; observe how
Lakoff and Johnson redirect the conception of time back to spatial conceptions. Foucault
himself already mentions Gaston Bachelard, who has produced an experiential account of our
lived spaces.13 Henri Lefebvre’s work has also been highly influential in the discourse on
space in culture and society, as he develops a Marxist approach to social space.14 Doreen
Massey has taken this approach further, as she has developed a Feminist approach to social
space.15 Edward Soja has attempted in this vein to construct a spatial hermeneutic for the
study that he calls “postmodern geographies.”16 In the sociological theory of art and literature,
Pierre Bourdieu has conceptualized social processes in spatial terms, instead of
conceptualized space as a manifestation of social relations. He has theorized the literary
“field,” that could be “demarcated,” and in which writers could take “prises de positions.”17
In historiography, a discipline that has originally been associated with time, space has
also become a major theme since the ground-breaking work of Pierre Nora; his monumental
Les lieux de mémoire. In this project by multiple historians, spaces and spatial objects are
regarded as remnants of the past, and as constructions of spatial history.18 This approach has
9
Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, memory. An autobiography revisited (London 1967) 19.
Ibidem, 18.
11
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the flesh. The embodied mind and its challenge to western
thought (1999) 141-143, 145-146
12
Michel Foucault, ‘Des espaces autres.’
13
Gaston Bachelard, The poetics of space (New York: Orian Press, 1964).
14
Henri Lefebvre, The production of space (Oxford; Blackwell 1994).
15
Doreen Massey, Space, place and gender (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994).
16
Edward Soja, Postmodern geographies: the reassertion of space in critical social theory (London: Verso,
1990).
17
Pierre Bourdieu, De regels van de kunst. Wording en structuur van het literaire veld (Amsterdam 1994) 276.
18
Pierre Nora, Les lieux de mémoire I. La République (Paris, Évreux and Marigny-le-Châtel 1984).
10
8
also been highly influential, and publications as Simon Schama’s Landscape and memory19
and David Matless’ Landscape and Englishness20 are inspired by this spatial perspective.
These and many more examples of a spatial approach in studies in several fields have led
some authors to believe that there has been a “spatial turn” in various academic disciplines.
Along the lines of Foucault, Thomas Keirstead argues that there has been a ‘crisis’ of time
and narrative, and that a spatial language is emerging in contemporary theory, “with its
mappings, its re- and deterritorializations, its refrains of displacement and dispersal,
discursive fields and subject positions.”21
The various art disciplines have also classically been divided into roughly spatial arts
and temporal arts. This distinction has first been conceptualized by the German
Enlightenment poet and thinker G. E. Lessing, who objected to using strategies and structures
from painting in the writing of literature (drawing on the classical work of Horace). In his
famous analysis of the sculpture group Laocoon he argues that painting and sculpture have an
extension in space, while poetry and literature have an extension in time, and that these
different characters require different strategies.22 Sculpture, painting, photography, and
architecture are static forms, and have are spatially extended: they take up real space, so they
could be displayed in a museum. Art forms like theatre, music and dance are dynamic, and
they do not have a stable spatial extension: they are performed, and do not ‘exist’ as such
before and after their performances. They could thus also not be displayed in a museum.23
Several art movements have consciously tried to break through this theoretical division, such
as the “performance-art” movement.
But film is also a rather difficult case in this theoretical division, although not
consciously like performance art. On the one hand film is a temporal object, which begins at
0.00.00 and ends at 1.26.40, for example. Films are displayed in cinemas, where a projector
‘performs’ the film for an audience in much the same way as in theatre. The projected image
does not have an extension in space. But on the other hand films can be stored as film rolls,
and also film museums exist.24 Video games are in much the same position as film. They
could be stored and distributed (often in the same DVD-cases as commercial films are stored).
They do not yet have a museum, although expositions of games have already been
organized.25 But then again a game is not a game when it is only looked at, and not played.
Game play is first of all action, or performance, as shall be argued more extensively in section
§2.2 and §2.3. In that way the performative (and in that context temporal) aspect is even more
prominent than in film. Games in that respect are to be positioned closer to music and theatre,
which are also ‘liquid’ forms. The importance of spatial analysis of video games is thus not to
be found on the level of the medium, because the medium is spatially and temporally
ambiguous like film (and is perhaps even more ‘performative’), but on the level of the
signifié, or the diegesis; the fictional world that the medium tries to project while trying to
hide itself. The fictional worlds of video games are always some kind of ‘environments’ that
are made to traverse by the player. At the end of this section I will delve deeper into the
19
Simon Schama, Landscape and memory (London: Harper Collins, 1995).
David Matless, Landscape and Englishness (London: Reaktion Books, 1998).
21
Quoted in: Stephen Dodd, Writing home. Representations of the native place in modern Japanese literature
(Cambridge and London 2004) 12.
22
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laocoon: or, The limits of poetry and painting (London: Ridgeway, 1836).
23
Sigrid Leyssen and Koen Vermeir, ‘De film en zijn museum. Over de esthetiek van het verleden,’ in: Bart
vandenabeele and Koen Vermeir eds., Transgressie in de kunst (Budel: Damon, 2004) 46-62. Literature and
poetry, however, do not fit this categorization, as they could be both stored in libraries and other collections, and
they could also be read out loud in public and orated.
24
Ibidem, 46.
25
Ruben Meintema, ‘Next level: Art, Games & Reality’, Gamed.nl (18 March 2006). Online available at:
http://www.gamed.nl/view/15387 (accessed November 2007).
20
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production of the fictional world of a video game, but right now it is needed to complete the
discussion on the divide between spatial and temporal forms across the arts.
Also in the traditionally ‘temporal’ art forms the spatial turn has manifested its
influences. Theatre has been conceptualized as a space that is enclosed by three walls, with
the addition of a fourth imaginary wall.26 And even music has been conceptualized and
visualized in modern music theory as a “musical space,” with high and low tones, a tonal
centre, etc.27
In literature, the oral mode of this art form has been characterized as a fundamentally
temporal mode, and the written form has been characterized as the spatial variant. When
listening to an oral performance of a story, the spoken words are divided from each other in
time, so the ‘temporal’ medium of oral performance is used. But when reading a written story,
the words on the page are divided from each other by spaces, literally and figuratively.
Written (or printed) text is a predominantly ‘spatial’ medium. The 19th-century German
philosopher Arthur Schopenhauper has laid the basis for this distinction. He has argued that
auditive perceptions of the ear are primarily bound up with time, and that visual perceptions
of the eye are predominantly concerned with space. So speech must be tied to time, and
writing must be tied to space. This view has known supporters even in the present time.28
Marshall MacLuhan goes even further than the speech/writing distinction, and argues that
printed text differs fundamentally from hand-written text. Print isolates the sense of sight, and
MacLuhan argues that the medium of print encourages ‘mathematically correct spatial
thinking’ even further than writing. He then analyses the spatial representation of
Shakespeare’s text King Lear and argues that this is the first literary work that constructs a
mathematically correct three-dimensional space, which incorporates a stable ‘point-ofview.’29 In that way, it is the literary equivalent of Masaccio’s Holy Trinity, the first painting
that uses a correct linear perspective.
So with respect to the medium, conventional literature would also be a spatial form.
But when we would regard literature from a narratological perspective, it would be conceived
as a temporal art form. The narrative, as a projection of a fictional time frame on a nonfictional time frame, is basically a temporal form, as I have argued before.30 On the level of
the non-fictional time frame, literature is ambiguous in its tendencies toward spatial or
temporal prominence, but on the level of the fictional world literature requires at least a
minimum of space, otherwise the narrative events would exist in a vacuum. The narrative
events are situated in the fictional world that the work of literature is trying to conjure. The
fundamental difference with gaming, however, is that the space is non-visual and noninteractive. This means that gaps and discontinuities may exist, as they are invisible for the
reader, while in gaming they would cause a diminishing of realism and immersion.
A work of literature conjures a fictional world by the semantic universe, i.e. by all the
possible interpretations that the semantic units (or; words) allow. Within this semantic
universe, a narrative universe may be carved out, centred around the “textual actual world”
26
Gay McAuley, Space in performance: making meaning in the theatre (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2000).
27
Stefano Mengozzi, ‘Constructing difference: the Guidonian hand and the musical space of historical others,’
in: Karl Fugelso and Carol Robinson ed, Medievalism in technology old and new (Cambridge 2008) 99.
28
Michael Kubovy, ‘Should we resist the seductiveness of the space:time::vision:audition analogy?’ Journal of
experimental psychology: human perception and human performance (14:2 (1988) 318.
29
Marshall MacLuhan, The Gutenberg galaxy. The making of typographic man (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1962) 16-17.
30
Ruben Meintema, ‘Time/ space/ narrative: A theory and method of film-to-video-game adaptation,’ paper
presented at the International Conference Science Fiction Across Media: Adaptation/ Novelisation at the
Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium (28 May 2009).
10
that the text proposes to project.31 When we are reading the text, we begin by determining
certain rules for reading it. We have an agreement with the text (or author, or narrator) that we
do not interpret the semantic domain according to a non-fictional reading, but according to a
fictional reading. Just like children in a game of make-believe, who determine the rules to
pretend that “these buckets full of sand are cakes, … I am the sales lady, and you are the
customer,” we start reading fictional literature by determining the rules to pretend that “the
facts told by the narrator are true, and the world he describes is the actual world.”32
But in games rules and fiction do not work in the same way as in literature. In fact, in
many cases rules and fiction oppose each other. For example, when the rules of a game allow
for saving and reloading, this contradicts the rules of the fictional world of the game that try
to convince you that you are in a perilous situation that is life-threatening. According to Juul,
games exist between real rules and fictional worlds that often oppose each other. But on at
least one point rules and fictional worlds converge: game space. The space of the game acts a
part of the rules, because it determines, affords, and limits the player’s movement and action,
but it is also part of (or consists entirely of) the fictional world, because it acts as the diegetic
space of the story.33 The game’s space and the game’s fictional world coincide. This means
that the fictional world is dependent on the space; when the space is ‘broken,’ the player’s
immersion in the fictional world is also ‘broken.’ A rupture in the space is also a rupture in
the fictional world. This would be another reason why an analysis of the (fragmentarity and
continuity of) spatial structures of games is relevant, next to the relevance for the conception
of cognitive routes and maps.
§1.2: The present discourse on space in video games
Like in the discourse of other disciplines in the humanities, in Game Studies the
subject of space has also gained more prominence. Video games have been regarded as
spaces, and are being studied with regard to their spatial properties. This approach could
already be observed in the discussion between the game scholar Henry Jenkins and literary
scholar Mary Fuller Nintendo and New World travel writing from 1995, in which a common
theme of spatial exploration and appropriation was discussed in games and Renaissance
English literature. But in the new millennium this view has become a widely accepted
paradigm, to the point that there has already been talk of a “spatial turn” in Game Studies.34
Space has been recognized as one of the defining and essential properties of video
games, and games in general. Espen Aarseth, Henry Jenkins, Bernadette Flynn, and Georgia
Leigh McGregor all posit spatiality as an essential characteristic of video games, crucial to
understanding the medium correctly.35 I agree that space is one of the crucial characteristics of
games, and an approach with regard to space could produce an understanding of several
practical and theoretical problems in Game Studies. Up until the present, very useful
contributions have been made to the topic of video game space. However, despite how useful
the writing until now has been, there are several things lacking in the approach to video game
space, as I already mentioned in the introduction. I will here examine and analyse the
discourse on video game space, and then criticize it on the points where additions and
31
Marie-Laure Ryan, Possible worlds, artificial intelligence and narrative theory (Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991) 111-112.
32
Ibidem, 23.
33
Juul, Half-real, 188-189.
34
Kücklich, ‘Perspectives on computer …,’.
35
Georgia Leigh McGregor, ‘Situations of play: patterns of spatial use in video games,’ in: Situated play:
proceedings of DiGra 2007 conference (2007) 538-545.
11
different perspectives could be implemented. These consist of the transition from an
‘objective’ approach to game space to a ‘player-centred’ approach, and the transition from an
approach based on the perception of space to an approach based on the conception of space.
The discourse on space in video games has predominantly focussed on the issue of
spatial perception instead of spatial conception. The cognitive scientists John O’Keefe and
Lynn Nadel have argued that while humans have the ability to perceive three-dimensional
space hard-wired in their brains, humans can not directly perceive an entire environment. But
humans are able, just like other animals like birds and rats, to build a ‘cognitive map’ or a
‘cognitive route’ of the environment, so that they can conceive the space that is too large to be
perceived immediately.36 This is also true for the environments of video game space, which
are also too big to be perceived immediately. Despite this, the discourse has focussed more on
spatial perception than on spatial conception. Furthermore, the use of cognitive maps and
routes in video games is crucial for the player, because in most games he has to adopt some
kind of strategy of way-finding because the spaces are so elaborate and complex. However,
this point has been overlooked by most scholars of video games space.
In several writings it has been argued that the way space is built in video games has
strong similarities with the way has been produced in visual arts and film. For example,
Steven Poole argues that space is produced by way of the linear perspective, much as in
Renaissance painting. Bo Walther Kampmann also has a similar argument, but extends the
field of comparison to Modernist art and film.37 Mark J.P. Wolf develops a typology of video
game space on the basis of on- and off-screen space.38 This account is not so much inspired
by spatial analysis of the visual arts, but more on spatial analysis in film studies (although also
in film studies the bodily experience of the viewer has been studied). There is a crucial
difference between space in visual arts and film and space in video games; the space of a
painting or film is in the first place meant to look at, while the space in a video game is also
meant to traverse. That means that the understanding of the space should also focus more on
the way the player conceives it in order to traverse it, instead of only on the way it looks. We
should direct our attention to the spatial conception instead of only the spatial perception.
Furthermore, the role of the player in this account of spatiality is underdeveloped. The
player is supposed to traverse the space, so he should also have a stable link to the spatial
structure of the video game. Laurie Taylor has argued that the treatment of space in video
games should not be based on a geometrical account of perspectives and visuality, but should
instead focus on a spatial structure which incorporates and embodies the player as well. She
describes this as an experiential view of game space. The player should have a stable link to
the game world, and a stable position in this game world. When this link is unstable, the space
of the video game would fall apart, according to Taylor.39 But Taylor is still thinking on the
same level as Poole, Kampmann, and Wolf, as she treats the perception of the game space,
instead of the conception of the game space. Although she already makes the transition from
purely visual space to tactile and participatory space, she does not make the transition from
spatial perception to spatial conception.
Martijn Hendriks argues in a similar vein as Taylor that any account of space in video
games should always include, incorporate and embody the player. It is therefore also an
experiential view on game space. His analysis is not inspired on Jacques Lacan as was
36
John O’Keefe and Lynn Nadel, The hippocampus as a cognitive map (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) 74.
Bo Kampmann Walther,, ‘Space in new media perception – with continual references to computer games and
game graphics’, Hz journal 6 (June 2005). Online available at: http://www.hz-journal.org/n6/kampmann.html
(accessed November 2007).
38
Mark J.P. Wolf, ‘Inventing space: A taxonomy of on- and off-screen space in video games,’ Film quarterly 51,
1 (Autumn 1997) 11-23.
39
Laurie Taylor, ‘When seams fall apart. Video game space and the player’, Game studies 3 (December 2003).
Online available at: http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/taylor/ (accessed January 2008).
37
12
Taylor’s, but on Michel de Certeau and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. His argument goes not in the
direction of maintaining a stable link between player and world, but in the direction of how
the player experiences the game world as a “lived space.”40 In the thinking of Hendriks the
beginnings of a transition to the view of game space beyond the screen, and in the conception
by the player could already be observed. But Hendriks does not make this transition yet. He is
more concerned with the experience and immersion of the player of and in this space.
The Austrialian scholar Darshana Jayemanne also pays attention to the experience of
the player in the game space, and argues that his experience is diffused instead of
concentrated. The perception of game space would because of that have more similarity with
architectural tactile space than with visual space in visual arts, and Jayemanne here goes
against what Poole and Kampmann would argue. Jayemanne’s essay also goes in the direction
of game space as lived space.41 But just as Hendriks, he does not mention the conception of
the game space by the player.
Henry Jenkins, however, is one of the few scholars who envisions the game space as a
whole, and takes steps toward a conception of game space. In his highly influential article
‘Game design as narrative architecture’ he discusses spatial story-telling in video games.
According to his view, narrative in games is laid out through constructed spaces. Game
designers do not simply tell the story, but they design the places that afford narrative events
and narrative video gaming. Jenkins then discusses four types of spatial story-telling in video
games.42 Because a story is conceptualized as a whole by the recipient, the narrative spaces
are also conceived as a whole by the player. This is an important step toward an analysis of
spatial conceptions and spatial structures in video games. But Jenkins’ approach is more
inclined toward the analysis of (spatial properties of) narrative, than of (narrative properties
of) space. Furthermore, although Jenkins treats game environments in their entirety, he argues
from the perspective of the designer, who uses space to tell a story, instead of from the
perspective of the viewer, who cognitively treats the space into a story.
In Jenkins’ later article on game space, ‘The art of contested spaces,’ there is more
attention to the role of the player in game space, and the effects it could have on the player’s
experience. In this article, Squire and Jenkins once again ascertain that space is the essential
component of video gaming. But space is being connected to one of the other recurring
themes of Jenkins’ work: video games as art. So the spaces of video games are characterized
according to artistic influences: Realistic spaces, Expressionist spaces, Romanticist spaces,
Surreal spaces, Atmospheric space, and Social spaces.43 But although the player’s experience
is more incorporated in this analysis of game space, the above types are not actually spatial
structures. It is more a contemplation of the artistic influences on level design.
A study that takes great steps toward a conception of game space based on spatial
structures is Georgia Leigh McGregor’s ‘Situations of play: patterns of spatial use in
videogames.’ McGregor ascertains the importance of spatiality in the understanding of video
games, and argues, like Squire and Jenkins, that all video games are in some way about
40
Martijn Hendriks, ‘De geleefde ruimte van het digitale spel: Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 3 [The lived space
of the digital game: Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 3]’, in: Bart vandenabeele and Koen Vermeir eds.,
Transgressie in de kunst (Budel: Damon, 2004) 21-28.
41
Darshana Jayemanne, ‘Spielraum: games, art and cyberspace’, DAC (2003). Online available at:
http://www.msstate.edu/fineart_online/Backissues/Vol_17/faf_v17_n08/reviews/jayemanne.html (accessed
October 2007).
42
Henry Jenkins, ‘Game design as narrative architecture’, in: Noah Waldrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan eds, First
Person. New media as story, performance, and game (Cambridge and London 2004). Online available at:
http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/games&narrative.html. (accessed October 2008).
43
Kurt Squire and Henry Jenkins, ‘The art of contested spaces,’ in: Lucian King and Conrad Bain eds., Game on
(London: Barbican, 2002). Online available at:
http://interactive.usc.edu/members/peggy/artofcontestedspaces.pdf (accessed January 2009).
13
contested spaces. She then turns to architectural theory, and implements the patterns of spatial
use in real life to the patterns of spatial use in video games. These spatial patterns are
Challenge spaces, Contested spaces, Nodal spaces, Codified spaces, Creation spaces, and
Backdrops.44 This typology will be discussed in more detail in §2.3. McGregor intelligently
discusses spaces in their entirety, so she does not stick to spatial perception instead of spatial
conception, and she incorporates the role of the player in her conception of games space. But
although she recognizes the functions of games space, she projects the functions ‘real’
architectural space on game environments, while I shall argue in §2.3 that game spaces have
functions entirely of their own. So the structures of game environments are missed in this
study.
James Newman has made the most valuable contributions to a perspective on spatial
analysis of spatial structures, and the spatial conceptions that could be produced on their
basis. Newman writes that players have to use some kind of cognitive mapping to navigate
and find the way in the sometimes elaborate game spaces. He hereby refers to the spatial
structures of some games, as he discusses the conventional level structure.45 In this thesis I
will elaborate this approach, and analyse the basic structures of video games which include
the conventional level structure, and I will argue how these structures could give rise the
conception of cognitive maps and routes. In that way Newman’s observations would be
placed into context.
Newman also mentions the importance of contiguity of the game space, that is often
broken by the use of teleports. I will discuss this also in §3.3.2 and §3.6. But in sharp contrast
to McGregor’s argumentation, the patterns of game space are necessarily different from the
patterns of real life space, because game spaces have a different function for the player, such
as finding the way in a maze-like spatial structure that elicits exploration. In this thesis I will
expand Newman’s approach. I will discuss a typology of spatial structures, but my aim is not
to see how these structures are similar or different to spatial structure in reality. It is rather to
see how they could influence the conception of cognitive routes and maps by the player, so
that he can navigate the environment.
My contribution to the discussion on space in video game will thus consist of a
perspective that is first of all not directed to spatial perception but to spatial conception,
because the game space could not be perceived in its entirety and in its essence by the player.
The structures of the game space are of crucial importance to this conception, because they
consist of the ‘textual’ cues on the basis of which the player conceives his cognitive
constructs.
§1.3: Video games in four dimensions
In this subsection I will discuss some aspects of video game, with regard to its
relevance to spatial structures. As I mentioned at the beginning of section §1, game space is
an environment that requires participation, interaction and exploration in order to be
conceived, and thus movement of the player through space. As the player moves through
space, he also moves through time. The place where the player is located is also connected to
the moment in the time it takes to complete the game. Thus, the player’s movement through
the environment also has a temporal aspect
Game time, however, has been viewed predominantly from an ‘objective’ perspective,
based on the structuralist analysis of time in cinema. Parallels between the ‘objective’
44
Leigh McGregor, ‘Situations of play…,’ 538-540.
James Newman, ‘Chapter 7: Videogames, space and cyberspace. Exploration, navigation and mastery,’ in:
James Newman, Videogames (London and New York: Routledge, 2004) 120-122.
45
14
approach of game space of Poole, Wolf, and Walther, as discussed in §1.2, could be observed
here. Jesper Juul argued that the temporal divide in narrative (between ‘story time,’ the
signifié, and ‘plot time,’ the signifiant) does not exist as such in video games. Story time and
plot time take place at exactly the same moment, otherwise the player would not be able to
influence the events that are happening in ‘story time.’46 This is an argument similar, albeit in
different terms, to that of the Russian media scholar Lev Manovich, who has argued that the
screen of new media like the radar (or the video game) depicts events that take place in the
present, otherwise the user would not be able to act on the basis of its information.47 The
argument of Espen Aarseth, who argues that games and stories differ on the point of temporal
orientation to the present and the past, respectively, should also be seen in this vein.48
But as we have seen in the previous subsection, Jenkins regards the story of the video
game not as laid out in the time of the game, but rather in the space or the architecture of the
game. That means that also from a narratological perspective, the place of the player in the
space in the game is parallel to the moment in the story in the game. The American game
scholar Michael Nitsche has criticized what he calls the ‘formalist’ approach to video game
time, which is parallel to the structuralist approach based on film studies. He further discusses
the ‘experiential’ approach, which is connected to the time the player spends in the game.
Nitsche attempts to synthesize these approaches in a combined perspective on video game
time. Instead of formalistically viewing the time the player has spent, or experientially
viewing the position of the player in the time he takes to complete the game, Nitsche proposes
to view game time in its connection to game space. The position or advancement of the player
in the total playing time is then connected to the position of the player in the game space.
Nitsche: “Space can serve as an architectural structure element and temporal conditioning.”49
Space and time are intertwined in games. The continuity of the spatial structure
determines also the continuity of temporal experience and the movement through the game.
“Spatial continuity does not imply temporal realism but consistency.”50 This statement
reminds us of the very thoughtful insight of Newman; video game spatial structures are not
experienced as realistic if they resemble spatial structures of reality, but when they could be
explored consistently and conceived as contingent by the player. We shall see in §3.5 that
time adds to the experience of continuity and seamlessness of the game space
With Nitsche’s article the circle from space to time and back has been completed.
Time in games is conceived in strong connection to game space, much like Lakoff and
Johnson’s spatial conceptualization of time, which we discussed at the beginning of this
section. This insight is simultaneously a strong claim for the essential spatiality of video
games, and a claim for the immersive properties of continuous spatial structures of video
games, and their importance in the conjuration of the fictional world of the game. In this
Master Thesis I will delve deeper into these spatial structures, so that the understanding of
playing performance and playing experience could be enhanced.
The existing discourse on video game space has progressed in a direction that is useful
because it takes medium specificity increasingly into account. Several steps have been taken
46
Jesper Juul, ‘Games telling stories?’ in: Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein eds., The handbook of computer
game studies (Cambridge and London 2005) 222-223.
47
Manovich, The language of new media, 99.
48
Espen Aarseth, ‘Quest games as post-narrative discourse,’ in: Marie-Laure Ryan ed., Narrative across media.
The languages of storytelling (Lincoln and London 2004) 369.
49
Michael Nitsche, ‘Mapping time in video games,’ in: Situated play. Proceedings of DiGra 2007 conference
(2007) 147.
50
Nitsche, ‘Mapping time in,’ 147.
15
to achieve this. First of all, the approach that is too heavily indebted to film studies and visual
arts has been replaced by an approach that attempts to take the player into account. The
analyses of the construction of linear perspective and the status of off-screen space are no
doubt useful, but does not account for the specific appropriation of this space by the
percipient/user of a video game.
The first step was to recognize that the player needs to be embodied in this space as
well by way of his avatar, and thus in a much more literal way than in the situation in
literature and cinema. The second step was to recognize specific levels of spatial engagement,
which goes explicitly beyond representation into spatial practices and ‘lived space.’ The third
step was to acknowledge that game space is not homogeneous but could in fact be categorized
on the basis of different structures. The fourth innovation (following this line of thought, not
necessarily this chronology) was that these game structures were not implementations of
spatial structures in reality, but that they follow an internal logic of the video game, and that
the spatial structures could function in the game as explorative, challenging, and immersive.
The final step that I would like to take is to analyse the spatial structures on the level
of the spatial conception instead of the spatial perception. A game environment is too large to
be perceived, and should necessarily be conceived by the player. In this thesis I will
investigate how spatial structures could afford, guide, and limit the spatial conception of the
player, and influence the construction of either a cognitive map or route.
I will also take the next step, and investigate a large array of possible spatial structures
in existing video games. Each video game could possibly be categorized in one of the types
that I will discuss in this thesis. This analytical discussion will take place in §4, and will
function as a practical argumentation for my theoretical contribution as well. But next will
follow the theoretical foundation for this approach to video game space.
§2: An approach to video game space
In this section I will explain the theoretical foundations of my approach to video game
space. First I will explain the central concepts of cognitive maps and routes, and relate them
to games. Then I will discuss several standpoints on the ontology of game space. I will show
how game space has been treated from a realist perspective, which argues that game space
exists before and after the performance of game play (which consists of a collaboration of
player actions and computer actions), and I will discuss constructivist perspectives. The
extreme constructivist perspective argues that game space is never real but always an optical
illusion. The moderate constructivist perspective argues that game space is temporarily real
during game play, but disappears before and after performance. My approach uses this last
ontological standpoint. From this discussion of theoretical ontology I will delve deeper into
practical ontology, and discuss the ‘atoms’ of which game space are built up. In §2.3 I will
argue for another crucial theoretical point in my approach to game space; the prominence of
of player actions in the performance of game space. It will be argued that the possible player
actions determine the function of game space, and thus the structure of it. The functionalist
approach to game spaces should always take the possible player actions into account. Finally,
I will discuss the relationship between the player and his avatar, as the avatar is the instrument
of the player’s actions. The avatar is the instrument through which the player explores,
appropriates and eventually cognitively conceives of the game environment. Understanding
the link between these two actionable entities is thus central to my approach.
16
§2.1: Cognitive maps and routes in video games
As we have seen in §1.2 the approach to video game space has moved from an
‘objective’ approach to a ‘player-centred’ approach, but scholars have thus far neglected to
view game space as something that should be conceived and participated in, instead of only
something that should be looked at perceived. The French philosopher Henri Lefebvre has
already distinguished between “perceived space” and “conceived space” in his book The
production of space.51 The latter is the space as it is conceived by city planners, architects,
project developers, geographers, etc. The former is the space as it is perceived by the subject,
the user of the space. Game developers have had a conception of the game spaces that they
are designing, and this conception is implemented in the actual video game. But the player has
no direct access to this conception, because, usually, game environments are too large to be
overseen by immediate perception, just like real environments. This means that the player has
to build up his own conception of the game space (that is nevertheless based upon his
perception and movement through this environment). Environmental psychology, behavioural
geography, and cognitive studies have all attended to the question of how this process actually
works.
The British cognitive scientists John O’Keefe and Lynn Nadel have shown why there
is a crucial difference between spatial perception and spatial conception. With spatial
perception there is a perceiving subject and a perceived object. But with spatial conception
there is an environment that could not be perceived directly, but that has to be conceived. So
there is also no perceiving subject and perceived object, but rather there is a conceived
environment in which there is a participant.52 In video games this situation is no different. The
game space could not be perceived in its entirety, only parts of it, so the space has to be
conceived by the player in order to successfully navigate it. The player is not the subject of
the space as an object, but rather he is a participant in the game environment that surrounds
him.
The spatial perception refers to the space that the player could perceive, so it is the
space that is on-screen. Wolf considers in his article ‘Inventing space: Toward a taxonomy of
on- and off-screen space in video games’53 for the most part the on-screen space. The part of
the space that is off-screen is not considered to be part of the spatial conception of the player,
only to be out of the spatial perception of the player. According to the Dutch-Belgian art
collective JoDi, there is no off-screen game space; there is only the on-screen space that is
produced by what they call “perspective machines.” By continuously changing the
perspective, the illusion of dynamic three-dimensional space is created.54 This point will be
further elaborated in §3.2. Newman points to the fact that off-screen space could be perceived
auditively or tactilely, albeit not visually, with the help of devices such as the ‘rumble
function’ and surround sound: “The important consequence is that the game space is afforded
a greater holism and the player is encouraged to remember that the gameworld persists
outside and beyond the window of the screen.”55 Alexander Galloway agrees with the notion
of the possible conception of off-screen space, as modern video game designers attend to “the
construction of a complete space in advance that then is exhaustively explorable without
montage” resulting in a “fully rendered, actionable space.”56 This is a realist perspective on
51
Andy Merrifield, Henri Lefebvre. A critical introduction (New York and London 2006) 109.
O’Keefe and Nadel, The hippocampus, 74.
53
Wolf, ‘Inventing space’.
54
Francis Hunger, ‘Perspective engines: an interview with JODI’, in: Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell eds.,
Videogames and art (Bristol and Chicago 2007) 156.
55
Newman, Videogames, 125.
56
Galloway, Gaming, 63-64.
52
17
the ontology of virtual space, which will be discussed in section §2.2. Although Galloway
misses the nuances discussed in §2.2, that space is produced by the player as well, he is right
to believe that there is an off-screen space that could possibly be conceived by the player. In
order to navigate the space, this is a requirement.
There are several ways to conceive of a certain space. Michel de Certeau has
distinguished between two ways in which people tend to describe their apartment from the top
of their heads: the map and the tour. The tour describes the space from the ‘egocentric’
perspective, as if a narrator guides you through the apartment: first you have the hallway, then
you turn left into the kitchen, and then you walk straight through to the bathroom, etc. The
map is a description that does not imply a moving ‘egocentric’ perspective, but rather an
‘objective’ perspective: the hallway is in the middle of the apartment, with the kitchen to the
southwest, and the bathroom to the northwest, and the bedroom is in the northeast corner,
etc.57 For video games this distinction is very useful, as the player also conceives of the game
space either in terms of the map or of the tour. Jenkins and Fuller in Nintendo and New World
travel writing (1995) have argued how a video game turns a ‘map’ into a ‘tour,’ as the
designed space of the designer is appropriated by the player through his exploration and
spatial practices.58 The Dutch scholar Sybille Lammes has deployed the theory of De Certeau
to the game of Civilization, and suggests that in modern games the concepts of map and tour
have converged, and could not be readily separated anymore.59
The philosophical concepts of ‘maps’ and ‘tours’ bear very much similarity with the
scientific concepts from cognitive psychology of ‘maps’ and ‘routes.’ The ‘map’ is a “unitary
and absolute” representation of space, in which the relations between locations are
represented, and the tour is an “egocentric and relative” representation of space, in which the
relation between the subject and objects in space are represented. Most neural mechanisms
work to produce the latter type of spatial conception, but at least one neural mechanism works
to produce a mental unitary and absolute spatial conception.60 O’Keefe and Nadel have
investigated how certain parts of our brain, especially the hippocampus, produce cognitive
maps of our environment. These cognitive maps are the cognitive foundation of our ability to
conceive of a space that could not be directly perceived. O’Keefe and Nadel discuss the
spatial behaviour of animals like birds and rats, and of primitive peoples. It appeared from a
famous experiment with rats in a maze that these creatures base their spatial behaviour on
maps instead of on tours. A rat was placed in the beginning of the tunnel, while the snack was
located at the other end of the tunnel, which bended off to the right. When a sunray-shaped
maze was added to this tunnel, a straight route to the snack appeared. The rats took the new
tunnel that led straight to the goal, instead of the tunnel that they previously used but that
detoured to the goal. This means that the rats remembered the location of the goal in a
cognitive map, instead of the route to that goal.61 Other experiments revealed that rats could
also use cognitive routes to navigate through a space, but it also appeared that rats would
rather go the same place from various directions, than that they would reach several places
through the same route. This proved the dominance of cognitive maps over cognitive routes.62
The distinction between routes and maps is artistically illustrated by the Dutch artist
Frank Dresme with his art work 360º. This work consisted of a number of three-dimensional
maps of his hometown Amsterdam, the city in which he got lost repeatedly. So he drew a
57
De Certeau, The practice of, 117-121.
Newman, Videogames, 108.
59
Sybille Lammes, ‘Playing the world: computer games, cartography, and spatial stories,’ Aether. The journal of
media geography (summer 2008) 91.
60
61
Ibidem, 71.
62
Ibidem, 73.
58
18
series of maps that consist of the landmarks that he encountered on his routes through the city.
But this kind of route-map could probably not be used outside of an artistic context. The
disadvantages of routes are that they are relatively inflexible; the chain of the entire route
would break down if one landmark would be missing or altered. Furthermore, the route has a
distinct goal and intention for constructing it, while the map could be used for several
purposes.63
The cognitive research of O’Keefe and Nadel is extremely relevant for the study of
spatiality in games. For example, we could examine what kind of spatial structure is most
efficient for the production of a cognitive map in the mind of the player (and play with this
process; withhold information for example that the player has to fill in himself, or lead the
player in the wrong direction, or structure the space in such a way that would most challenge
the hippocampus of the player). Furthermore, the differences in spatial behaviour between
men and women64 could be implemented in the spatial structures of video games, so that
games could fit with several target groups better.
Also, the spatial behaviour and spatial reasoning seems to be different in different
cultures and in different languages. In some languages the spatial orientation is conceived in
an absolute way, while in other languages the spatial reasoning is conceived in a relative way.
In languages like Dutch and Japanese, the spatial reasoning is relative, which means that the
orientation is always relative to the speaker. An object is located next to the speaker, or
behind the listener. In other languages, like Guugu Yimithirr (that the Aboriginals speak), in
which the orientation is absolute, objects are described to be north of the speaker, for
example, or southeast of the addressee.65 It has also been found that spatial orientation is
different in Polynesian peoples, like the Pulawatans. The Pulawatans do not conceive of
travelling as a moving traveller going through the static environment, but rather as a static
traveller through which the environment moves.66 This is consistent with the concept of
Dream Time of the Aboriginals, who also conceive of travelling in the same way. Finally, it
would be interesting to investigate the spatial behaviour in video games by deaf people. Deaf
people would miss a lot of auditive clues as to where opponents and objects are located, but
on the other hand their spatial insight is usually stronger than hearing people, due to the
spatial character of sign language, and their heightened attention to visual clues.
So this cognitive research would be interesting, because it would give more insight in
the spatial abilities of the player, which could then be adjusted according to the effect that
should be reached by the designer, and furthermore because games could better be adjusted to
different target groups. But the third and most important reason why this research would be
interesting is because different spatial structures would require different spatial conceptions.
In the video game Wonder Boy in Monster Land (1988) for example, the fictional world is
divided up into 9 different areas, which are not retraceable when completed. This makes it
relatively harder to conceive of the space as a whole. This spatial structure is of the type of
‘fragmentary space with linear continuity,’ as discussed in §3.2. Indeed the game is quite
linear; there is almost always only one direction to go, so there is not much need for either a
cognitive map or a cognitive route. But the last level is a maze, so here the spatial abilities of
the player are put to the test. The maze is built from pathways that lead to several T- or Yjunctions. Usually, only one of these directions of the junction is correct, and if the player
chooses the wrong one, he is thrown back to the beginning. This maze does not allow the
player to construct a coherent cognitive map, because the spatial structure is not internally
63
O’Keefe and Nadel, The hippocampus, 87-89.
As discussed for example in Iris Young, On feminist body experience. “Throwing like a girl” and other essays
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
65
Peter Gray, Psychology (New York: Worth Publishing, 2007) 358-360.
66
64
19
consistent; passages that are located beyond the place where you started the movement, could
lead you back to this exact same place. So in this space the player needs to construct a
cognitive route; he has to remember landmarks in the maze, at which he has to make a right or
left turn, or up or down. There is only one correct way through the maze, so by trial-and-error
the player has to find this route and remember it. A map is not relevant here, because a
conception of the relations between different places in the space is not needed (in fact, these
relations are illogical, so a map would also be impossible to draw). In games with other
spatial structures, like the ‘continuous space without cuts’ or ‘seamless spaces,’ as discussed
in §3.5, the relations between places in the space are very relevant, and the player has to
remember certain places in the game space to which he has to return at a given time. In this
type of game, the conception of a cognitive map by the player should be encouraged. Of
course, the designer could well play with spatial structures that require different spatial
behaviour by the player.
In this thesis I am going to analyse the ‘textual’ side of this cognitive process. The
player does not construct a cognitive map or a cognitive route out of nothing; he needs visual,
auditive, and tactile cues from the game, as well as the opportunity to interact with and
explore the environment through available actions. The visual clues will be discussed in this
§2.2. The actions that the player has at his disposal will be discussed in §2.3. On the basis of
these cues and these actions, the player is able to construct a cognitive map or a cognitive
route.
§2.2: The ontology of video game space: ‘Liquid Architecture’
Om niet achter te blijven ga ik wandelen. Voorzichtig
door de straten want de stad bedenkt zich
slechts een bocht op mij vooruit. Ik nader de leegte
van de nog niet ontstane stad schoorvoetend.67
In order to not to stay behind I start walking. Carefully
through the streets because the city thinks itself
only one corner ahead of me. I approach the emptiness
of the not yet existing city hesitantly.
We have discussed the importance of the analysis of conceptions of game space,
instead of keeping the analysis limited to the analysis of the perception of game space,
because game spaces are environments that could not be perceived immediately. But without
perception, the conception of game space would also not be possible. The two sources of
spatial conception are perceptual clues and possible actions. In this subsection I will discuss
the perceptual clues that make up the environments of games, show of what kind of atoms the
spaces are built up, and discuss their ontological status.
Video game space is an ontologically difficult phenomenon. What is the ontological
status of a virtual world? Several game theorists have spoken on this subject. Their visions are
distinguishable in what I would call constructivist and realist standpoints. The constructivist
conception finds that video game space is not in existence before it is perceived by the player.
Before and after the audiovisual manifestation of the space on the screen, the space exists
exclusively as a long list of binary code. Extreme constructivist views argue that video game
space is not even in existence when perceived, because three-dimensional space is only an
effect of a constantly changing perspective. The realist standpoint holds that game space
67
Maria Barnas, Er staat een stad op (Amsterdam 2007) 38.
20
exists before the player enters it, and keeps existing after playing. The realist perspective is
represented by Galloway’s view, as discussed in section §2.1 about conceptions of off-screen
space. The moderate constructionist perspective views game space as a space that is
performed, by the player as well as by the computer. Before and after the actual play, the
game space collapses back into one and zeros. This view is represented by Steven Poole, who
argues that “If architecture is frozen music, then a videogame is liquid architecture.”68 The
game space thus only exists when it is performed, like music. I will adhere in this thesis to the
moderate constructivist perspective, hence the title of this subsection ‘Liquid Architecture.’
An example of the extreme constructivist view will be shown at the end of this chapter.
For the German philosopher Immanuel Kant space was one of the two primary
categories of the mind (along with time). For Kant these mental categories exist before the
sensory perception. This also means that the mental category of space always precedes the
perception of space. So the space that we think we objectively perceive, is actually produced
in our own minds. For the Danish game scholar Kampmann this is one of the reasons that led
him to his constructionist view of spatial perception in computer graphics.69 The
constructionist perspective on space could be traced back to Kant’s thinking, and to cognitive
thinking as well. This is because space is produced in the first place in the mind. In video
games, space is produced by an artificial mind: the computer, but also by the perceiving
subject/player. The player enters a part of the space of the video game, and then the computer
calculates how it should look on the screen. The player then uses these visual cues to produce
the space in his own mind. The manner how this actually works in video games is poetically
described by the above poem ‘De stad bedenkt zich’ by the Dutch poet Maria Barnas.
In this poem we could observe how the city ‘thinks’ itself at the moment that the
subject of the poem enters it. It is the participating subject that creates the city and brings it
into existence by travelling through it. So one could also argue that the subject is the creator
of the city in this poem, and that it is actually about solipsism. But it is also the city that acts
as the creator of itself. In the poem ‘Er staat een stad op’ (A city stands up), which is also the
title of the poem collection, the participating and perceiving subject is in an elevator, and
watches the city as she goes down. Here also the logic is turned around, and it is shown as if
the city itself stands up, much like the spatial orientation of the Pulawatans and Aboriginals in
§2.1. Here also the city acts on its own. Space in video games is also created only when you
encounter it. The amount of space that is out of view, is also out of existence. It exists on that
moment only in programming code, in ones and zeros. When the player goes around the
corner, the computer ‘thinks’ the space in existence on the basis of how the programming
code says it should look behind that corner.
This production of video game space is also well illustrated in visual arts, in the
painting La tentative d’impossible from 1928 as seen in image 1. It is as if the painter, as a
character in the painting itself, is producing the image in ‘real-time.’ But he is slightly late.
We see him making it, so there is a ‘lag’ in the production of space. It should be ready exactly
on the moment that we turn the corner, but now we see it being produced before our eyes.
68
Steven Poole, Trigger happy. Videogames and the entertainment revolution (New York 2000) 226.
Bo Kampmann Walther, ‘Space in new media perception – with continual references to computer games and
game graphics’, Hz journal 6 (June 2005). Online available at: http://www.hz-journal.org/n6/kampmann.html
69
21
Image 1. La tentative d’impossible by René Magritte (1928)
The experience and conception of space, that is fundamental to the poetry of Maria
Barnas and to every video game, are recognizable in the spatial analyses of De Certeau in his
The practice of everyday life. In this work De Certeau discusses two different modes of
perception of the urban space of New York City: from the 110th floor of the World Trade
Center, and from the ground. From the ground the space is being perceived in the mode of
walking through the city: “The ordinary practitioners of the city live ‘down below,’ below the
thresholds at which visuality begins. They walk – an elementary form of this experience of
the city: they are walkers, Wandersmänners, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an
urban ‘text’ they write without being able to read it.”70
From De Certeau’s writing it becomes apparent that the city is not a space that already
objectively exists, but that it is written in ‘real-time’ by the ‘user’ of that space. This is exactly
the way it works in Er staat een stad op and in video games. The walker (or player) is not able
to perceive the environment immediately. He has to construct a cognitive map or route in
order to know where he is. Elsewhere in The practice of everyday life De Certeau writes that
the movement of these pedestrians could also be read, namely as a ‘spatial story’: “In short,
space is a practiced place. Thus the street geometrically defined by urban planning is
transformed into a space by walkers. In the same way, an act of reading is the space produced
by the practice of a particular place: a written text, i.e. a place constituted by a system of
signs.”71
It also becomes apparent from De Certeau’s discussion that the space that pedestrians
produce is predominantly haptic, while the space that the person on top of the WTC creates is
predominantly optic. The pedestrians move “below the thresholds at which visuality begins,”
because they can not oversee the urban space from their perspective. Moreover, their physical
bodies follow the “thicks and thins” of the city, they use their bodies as tentacles to feel the
streets, buildings, corners, stairs, and other spatial elements, in order to navigate through it.
This is well illustrated by the short story ‘City of glass’ by Paul Auster, in which a detective
follows a suspect around that seems to walk a random path everyday. But after a few days of
puzzling, the detective switches from ‘walker mode’ to ‘WTC mode’ and he draws the walks
of the suspect onto a map. Each walk appears to be a letter, and everyday the suspect has
added a letter to the message he was literally writing. But the only way to read it was to
70
71
Michel de Certeau, The practice of everyday life (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London 1984) 91-93
Ibidem, 117.
22
switch to ‘visual mode.’72 Of course walkers also have eyes, and they do not literally feel their
way through the city, touching every wall. But we can say that the space is perceived
haptically, because the walker can move around any object, as if he perceived a sculpture,
something that the person on the WTC could never do. He is characterized as a ‘voyeur’ by
De Certeau. But the voyeur does have the advantage of the visual overview that the walker is
lacking normally. That is why the detective in ‘City of Glass’ had to switch to a whole other
mode of perception and way of thinking.
Both modes of spatial perception are prominent in video games. The ‘walker mode’ is
present in games with an avatar, games that have in other words an intra-diegetic (or: direct)
point-of-action.73 This means that the player acts in the fictional world through an intradiegetic character. These are the games that we are discussing in the present study, because
these games usually have the highest level of ‘narrativity’ and thus a fictional world. Because
these worlds allow for a perception that is closer to our ‘everyday’ perception, they are the
most relevant for a discussion of the construction of cognitive maps and cognitive routes. The
‘WTC mode’ is present in games without an avatar, that have an extra-diegetic (or: indirect)
point-of-action. This means that the player does not have a coordinate in the fictional world
through which he acts, but he acts directly on the screen, for example with a cursor. These are
mostly strategy games like SimCity and Civilization. In these games it is important to have an
overview of your city or your empire, respectively, so a perspective from high above is
convenient.
Hendriks has worked on a phenomenology of the video game, with the conceptual
frame work of De Certeau as a theoretical basis, and the video game Grand Theft Auto III
(2001) as a case study. The game is set in a fictional urban environment named Liberty City,
with many clear references to New York City. The player is able to move around in the city
by foot, by car, by train, or by boat. It was a revolutionary game when it was first released in
2001, because of the extensive freedom that the player had at his disposal in the virtual city,
with regard to both the possible actions as to freedom of movement. It has started a trend in
game design across genres, an influence that could be observed to this day.
Hendriks distinguishes three levels of spatiality in the video game. First there is the
‘designed space.’ This is the space as first conceptualized and then realized by city planners,
architects, and in the case of GTA III game designers. But game designers could not entirely
control the factor of the player, and his role in the construction of the space. These are what
Hendriks calls, after De Certeau, ‘spatial practices.’ On this level the player could explore the
city on his own, in his own tempo and by routes chosen by himself.74
The third and last level that Hendriks described is the “physical lived experience,”75
which is particular mode of being-in-space, and which is embodied specifically in GTA III.
On this level he turns from De Certeau and is inspired by the French philosopher Maurice
Merleau-Ponty particularly, who has argued that spatial experiences are grounded in the
moving body of the perceiving subject. Hendriks then argues that in video games “the way we
are in space, and the way that this differs from and could exist simultaneously with the
embodiment that we experience in the real space, is such an important aspect of the
experience of video games that the diversity [of immersion and ways of being-in-space]
72
Paul Auster, ‘City of glass,’ in: The New York trilogy (London 1999).
The ‘point of action’ is a concept from Britta Neitzel, who uses it to complement the concept of ‘point of
view,’ which is alone not sufficient to understand the relationship between the player and the game space. The
point-of-action is the point through which the player has agency in the game world. This point could be extradiegetic, located outside of the game’s fictional world, or intra-diegetic, located inside the fictional world. See:
Britta Neitzel, ‘Narrativity in computer games,’ in: Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein eds., Handbook of
computer game studies (Cambridge and London 2005) 227-245.
74
Hendriks, ‘De geleefde ruimte…,’ 22-23.
75
Ibidem, 26.
73
23
becomes larger instead of smaller.”76 Hendriks holds a moderate constructivist view of game
space, as he argues that space is produced by the designer as well as by the player. Without
the player’s spatial practices, the virtual world would be lifeless.
The ontology of virtual space is thus dependent upon the actions of the player, but it is
evenly dependent on the actions of the computer. The computer calculates the space into
existence “on the fly,” as we have seen at the beginning of this subsection. The computer has
roughly two building blocks, or ‘atoms,’ at his disposal in order to do this. In the years
between roughly 1980 and the mid 1990s game space was built from pixels. A pixel is a
screen element, and thus a property of the flat surface of the screen. Two-dimensional games
are built up from these two-dimensional elements. A standard television screen from the era
of Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario had a resolution of 720×576 pixels, and the present
HD-TVs have a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The more pixels, the more detailed the sprite
(a moving object built from pixels) is. A sprite is designed to move in certain ways, so every
sprite has a limited number of ‘forms’ into which it can move, much like an interactive
cartoon. Apart from these pre-programmed forms, the sprite has no existence.
Due to a combination of technological improvements and the drive to depict space and
reality as naturalistic as possible, the linear perspective was developed in video game design.
With the release of the Sony PlayStation in 1995, which had much more processing power
than its predecessors, the transition from two-dimensional games to three-dimensional ones
had begun. The transition was made from pixels to polygons. Characters and objects were
made also of polygons instead of pixels. They were not quasi-dynamic sprites but they were
fully dynamic polygon models. ‘Polygon’ comes from the ancient Greek for ‘many corners,’
and it denotes the technique of building three-dimensional models made up of lines that are
cornered at as many points as possible. Because of this premise round and circular shapes and
bodies require much more corners, much more processing power, and are thus much more
expensive than square shapes and bodies. On the other hand, these models are much more
dynamic than sprites, in that they can be bent in much more positions, in the same way as the
dummy figures that fine artists use.77
For the Sony PlayStation a platform game was released that made use of the
possibilities of this new processing power: Crash Bandicoot (1996). The game’s main
character Crash is a polygon model instead of a sprite. So the spatial design is threedimensional. But still Crash Bandicoot is a hybrid game that is stuck halfway between the
two-dimensional and three-dimensional era. Although the characters and the fictional world
are built up of polygons, the game play is still grounded in the two-dimensional era. The game
consists of two types of spatial movement. One of them is straightforward side-scrolling, in
which the character can move left and right, and jump up and down. This is exactly the type
of movement and game play of Sonic and Mario. But this is the smallest part of the game
play, and it occurs only a few times in the game. The largest part consists of the game consists
of three-dimensional game play, or at least quasi-three-dimensional. The character can move
in all directions, and also jump up and down. But the level design of this main game play
consists of narrow paths, from which the player can not escape. So it is as if the point-of view
of the two-dimensional platform games, that was somewhere from the side, is turned behind
the character, so that you do not see the character from the side but from the back, and you see
the level not from the side but from the back. But the level is still almost a straight line from
which you can not depart.
These polygon models made the mathematically correct three-dimensional video game
space possible, including the linear perspective. But this space is actually an illusion held up
76
Hendriks, ‘De geleefde ruimte…,’ 28.
Ruben Meintema, ‘Begrippenlijst,’ in: Skylla Janssen and Micha van der Meer, De game-industrie. Een
inleiding (Amsterdam: Boom Onderwijs, 2007) 190-205.
77
24
by the constantly changing linear perspective, according the extreme constructionist
perspective. The Belgian-Dutch artist duo JoDi produce art works that are in fact modified
video games. Examples of their art works are SOD, which is a modification of one of the
earliest video games to use the linear perspective: Wolfenstein 3D (1992), and Untitled Game,
which is a modification of the First Person Shooter Quake (1996). They have stripped the
game to what they thought was the bare essentials of the video game, so that the only thing
that was left of the game was a black screen with white lines and white squares. The squares
were enemies, and the white lines were the perspective lines with which the video game space
was constructed. JoDi explain that they wanted to show that video game space is in fact an
illusion. There is no space through which the player travels. The only thing that a video game
does is draw a perspective painting 24 times per second, every time in a slightly different
position, so that the illusion of spatial movement is produced. Games are not spaces but
“perspective engines,’ according to JoDi.78
This argument was made by an art duo, but in fact they have pointed to a fundamental
insight gained from perceptual psychology and optics. There are several biological causes of
spatial perception in humans and other species. One of them is stereoscopic vision. This is a
well-known fact; it means that the retinal projection of the left eye differs slightly from that of
the right eye, and space in inferred from this. But humans do not only have two eyes, they
also have legs so they can move. This movement is also a cause of spatial perception, as is the
primary argument of the Space through movement.79 The video game as a “perspective
machine” would be simulating exactly this biological cause for spatial perception.
As we have seen, both the actions of the player and the actions of the computer are
essential for the possibility of the construction of a cognitive map or route by players. The
computer depicts the visual (and auditive, tactile, etc.) clues on the screen for the player to
read. These cues disappear when the space is not in use, and the computer stops depicting it.
On the basis of the (visual, audititive, tactile, etc.) information from the screen, the player
navigates the space. But because the entire game space is never in existence simultaneously,
the player could not perceive it entirely. He has to build a map or a route of the environment
for himself. In order to do that, he needs to be able to navigate and interact with the space, in
other words participate in it. These actions that enable the player to navigate and participate in
the space will be discussed it the next subsection. These are the ‘spatial practices’ of
Hendriks, discussed earlier in this subsection.
§2.3: Game space as a theatre for actions
“Games are actions. Let this be word one for video game theory.”80 Video games are
software, so they are written in code. This code remains static, and indeed meaningless, until
it has been activated by the player and the machine. Code is the only language that does what
it says. Code is only meaningful when it runs. And at runtime, code actually moves. Code
effects physical change in a very literal sense. Logic gates open and close, as electrons flow.81
These are the computer’s actions that project the space on the screen.
78
Francis Hunger, ‘Perspective engines: an interview with JODI’, in: Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell eds.,
Videogames and art (Bristol and Chicago 2007) 156.
79
C.J. Overbeeke and M.H. Stratmann, Space through movement. A method for three-dimensional image
presentation (Dissertation for the Technical University of Delft 1988) 20.
80
Alexander Galloway, ‘Gamic action, four moments,’ in: Gaming. Essays on algorithmic culture (Minneapolis
and London 2006) 2.
81
Ibidem, 2-5.
25
Programming code is a kind of language that is not only semantic and syntactic, but
also machinic. Its meaning consists of what it does. Without being able to have effects in the
machine, code is useless and meaningless, as the literary scholar N. Katherine Hayles has
pointed out.82 The language in which the machine and the player communicate in the context
of the game is action. The machine acts, and the player reacts, and vice versa.
This is not only true from a philosophical point-of-view; also game designers know
that games are actions. The legendary Japanese game designer Shigeru Yamamoto, who
designed the Mario series and the Zelda series, is known to design his games around one
verb.83 Mario is originally called ‘jump man,’ and indeed his most characterizing feature is his
extra-ordinary ability to jump. The Legend of Zelda series is inspired on Miyamoto’s
childhood memories of his exploration of the forest behind his house, and examining all kinds
of objects and animals. Furthermore, the name of the game Pac-man (1980) is inspired on the
Japanese ‘pakku pakku taberu,’ an onomatopoeic phrase which means ‘to stuff’ or ‘to eat
crunchingly.’ Indeed, eating white dots is Pac-man’s main action. Also the legendary British
game designer Chris Crawford has explained that the best way of conceiving of a complex
game and to summarize its essence is to make a verb list.84
These actions do not take place in a vacuum. They have to have a space, an
environment, a theatre to take place in.85 According to Jayemanne, space and actions are the
two most important elements of video games: “Player accounts are structured around action,
around environment, around activity.”86 According to Jenkins, Miyamoto works especially
with this relationship between action and space: “Miyamoto creates the spaces that facilitate
and thwart the actions of the player.”87 If games are performances, as many game researchers
have argued,88 then video game space is the theatre for this player performance. Jane
McGonigal even goes as far as to state: “I claim all digital games in the name of theatre.”89
So game space should always be understood in relation to the actions that take place in
it. It should always be understood as a functional space. Manovich discusses two computer
games, which both share the common characteristic of being a “spatial journey.” But the
differences are also discussed. While in Doom (1993) the player moves in straight lines, and
turns abruptly at right angles to enter another corridor, in Myst (1993) the player slowly
explores the environment: “She may look around for a while, go in circles, return to the same
place over and over, as though performing an elaborate dance.”90 In this discussion by
Manovich it becomes clear that game space exists in conjuncture with the actions that the
player performs in them, and that different action patterns are to be connected with different
spatial structures. Aarseth also discusses Myst, and compares it with Myth (1997). He argues
that the space in Myst exists for the player to be explored, much in the same line as Manovich,
82
N. Katherine Hayles, My mother was a computer. Digital subjects and literary texts (London and Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2005) 49.
83
Henry Jenkins, ‘Games, the new lively art’, in: Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein eds., Handbook of
Computer Game Studies (Cambridge London 2005) 182.
84
Chris Crawford, Chris Crawford on game design (Indianapolis: New Riders Games, 2003) 282-287.
85
This is true for most games, and particularly most video games. However, one could also imagine certain card
games that are played ‘somewhere between the hands of the players,’ and that do not have a clearly bounded or
concentrated space to take place. But even these card games usually have a space on the table on which to place
the stack and on which to place your cards.
86
Jayemanne, ‘Spielraum’.
87
Jenkins, ‘Games, the new…,’ 182.
88
For example: Henry Jenkins, ‘Games: the new lively art’; James Paul Gee, ‘Video games: a new artform’,
Games and culture 1 (January 2006) http://www.gamesandculture.com, (accessed October 2007) 59; Brenda
Laurel, Computers as theatre (London 1993); Jane McGonigal, ‘All game play is performance: the state of the
art game,’ (13 May 2005) www.avantgame.com (accessed October 2007).
89
McGonigal, ‘All game play…’.
90
Manovich, The language of, 244.
26
but that the space in Myth is actually a territory over which players fight to possess it. Every
game of Myth is a fight for position in the landscape.91 This is consistent with the claim of
Jenkins and Squire that games are an “art of contested spaces.”92 But the game play of Myth
leads to a different spatial structure than Myst.
Aarseth argues that the spaces of Myst and Myth differ on one crucial point. He
distinguishes between ‘outdoor’ and ‘indoor’ spaces; Myth represents the former, while Myst
represents the latter.93 But in virtual space there is no ‘outdoor’ and ‘indoor’ of course.94 I
would propose to replace these terms by ‘open’ spaces and ‘corridor’ spaces, with regard to
computer games. In open spaces the player is able to move in all four directions; forward,
back, left, and right, as in an open field. In corridor spaces the player is only able to move
back and forth, through a tunnel-shaped space. In section §2.2 we have seen how the game
Crash Bandicoot implemented three-dimensional space, but stuck to a quasi-two-dimensional
type of game play, by using a corridor type of space. This is a highly important aspect of
space, with regard to navigation and cognitive constructs. Open spaces encourage the
construction of cognitive maps, and corridor spaces encourage the conception of cognitive
routes. These aspects could be combined with any type of overall spatial structure, as could be
seen in section §3.
So what are the functions of video game space? Video game space has to be
appropriated by the player in some way, it has to be made his own. It has to become part of
‘his system.’ There are several mechanisms to reach this goal. We have seen in Manovich and
Aarseth’s analysis that the function of the space of adventure games like Myst is ‘exploration.’
The space is designed for the player to explore, to find the way and to make it his own. The
space of strategy games like Myth has the function of ‘occupation.’ The player has to occupy
crucial spots in the game space in order to possess a large part of the environment, and that
increases the chances of winning. This is another way of appropriating the game space, just as
‘exploration’ is in Myst. Traditional games like Chess and Go also have this spatial logic.
Action games like Doom have spaces that function as ‘fighting arenas.’ The player has to
navigate well through the space to dodge the attacks of his enemies, and in turn to hunt them
down as well. The player appropriates the space by performing better than other players. The
player who knows the environment best, has a great advantage. Most first-person and thirdperson shooter games have this spatial function, but also fighting games like Tekken 3 (1998)
and Street Fighter (1987). Simulation games like SimCity (1989) and The Sims (2002) also
have spaces, but these are often empty spaces that you have to fill in yourself, with a city or
with a house, respectively. The function of these spaces is that they are ‘building grounds’ for
the player, and they are in that way appropriated. In platform games the spaces function as
‘obstacle courses’ for the player. The player usually starts at the beginning of the level, and he
has to reach the other end. Between these points a number of obstacles have been placed in
the environment that the player has to overcome. Also racing games consists of this kind of
spaces, but usually there are not as many obstacles as in platform games. In order to get from
point A to point B, the player has to perform skilfully in actions as accelerating, braking,
cornering, etc. The function of these spaces is obvious, as they are ‘racing tracks.’
McGregor adds to these types of functions of game space also “backdrops,” which are
non-traversable spaces that nonetheless add to the realism of the entire game space. Examples
91
Aarseth, ‘Allegories of space’.
Jenkins and Squire, ‘The art of…’.
93
Aarseth, ‘Allegories of space.’
94
According to the German architect and theorist of virtual architecture Stephan Doesinger, the concepts of
inside and outside in virtual space should be replaced by ‘push’ and ‘pull’: Stephan Doesinger, ‘Virtually
home!,’ in: Stephan Doesinger ed., Space between people. How the virtual changes physical architecture
(München: Prestel Verlag, 2008). Available online: http://spacebetweenpeople.com/.
92
27
of these are the space where the audience is located in racing games. She also adds “nodal
space,” which are a kind of social spaces, and “codified spaces.” The latter refers to buildings
that are symbols for something, like the Eiffel Tower that is a symbol for Paris, and France.
Buildings like the Weapon Factory in strategy games function really only as ‘tank spawners,’
but they look like a factory and in that way refer to something else than its function in the
game (although both referents have something to do with producing weapons). McGregor
puts ‘racing tracks’ and ‘obstacle courses’ in the same umbrella category of “challenge
spaces.”95 She is right to do so, but she misses in that way the point of the different functions
of the game space. That is because she implements a real-life spatial function onto game
space. In real life, challenge spaces are indeed not so common, so there is no need to
differentiate. But in games, challenge spaces abound, and in so many different forms that it is
important to differentiate. The functions of game space should not be derived from real life
actions, but from the actions in the video games. McGregor’s spatial patterns are derived from
architectural theory, which does not account for the various playful actions in game space that
are not available in real life.
We have now seen that game spaces exist in conjunction with actions, and that they
are theatres for the player to perform in. The actions that the player must or can perform
determine the function of the space of the game. We have distinguished between a number of
functions. This list is not complete, but it does contain the most important functions of game
spaces: ‘exploration,’ ‘occupation,’ ‘fighting arena,’ ‘building ground,’ ‘obstacle course’ and
‘racing track.’ Some modern games combine several game elements in the same environment.
The game Grand Theft Auto III usually lets the player explore the city on his own, but there
are also races available in this city. The city is then effectively transformed from an
‘exploratory’ space into a ‘racing track.’ Also, a strategy game session like Civilization (1991)
knows a period of exploration, and a period of occupation of the game space.
The actions of the player could be distinguished roughly in two types: ‘move acts’ and
‘expressive acts.’ This distinction made by the American scholar Alexander Galloway is very
useful in explaining the various properties of game spaces. A ‘move act’ is a diegetic player
action that makes the character move: jumping, running, driving, strafing, crouching, etc.
Expressive acts are all other moves, that do not involve movement of the character, but rather
the imposition of player existence in the game world. Firing a weapon, unlocking a door,
picking up an object, examining a wall, casting a spell, killing an enemy.96 Note that move
acts are concerned with physical movement and navigation through a game space, but that
leave that space unchanged most of the time. Expressive acts most of the time have an object,
and that object undergoes change. They result in changes in the game space. So expressive
acts are not concerned with “passive” movement through game space, but always with
‘physical’ change of the objects that the player interacts with. If gaming would be a language,
player acts would be verbs. And if player acts would be verbs, movement acts would be
intransitive verbs, that exist without an object and just with a subject. These verbs correspond
to the movement acts available to the player through his avatar; Mario (subject) jumps
(intransitive verb); Mario (subject) runs (intransitive verb); Mario (subject) crouches
(intransitive verb). In the same line of thought expressive acts would be transitive verbs, that
could be connected to a direct object; Samus (subject) attacks (transitive verb) an enemy
(direct object); Samus (subject) unlocks (transitive verb) a door (direct object); Samus
(subject) scans (transitive verb) a wall (direct object). Here one could observe the difference
between a platform game Super Mario and an adventure game like Metroid (Samus is the
protagonist of Metroid) on the basis of the available actions. Adventure games involve more
expressive acts, while platform games involve more move acts.
95
96
Leigh McGregor, ‘Situations of play’.
Galloway, ‘Gamic action, 22-24.
28
Fighting games are concerned more with expressive acts than with move acts, and that
could be recognizable in the game space, which is just a fighting arena for the player’s
expressive acts. In fighting games the player expresses himself with his fists. Racing games
and platform games have in common that the player to finish a trajectory in space. But apart
from the fact that the time in which the player finishes this trajectory is much more important
in racing games, the difference between the two genres could also be understood in terms of
action. In racing games the player has only move acts at his disposal: he can only drive,
accelerate, brake, etc. This is not true for Mario Kart DS (2005), in which he can also jump
and shoot at his opponents. But Mario Kart is in fact a hybrid between a platform game and a
racing game. In platform games you have move acts (including jumping, which is not present
in most racing games), but usually you also have some expressive acts at your disposal. In
Super Mario Bros. (1985) the player can attack enemies, and bump into blocks to destroy
them. Also, the difference between an ‘occupation’ game like Command & Conquer (1995),
which also allows the player to build a lot of buildings, and a ‘building ground’ game like
SimCity, is that the former also has the possibility to destroy opponents’ buildings. So the
player does not only have ‘constructive expressive acts’ that change the game space in a
constructive way, but also ‘destructive expressive acts’ that change the game space in a
destructive way. The third category of expressive acts would be ‘transformative expressive
acts.’ These are acts like unlocking a door in Metroid: Zero Mission (2004), or making a tree
bloom in Ōkami (2006).
Galloway only mentions move acts and expressive with regard to games that feature
an avatar, but these concepts could also be used to analyse traditional board games, like chess.
In chess there are obviously move acts. It is the crux of the game that every piece has the
ability to move in a different way. But once the player strikes a piece of his opponent, the
game space is changed, so this is an expressive act. The origin of this expressive act has
surely been a move act, because the player had to move his piece to the location of the other
piece to strike him. But due the spatial configuration of that moment, the move act is
transformed into an expressive act. This transformation has been made possible in conjunction
with the space. This could also be observed in Super Mario Bros. Normally, jumping would
be a move act. But when the player jumps on an enemy, the move act is transformed into an
expressive act, because the enemy just ‘happened’ to be there. The game space and the actions
performed therein always exist in conjunction to each other. The function and structure of the
space is not only dependent on the available actions, the outcome of any gamic action is also
dependent on the layout of the space, which determines whether the action is a move act or an
expressive act.
The possible actions determine to a large extend the structure of the game space; a
space that is designed for expressive acts like fighting has a different structure than a space
that is designed for exploration. So actions determine what Hendriks calls the ‘designed
space.’ But it works also the other way around; the possible actions afford and determine the
participation of the player in the environment, and thus the construction of a cognitive route
or map. Actions also determine what Hendriks calls the ‘physical lived experience’ of the
space. In the next subsection I will investigate the characteristics of the participation of the
player in game space, and argue that this participation is quasi-physical.
§2.4: Player/Space relationships: ‘physical’ participation
In a functionalist player-centred approach to game space, like the present study, it is of
utmost importance to define the characteristics of player participation in game space, and the
relationship that connects the player with the environment. We have already seen in §2.1 that
29
a large environment does not incorporate a perceiving subject but rather a conceiving
participant. ‘Participation’ is a term that is used extensively in the discourse of Game Studies,
but that is in need of a clear definition, especially vis-à-vis other ‘participatory’ media forms.
We have also seen that from a (moderate or extreme) constructionist point-of-view, game
space is ‘textually’ constructed on the screen by the computer, and cognitively constructed in
the mind of the player.
But the perception of video game space goes beyond visuality. We have already seen
that De Certeau defines the ‘Walker mode’ as haptic perception, contrary to the optic
perception of the ‘WTC mode.’ In §2.3 we have also seen that the participation of the player
in the environment is afforded by his possible actions, and not by this visual perception.
Furthermore, Hendriks has argued that the player experiences ‘physical embodiment’ in video
games, which is radically different than the identification with a character in literature or
cinema. The key difference is that the player participates in the game space in a way that the
reader could not in the space of a novel. The game space needs the ‘physical’ participation of
a player (pushing buttons, moving joysticks and handling motion-sensitive controllers) in
order to exist.
‘Participation’ is a term that requires more nuance. The Dutch game scholar Joost
Raessens has argued that there are three different forms of user participation: interpretation,
reconfiguration, and construction. Interpretative user participation is present in several types
of media, from literature, to television, cinema, video games, etc. Reconfiguration is
participation with some kind of control over the elements. In television this entails switching
channels, in internet it involves surfing between websites, and in video games it involves
moving and influencing the character and other game elements. This kind of participation is
typified as ‘moving pixels around.’ Construction is a type of participation that lets the
percipient add or modify content. This type could be found in some websites and video games
mainly.97
Moving the game character is a kind of user participation that is more ‘physical’,
because involves using your hands instead of only your eyes. So it also has a tactile aspect.
This kind of participation also means that without the player’s actions, the avatar would be
lifeless, like an unused string puppet. This is a different situation than in literature for
example. The existence of characters in literature is relatively independent of the percipient.
They already exist on the page, although they have to be actualised in the mind of the reader.
But in games they have to be actualised not only in the mind of the player, but also on the
screen, that is on the level of the ‘text.’ This entails a more ‘quasi-physical’ actualisation than
the ‘mental’ actualisation of literary characters.
Without the player, there is no character, only static code. The word ‘avatar’ itself
comes from the Sanskrit, and is the name for an incarnated deity. So already in the name, this
process of physical embodiment is present. Through the game’s avatar, the player is
incarnated in the fictional world. The game scholar Dianne Carr describes this relationship
between player and avatar as follows: “The console umbilically links the off-screen
participant to the onscreen world and enables their agency within that world.”98 This
understanding of player-avatar relations is also present in the work of Kennedy, Flanagan, and
Rehak.99 James Newman calls the relationship ‘vehicular.’ He argues that the relationship
between the player of a race game and the race car is not very different from the relationship
97
Joost Raessens, ‘Computer games as participatory media culture,’ in: Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein
eds., Handbook of computer game studies (Cambridge and London 2005) 373-388.
98
Quoted in: John Dovey and Helen W. Kennedy, Game cultures. Computer games as new media (Maidenhead
and New York 2006) 91.
99
Dovey and Kennedy , Game cultures…, 91.
30
between the player of an adventure game and his anthropomorphic avatar. In both cases the
‘avatar’ is just a quasi-physical embodiment of the player in the game’s virtual space.100
This relationship between input and output, between player and avatar, is to be
understood as quasi-physical.101 You touch a button in the real world, and the avatar makes an
action in the fictional world. This physical connection is even more foregrounded with the
advent of the Nintendo Wii, in which the physical moves you make in the real world are
exactly mimicked by the character in the physical world, or with the use of the PlayStation
EyeToy, which films your physical body and places it in the fictional world where it can act.
Through this emphasized embodiment in the game world, the experience of this world is not
only visual, but also tactile. You can navigate the game space, and experience the boundaries
of this space and the objects within it through the vibrating function of the controller. This
navigation combined with vibration makes the experience of the game space kinaesthetic as
well as tactile.102
The Australian game researcher Darshana Jayemanne has also argued that video game
space is also to a large extend tactilely perceived, instead of only visually. He describes the
perception of game space as appropriation, which is achieved by distraction instead of by
concentration. He compares this with architecture, which is also appropriated by using and
navigating it, and not only by looking at it. Also architecture is usually not perceived by
concentration but by distraction, an attitude that is related to appropriation by usage. So
Jayemanne believes that games have more in common with architecture than with painting.103
But Jayemanne is also aware of the visual traits of video games. That is why he has
made the distinction between the “hardscape” and the “imagescape” of video games. The
hardscape is the solid architecture of the game, which is perceived tactilely: the walls, the
floor, solid objects, ceilings, etc. The imagescape is what is projected on these objects, the
‘skins’ so to speak. This is perceived optically.104 Imagescape and hardscape function in the
construction of a cognitive map or route, respectively. When constructing a cognitive map,
the player needs to remember relevant locations and the paths between them. These are all
features of the hardscape, because they enable the ‘move acts’ of the player. The imagescape
is not of relevance, because in the case of an alteration or transformation of the imagescape,
the locations and paths in the hardscape would continue to exist unaltered. When constructing
a cognitive route, the imagescape gains in importance. Because the player only remembers a
route, the hardscape design is of decreased relevance. The player navigates based on
landmarks and visual cues, which are part of the imagescape of the game space.
In the previous subsection we have discussed how space is produced in video games.
Space is not already there, it pops out of nothing on the screen on the moment it is entered by
the player. The player himself has a particular relation with the avatar through which he
navigates this space, which is physical, umbilical, vehicular. The embodiment of the player in
the game space through his avatar makes it possible to tactilely perceive the space, instead of
only visually. The actions in the game are not a form of perception, but of participation. This
means that the cognitive response is different in players of game and in readers of literature,
for example. The reader’s cognitive response is predominantly ‘interpretative,’ and his
reconstruction of the fictional world is ‘mental.’ The player’s cognitive response is
100
James Newman, ‘The myth of the ergodic video game. Some thoughts on player-character relationships in
videogames’, GameStudies (2002). Online available at: http://gamestudies.org/0102/newman/ (accessed January
2009).
101
Ruben Meintema, ‘Beneath the skin of video game characters: race, body and equality in Japanese fighting
games,’ in: Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel eds., Race and racism in modern East Asia: Western constructions
and local reactions (Forthcoming: 2010).
102
Dovey and Kennedy , Game cultures…, 107.
103
Jayemanne, ‘Spielraum’.
104
Ibidem.
31
predominantly ‘reconfigurative,’ and the reconstruction of the fictional world is not based on
‘mental’ representation, but rather on ‘physical’ participation. Through this participation the
player is enabled (and required) to construct a cognitive map or route.
This participation requires a stable link between the world and the player. If this link is
disconnected, the player is also disconnected from the game space, and is not able to
‘physically’ participate in the environment. Furthermore, the space of the video game could
also extend itself through this link into the ‘real’ and ‘physical’ world that is inhabited by the
player. This complicates the structure of the space, and thus the possibilities of the player to
construct a cognitive map or route. I will analyse the relationship of the link between player
and world, and the structure of game space on both side of this link in section §4.
We have started this section with the statement that game environments are too large
to be perceived entirely, and that they should be conceived in one form or the other. We have
seen that this is being achieved by participation in and navigation through the game space, on
the basis of a cognitive map or cognitive route that player is constructing of this space. The
structure of the game space determines for the greatest part the conception of a map or route.
The ontology of the game space also determines this construction. The status of existence of
game space is a prerequisite for the position of the player in this space. We have seen that
there exist roughly two standpoints toward the issue of game space ontology: constructivist
and realist. The constructivist point-of-view holds that game space is unstable and
performative. The space is performed by the computer, which creates the pixels and polygons
on the screen, and by the player, who navigates and participates in the environment by means
of move acts and expressive acts. The player needs to be quasi-physically embodied in the
virtual space, in order to act in the diegetic space. The connection of the player to game space
is thus also of importance to the construction of cognitive tools for the navigation of this
environment.
So there are two more aspects left to analyse: the structure of the space an sich, and
the structure of the relation between the player and this space. The latter will be discussed in
§4. The most important aspect, however, is the former. The analysis of the structures of game
space, as textual cues for the construction of cognitive maps or cognitive routes, will follow
next in section §3.
§3: Structures of the virtual world
In this section I will analyse the structures of the virtual worlds of a large variety of
video games. The games have in common that they are all games with fictional worlds and an
intra-diegetic point-of-action (avatar-based direct controls). This is because these games are
simulations of participatory environments, and these could be analysed with regard to
cognitive routes and cognitive maps. This is also a standard conventional video game form,
and most games have this form.
The structures could be divided in roughly two types: fragmentary spaces and
continuous spaces. The former type is broken into various parts, that stand in several possible
relations to each other. The latter type consists of one single space, that is perceived as
uninterrupted by the player. These features determine to a large extend the type of cognitive
map or route that the player is able to construct of this environment. Within these types,
several subtypes could be distinguished, based on the amount of continuity that the spatial
structure allows. The subsections of this part of the study are ordered from a minimum of
32
continuity to a maximum of continuity. The two final subsections, ‘§3.7: Alternative spaces’
and ‘§3.8: Heterotopias,’ discuss complicating factors of both main types of game spaces.
§3.1: Fragmentary space without continuity
The typical video game of the 1980s and 1990s was the two-dimensional sidescrolling game like Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog that was built with pixels, as
we have seen in §2.2. Not only platform games, but also many adventures and action games
had this kind of structure. This type of game usually consisted of a series of separate levels or
areas without any kind of continuity. Sonic the Hedgehog, the flagship game of Sega released
in 1991, consisted of 6 different zones that were in turn divided into 3 different stages. The
first zone is the Green Hill Zone, an area that consists of colourful green hills and platforms,
decorated with flowers and palm trees. After getting through 3 stages and defeating the boss,
the player travels to the Marble Zone, which is themed as a Roman ruin/dungeon. The third
area is the Spring Yard Zone, a strange surrealist urban disco casino environment. Then the
player gets to the Labyrinth Zone, an Egyptian underground place that is partly under water.
The next zone is the Star Light Zone, a peaceful urban area at night. The last zone is the Scrap
Brain Zone, the headquarters of the main enemy of the game Dr. Robotnik, which is themed
as an industrial zone with all kinds of mechanical obstacles and traps.
The themes of the 6 levels are so different that no continuity whatsoever could be
discovered. There is also no narrative coherence between the levels; it unclear why Sonic has
to travel through such diverse landscapes, apart from maybe following Dr. Robotnik around.
The function of this variation of the ‘imagescape’ is to make the experience less repetitive and
more exiting for the player. But there may be more continuity between the zones in Sonic the
Hedgehog than meets the eye, both literally and metaphorically. The ‘hardscape’ of the game
is not subject to such abrupt changes as the imagescape. During the entire game the player
will come across such obstacles as platforms between which he needs to jump, loopings that
he has to take, balances that launch the player in the sky, springs that launch him or bounce
him back, and spikes on which he can fall and hurt himself. But as the game progresses, these
obstacles and challenges become larger and more difficult. The American game scholar David
Myers argues that video games are recursive texts that are circular, as opposed to the linear
text of literature. “The computer game sequence is best visualized as a spiral of mounting
complexity.”105 Video game play is repetitive, recursive, and therefore always ‘re-play.’ This
is true for games that are played over and over, but also for the ‘save-and-reload’ function of
many modern video games. It also holds for the successive instalments of one game, for
example the Civilization series. Each new instalment is not a sequel, as in movies and books,
but rather a ‘replay’ of the original version.106 Also the succession of different levels within
one single video game is usually a ‘replay.’ You will encounter new obstacles and challenges
as the game progresses into new levels, but also many of the same challenges, only harder.
These obstacles have been ‘dressed’ so to speak in a different guise, in a different imagescape,
but the hardscape changes only gradually. So there is some form of spatial continuity, but this
is ‘beneath the skin,’ at the level of the rules and not of the fictional world, in Juul’s terms.
But it is the coherence and continuity of the fictional world of the game that is of the
greatest importance in the construction of a cognitive map. These levels are ordered in a
105
David Myers, ‘Computer games semiotics,’ Play & culture 4 (1991) 340.
David Myers, ‘Bombs, barbarians, and backstories: meaning-making within Sid Meier’s Civilization,’ in: M.
Bittanti ed., Civilization. Virtual history, real fantasy (Milan 2005) available online:
http://www.masscomm.loyno.edu /~dmyers/F99%20classes/Myers_BombsBarbarians_DRAFT.rtf (Accessed
May 2009).
106
33
recursive structure, but because there is no verifiable spatial relation between these levels, the
conception of a cognitive map is impossible. Within the levels, the player usually has to travel
into a straight line from the left to the right. But there are usually a number of side-routes, that
lead to secret places or bonuses. The locations of the entrances to these side-routes are usually
hidden, so the search for landmarks on the route is not the best strategy to find these. The
player has to remember the locations of these side-steps in the level, so the construction of a
cognitive map is necessary, although small visual cues are of course also helpful. In the Super
Mario series for example, side-routes are usually clearly marked by green pipes, into which
Mario can jump and find a diversion from the main route. However, in some cases these cues
are non-existent, and the player has to rely on his knowledge of the space only.
The function of the space of Sonic the Hedgehog is ‘obstacle course,’ as has become
clear from the discussion above. Many of the obstacles have been discussed above, and they
are all implemented into the game space. The mechanics, or actions, that the player has at his
disposal are simple: Sonic can run, Sonic can jump, and Sonic can roll. But these simple
mechanics are able to afford a special playing experience. ‘Jumping,’ ‘running’ and ‘rolling’
are the only things Sonic can do. Both are ‘move acts’ instead of ‘expressive acts,’ in
Galloway’s terms. But ‘jumping’ and ‘rolling’ could be used both as a ‘move act’ as well as
an ‘expressive act.’ Sonic can jump on or roll into an enemy to destroy him. Sonic can jump
on a button to activate a door or a trap in a level. These are expressive acts.
Furthermore, there is also something special about his ability to run. As one could
guess from his streamlined appearance and his name, Sonic is able to run very fast, faster at
least than the average video game character. So in Sonic the Hedgehog the player can run
through the obstacle course at much higher speeds than in most video games. This possibility
is also implemented into the game space; in fact it is encouraged by it. Beginner players
would probably move at a slower and safer speed through the levels, the experienced player
can really finish under the minute. (Also, there is a reward for finishing the level under the 60
seconds: a large amount of bonus points and a ‘continue.’) Henry Jenkins describes this
experience as follows: “I still recall the first time I grabbed the controls of Sonic the
Hedgehog, got a good burst of speed, and started running as fast I could around the loop-theloops, collecting gold rings, and sending all obstacles shattering. I am not an especially good
gamer, yet I felt at that moment totally invincible, and everything in the game’s design – the
layout of the space, the properties of the character, the selection of the soundtrack –
contributed to giving me the sense of effortless control, that release from normal
constraints.”107 In Jenkins’ account the space and the actions of the player were the key
ingredients for the player’s experience. The experience of running incessantly through an
obstacle course results in a feeling of rhythm and flow. ‘Flow’ is the term of the psychologist
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and it denotes the experience of an activity that requires skill, with
clear goals, and in which action and awareness merge. Persons that are in a ‘flow’ experience
time differently, and lose the sense of self-consciousness. This concept has been implemented
for video games as well.108 Due to the possibility of completing the entire obstacle course in
one fast smooth set of movements, Sonic the Hedgehog is especially good in creating ‘flow’
for the player. Game space and player mechanics are essential for this, and they work together
to realize this experience.
107
Henry Jenkins, ‘Games: the new lively arts,’ in: Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein eds., The handbook of
computer game studies (Cambridge and London 2005) 182.
108
Jenova Chen, ‘Flow in games,’ Communications of the ACM 50:4 (April 2007). Available online at:
http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/p31-chen.pdf (accessed March 2009).
34
Image 2. Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega MegaDrive: Sonic Team, 1991) Green Hill Zone, In-game
view
Image 3. Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega MegaDrive: Sonic Team,1991) Green Hill Zone, Level
map.109 This is how the player will not view the level, but it makes immediately clear that a
game space is not a ‘realistic’ environment, but rather an ‘obstacle course.’ The scene from
image 2 is located at the extreme left of the level map, at the first platform.
Not only classic platform games have a structure of fragmentary space without
continuity, also most fighting games have this structure. In fighting games like Tekken and
Street Fighter and many others, the playable characters or fighters originate from around the
globe. In Tekken 3 (1998) there are fighters from Japan, China, the United States, Russia,
Ireland, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Hong Kong, etc. Some of the fighting arenas are themed after
the ‘home towns’ of the available fighters, so there is a street from typical Hong Kong action
flicks, and a Brazilian jungle scene.
In this kind of fighting games the hardscape only functions as a ‘fighting arena,’ so
they only need to be able to stand firmly on the ground, and occasionally smash one another
into a wall. ‘Move acts’ are very limited, so the space does not need to be large and complex.
‘Expressive acts’ however, are the main concern of the player, and they amount to a very high
degree of complexity: 10-hit combo’s and take-over moves, etc. The game space only
functions as a ground for these expressive acts to take place in. The imagescape is pure
decoration for variation. There is absolutely no coherence between these spaces.
To conclude, fragmentary space without continuity invites the construction of a
cognitive route for navigating the separate levels. In some cases, when there are hidden
detours from the main route, the player is required to build a cognitive map in order to
remember the entrance of these alternative routes. The imagescape is an important guide in
the navigation by the player based on the cognitive route. But still, the player is not able to
connect the separate levels of the game into one coherent concept. Because there is no
continuity whatsoever in the hardscape or the imagescape, the player is not able to construct
either a cognitive map or a cognitive route. In the next subsections §3.2 and §3.3 I will show
how continuity between levels could be achieved.
109
Retrieved from SonicRetro.org: http://www.info.sonicretro.org/File:Ghz1.PNG (accessed August 2009).
35
§3.2: Fragmentary space with linear continuity
As we have seen in §3.1 there is almost no spatial coherence and continuity in Sonic
the Hedgehog. But in the later instalments there has been effort to achieve continuity from
level to level, which resulted in what I would call ‘linear continuity.’ In Sonic the Hedgehog 3
when one travels from the Angel Island Zone to the Hydrocity Zone, there is clear continuity
between the areas. In a cinematic sequence after finishing the level, one could see Sonic
standing on a hanging bridge above the water at the end of the Angel Island Zone, when his
antagonist Knuckles the Echidna pressed a button that destroys the bridge underneath him.
Sonic falls through the bottom of the screen, there is a cut, and after the cut Sonic is falling
from the top of the screen into the Hydrocity Zone. When the player reaches the end of the
Hydrocity Zone he is launched by a stream of water, and after the cut he is launched into the
Marble Garden Zone. Only this continuity is weaker than that from the Zone 1 to 2, because
now Sonic is launched through the bottom of the screen in Zone 2 and he falls from the
bottom in Zone 3. So there is no “match-on-action,” a term from continuity editing in
cinema.110 The first transition between levels was smoother. The transition from the 3rd to the
4th Zone does not only involve a physical movement of Sonic, but while Sonic hangs in the air
in the Marble Garden Zone, it rapidly becomes night time and there is a cut, after which the
player is landed in the Carnival Night Zone. The transition from the 5th to the 6th Zone also
does not have a “match-on-action.” Sonic spins though a snow-filled tunnel in the Ice Cap
Zone, out of the right side of the screen. After the cut he jumps from the snow from the
bottom of the screen in the Launch Base Zone. What is interesting about this continuity is that
there is still some snow at the beginning of this level. So this is the only example of linear
continuity being implemented in the imagescape of the game space, instead of just continuity
through cinematic sequences between the levels. These sequences do help however to
construct a more or less coherent conception of the spaces of the separate levels.
There is not only linear continuity between the different levels, but also between the
separate stages of which one level consists. Of course there is the imagescape that stays more
or less the same, that usually produces the most continuity between stages and levels. But
while in previous Sonic games there was a cut between stages and the player is just placed at
the beginning of the next stage, in Sonic 3 after finishing a stage, the player could just move
on and the next stage is tied seamlessly to the previous stage. It is the same space. This is also
the case in Sonic & Knuckles (1994). Between the two stages of the first zone, the Mushroom
Hill Zone, Sonic walks a few steps in a cinematic sequence, and then Knuckles pulls a switch,
resulting in Sonic being blown upwards by a strong gust of wind to the second stage. There is
no cut between these spaces, so the hardscape of the whole zone is continuous. There is
concrete linear continuity of space, although the transition is not playable but cinematic. In
the second stage, the Mushroom Hill has changed colours. The environment is not green and
fresh anymore, but it has brown autumn colours. So now it is not the imagescape that
produces continuity, as it has changed dramatically, but this has been compensated by the
continuity of hardscape and the cinematic sequence.
The Sonic games that we have discussed so far are two-dimensional worlds, but the
same linear continuity strategies have also been used in fully three-dimensional games. Star
Wars episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1994) is such a game, as I already discussed in ‘Time/
Space/ Narrative.’111 The game Star Wars consists of 11 different areas that correspond with
several locations in the movie from which it is adapted. The player starts the game at the
110
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film art. An introduction (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008).
Ruben Meintema, ‘Time/ space/ narrative: A theory and method of film-to-video-game adaptation,’ paper
presented at the International Conference Science Fiction Across Media: Adaptation/ Novelisation at the
Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium (28 May 2009).
111
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Trade Federation Ship, the second level is the Swamps of Naboo, then the underwater city of
Otoh Gunga, then the Gardens of Theed, the fifth level is Theed City, after which he will play
Mos Espa, Mos Espa Arena, Desert Landing on Tatooine, Coruscant, Return to Naboo, and
then finally The Final Battle. Just as in Sonic, the hardscape of these areas are all designed to
be obstacle courses and exploration sites, and they have not much in common with the
corresponding areas in the movie. Instead it is the imagescape that is designed to refer to the
various areas in the film.
Between these levels, spatial continuity is achieved by the inclusion of cinematic
sequences. The function of these cinematic intervals is to denote the transition from one area
to the other. In the first cinematic sequence one could see a vessel boarding the Trade
Federation Ship, functioning as an establishing shot in cinema. The location where one will
play is embedded in a wider space through this cinematic sequence. The next cinematic
sequence is the depiction of a small vessel leaving the Trade Federation Ship and entering
Naboo. Again the function of this sequence is the transition of one area to the other, so that
the player can orientate the next game space in the perspective of the movie. After the
swamps of Naboo, one could see the cinematic sequence in which the two Jedi and Jar Jar
swim to the underwater city of the Gungans. This scene is again taken directly from the
movie, and its function in the game as well as in the film is spatial, to orient the player into a
new area. After the Gungan city, the player will travel through the planet’s fluid core. Here
the spatial reorientation is not the only function, but also the incorporation of a spectacular
scene from the movie in cinematic time. The vessel of the protagonists is attacked by a large
beast, but they escape because the beast is eaten by an even bigger creature. The next
cinematic sequence is not so much a spatial transition, as a revelation of story information.
This is because the levels that are connected with this sequence are adjacent to each other:
Gardens of Theed and Theed City. Queen Amidala explains in this sequence her intention to
escape from Naboo and go to Coruscant to plead her case before the Senate. Then the player
just walks from the Gardens to the City of Theed, so there is no need for further spatial
orientation. After this level, the usual function of the cinematic sequence returns as we see a
space vessel leaving Theed and crashing on Tatooine.
In the two-dimensional Sonic games as well in the three-dimensional Star Wars
adaptation, the spatial structure consists of separate levels that are spatially unconnected. But
through visual cues and cinematic intervals, the spaces are logically connected to each other.
This enables the construction of a cognitive route between levels, a function that was not
possible in fragmentary spaces without continuity. Cinematic sequences function as
transitions for the player in the game space, although he can not play the spaces of these
cinematic transitions. They are a very useful device for games to embed the game space into a
wider fictional world. But once the player has completed an area in these kinds of linear
games, he can not return to it. They disappear after completion. The space behind the player
crumbles back into the ones and zeros that they once were. This is no problem for the
construction of a cognitive route, because routes are usually not reversible, as we have seen in
subsection §2.1. Because the spaces are only linearly connected, there is no possibility of
understanding the spatial relations between level 1 and level 3 for example. Thus, the
possibility and usefulness of the conception of a cognitive map is severely decreased. Games
with non-linear continuity are spatially more consistent and coherent in this respect, as we
shall see below.
§3.3: Fragmentary space with non-linear continuity
Instead of linear continuity video game space could also be made more coherent and
thus understandable by implementing non-linear continuity. Non-linearity in games means
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that the order in which one plays the levels, areas, missions or events is not yet tied down. The
player has a certain amount of freedom in travelling through the fictional world, although the
exact amount is usually determined by the designer. Linearity in games means that the order
of levels, areas or events is determined beforehand. In Sonic the Hedgehog the succession of
levels is determined by the designer, and one has to stick to this path. Star Wars is a narrative
game; it attempts to convey the story-line of the film, so the linear structure helps to get the
story straight.
But although linearity is useful in narrative games, non-linearity is usually regarded as
a virtue of video games, because of the greater influence it allows for the player and the
higher level of interactivity. Non-linearity is also a virtue with regard to the spatial structures
of games, for two reasons. First, because it demands active orientation by the player. He has
to remember where he came from, and which useful features he has encountered there. Often
he encounters a door that is locked. Later on in the game, in a place far away from the door,
the player could find the key for the door. He has to remember where the door was, so he has
to have a conception of the entire game space in his head. Also, he has to have an orientation
of where he is going. Usually the goal of his travel is given by the game, but the way to reach
it should be discovered by the player. In order to find the way, he has to actively orient on the
game space.
The second virtue of non-linearity in spatial structure is ongoing verification of the
space. Games with non-linear spatial structures usually require ‘back-tracking.’ Back-tracking
means going back to a part of the space that one has already visited before, as in the example
above of finding a key and going back to the door one has already found, and then use it.
Back-tracking has also been used in games in which one has to collect a certain item. The
player will then occasionally go back to an area to collect the items there, that he was
previously unable to reach. But when he goes back, he will find that the space has remained
unchanged since he last travelled it. This is a verification of the game space. In linear games
the space one has already travelled is unavailable; it has crumbled back into programming
code. This way one could not verify this space. In some games one could also see traces of
one’s actions (transformative expressive acts) in the space when travelling back: broken walls
or windows, corpses that one has killed, or trees that are in bloom in Ōkami. This verification
makes the fictional world feel more realistic and coherent. The player can usually back-track a
level or a part of a level in a linear game, but not the previous levels.
I will discuss two main types of non-linear continuity in games with fragmentary
spaces. For each type I will discuss their function in the construction of a cognitive map or
route by the navigating and interpretive player.
§3.3.1: Overworlds
So there are roughly two types of games with a structure of fragmentary space with
non-linear continuity: warp rooms and overworlds. I will first discuss overworlds, and then
warp rooms. An overworld is in fact a sort of interactive map. It functions as a map, because
the most important (i.e. playable) locations are displayed on it. These locations are portrayed
as symbols, which are depicted in another spatial mode than when one actually enters them.
But it is interactive, because one could move one’s avatar around on the map, and enter areas
on the map in more detail. The overworld is a device that is common in Role-Playing Games
especially, but also some platform games make use of it. There are two types of overworlds:
discrete overworlds and continuous overworlds. In discrete overworlds one could only travel
between certain pre-determined points, usually only the areas that one could enter in more
detail. But in continuous overworlds one could also travel into ‘useless’ space, i.e. space that
is not actionable or interactive, and which the player could not enter in more detail.
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Overworlds of the last type feel more like real tangible worlds than overworlds of the first
type, which feel more like maps.
Image 4. Super Mario Bros. 3(Nintendo Entertainment System: Nintendo, 1988).
World 1, Overworld view
In image 4 one could observe that Super Mario Bros. 3 already featured an overworld.
This overworld had a different spatial organisation than the normal in-game view, although
both were two-dimensional. The in-game mode had a side point-of-view, and the overworld
had a top-down point of view. It is a discrete overworld, because it consists of a number of
points between which lines have been drawn. The lines are the only paths that one could take,
and the points are the only places on which the player could stand still. Certain points on the
map are actionable, and other points are not actionable. The actionable points are possible to
enter in more detail. The levels are symbolically represented on the map as black-and-blue
squares with a number on it. The mushrooms and the castles are also actionable. One’s
position on the map is represented by an ‘M’ square. The map is interactive, so one could
move over the map with an avatar, which is the ‘M.’ The numbers on the black-and-blue
squares indicate the number of the level. One could choose to play the levels in the order of
the numbers, so that the difficulty level increases steadily. But games with overworlds have a
non-linear spatial structure, so one could also choose to take a different path on the overworld
and play level 4 after level 2, instead of level 3. All the player has to do then is to walk to the
south and then to the east, instead of directly to the east. But after the completion of level 2
one could not go immediately to level 5, as it is closed off by a locked gate. This is a spatial
implementation as a design choice of the designer to guide the movement of the player, which
is free but within limits.
Overworlds exist in some other game genres, but they are most common in RolePlaying Games, or RPGs. An RPG is a game in which one could extensively develop a
character. The character is very weak at the beginning of play, but he or she becomes stronger
the more one plays as her. This type of game is also usually heavily story-driven.112 Final
Fantasy VII (1997) is a game with all the above features, including an overworld. The game
consists of three different playable spatial modes: Battle Mode, Town Mode, and Overworld
Mode. In each mode, the spatial relation between the character and his surroundings is
different. Battle Mode, as seen in image 5, is used for all the battles that need to be fought
during the game. This takes up a lot of play time, and experience points are gained during
battles with which the player could develop his character, so this is a very important part of
112
Meintema, ‘Begrippenlijst.’
39
the game. If the player is walking around in Town Mode or in Overworld Mode, chances are
always that he will randomly encounter an enemy that he needs to fight. The screen stops for
a moment, and fades to the Battle Mode. In Battle Mode the player stands with his party of
three characters against one or more enemies of varying strength. In Battle Mode, the size of
the characters and the surroundings are in the most ‘natural’ spatial relation to each other. The
characters are also depicted more detailed than in the other spatial modes.
Image 5. Final Fantasy VII (Sony PlayStation: Square Soft, 1997) Battle Mode
Image 6. Final Fantasy VII. Town Mode
The imagescape of the surroundings is made to fit the environment from which the
player was thrown into Battle Mode as good as possible. If one is walking through the capital
city in Town Mode for example, then the imagescape of the Battle Mode space is made to
look like the capital city, and if one is walking through a forest in Overworld Mode, then the
surroundings of the Battle Mode space look like a forest. But it is only the imagescape that
looks like the original place; the hardscape has nothing to do with it. The hardscape is always
the same in Battle Mode; a floor surrounded by a background. This is because the actions of
the player are much different in the several Modes. In Town Mode one could walk around the
environment, and investigate every corner of it. Some parts of the Town Mode space are
actionable, but the space is primarily built to be explored and for the story events to take
place. The most important acts in the Town Mode space are ‘move acts.’ In Battle Mode there
are no ‘move acts,’ only ‘expressive acts.’ So the space only acts as a theatre for these
‘expressive acts’ to take place in, and only a floor suffices. One doesn’t have to move around,
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so the space does not have to be navigable. In Battle Mode one takes turns to perform an
action. This action is chosen from a menu, and it could be an attack with a weapon, a
damaging magic spell, a healing spell, an item, etc. When the player has made his choice from
the menu, the action is performed by the character automatically.
In Town Mode, as seen in image 6, the characters are less detailed than in Battle
Mode. But the surroundings are more detailed and beautiful, because the space in Town Mode
is static and built by pixels, while the space in Battle Mode is dynamic and built by polygons.
The space of the Town Mode is ‘pre-rendered’ and the space of the Battle Mode and
Overworld Mode is ‘real-time’ rendered. This means that the space in the latter two modes are
built ‘on the fly’ based on the calculations of the computer and the point-of-view of the
player. The space of the Town Mode is pre-rendered, so it is built beforehand by the designer
and the point-of-view is fixed. The characters that walk through this static ‘painting,’ which is
the Town Mode, are then again built by polygons. So the characters are made from a different
‘material’ than the surroundings, which gives an unnatural effect. The characters do not seem
to fit in the environment, and this is an obstacle for the experience of the player of being
immersed in the game space. In Town Mode one could not perform attacks or damaging
magic spells, only healing magic spells on oneself. So the amount of ‘expressive acts’ is
limited. The player could on the other hand explore the towns and environments that are
depicted in Town Mode, so the ‘move act’ is more prominent.
Image 7. Final Fantasy VII. Overworld Mode
Overworld Mode shares the most characteristics with Town Mode. One could be
transported from both modes to Battle Mode, and the types of acts one could perform are
similar. But the space in Overworld Mode is real-time rendered, and the point-of-view can be
adjusted. So it is built from polygons. The Overworld is the ‘highest’ spatial mode in Final
Fantasy VII. It is placed ‘over’ the several towns and areas, so to speak. The towns and cities
are placed on the Overworld, and the player can enter them from the Overworld. But they are
represented by symbols of those towns and cities. The avatar is the same size as the towns
themselves! The avatar could walk over the Overworld just as he would in Town Mode. Also
here, you could run into chance encounters with enemies. To speed up travel on the
Overworld, and thus to limit the amount of chance encounters, one could also make use of
giant walking birds named Chocobos and later on in the game of an airship. ‘Move acts’ are
the most important actions here, as the Overworld functions as an ‘exploration space’ and as a
way of travelling between different areas. The player has more freedom to move here than in
Town Mode. The space is more open, and less constrained by walls, as could be seen in image
7. But the space does have some ‘bottlenecks.’ A bottleneck is an obstacle that confines the
area that could be travelled, and that could be opened by progressing in the game. This is a
device for the designer to control and guide the movement of the player, and thus the order of
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story events. The player can enter the several places in the order that you determine, in nonlinear fashion, but some of the decisions are still in the hands of the designer. The locked gate
on the Overworld of Super Mario Bros. 3 that I discussed above, functions exactly as a
bottleneck.
The Overworld in Final Fantasy VII is continuous instead of discrete, which means
that one could explore every corner of the space. This makes it feel more like a ‘world’ than a
‘map.’ This is enhanced by the fact that the player can consult a true map of the entire world
during his travel on the Overworld, as seen in the lower right corner of image 7. But it still
functions like a map in some respects, especially because of the symbolical representations of
the towns and cities. It is an interactive map, because one could travel it with an avatar and
enter some places in more detail. It also is a dynamic map instead of the traditional static map.
The notion of the video game as a dynamic map has been discussed by the American game
scholar Ted Friedman. He quotes the philosopher David Harvey, who has argued that under
late capitalism the traditional forms of representations are not adequate to convey the flow of
human experience and processes of social change. Friedman then suggests that computer
simulations and computer games could act as a map-in-time, demonstrating interrelatedness
and the repercussions of many decisions.113 Friedman discusses strategy and simulation
games such as Civilization and Sim City, but the notion of the dynamic map could also be
used to describe the Overworld of Final Fantasy VII. It is something between a map and
‘life:’ it is a representation of space, but it also moves and acts. In that sense, it shares some
characteristics with a ‘simulation’ of space. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard writes in
the introduction for his Simulacra and Simulation the Borges’ story about the cartographers
that made a map of a kingdom in a 1:1 relation. The map was the same size as the kingdom
and it represented the kingdom exactly. But when the kingdom fell into decline, the map also
fell into decline.114 So this map also was a sort of ‘dynamic map’. The continuous Overworld
in Final Fantasy VII is a similar phenomenon, because it acts as a map for the fictional world
of the game, but also as the world itself.
To conclude, the overworld is a kind of map. It functions for the player to show the
different locations, and their spatial interrelationships to each other. This spatial structure
encourages the player to build a cognitive map of the game world, because the textual cues
already convey a map-like structure. The construction of a cognitive route is discouraged by
the overworld, because the overworld mode is usually less detailed than the ‘lower’ game
modes. This means that there are less distinguishable landmarks that could be used for
subjective navigation on the basis of a cognitive route. The detail of the environment is
usually saved for the areas ‘underneath’ the overworld, which could be accessed through its
interactive map-like structure. However, there is a difference between discrete and continuous
overworlds. Paradoxically, although the discrete overworld looks and feels more like a map
than the continuous overworld, it is the discrete overworld that more encourages the
construction of cognitive routes. Discrete overworlds have much less navigable and
actionable space. This results in a decrease in the effect of real travelling. All that remains are
the routes between relevant locations. These textual routes encourage the construction of
cognitive route by players in addition to cognitive maps, although the locations stand in an
‘objective’ relation to each other. Because of its amount of navigable and actionable space,
the continuous overworld is more likely to encourage the conception of a cognitive map.
But also the continuous overworld maintains a map-like features. We have seen in
Final Fantasy VII that there are three different spatial modes in this game. When entering a
town from the overworld, there is a cut and the space switches instantly from Overworld
113
Ted Friedman, ‘Semiotics of SimCity,’ First Monday 4 (1999).
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_4/friedman/ (accessed October 2006).
114
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and simulations (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994).
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Mode to Town Mode. (This also holds for Battle Mode). The similarity in imagescape
encourages the player to perceive both modes as consistent of the same space, but there is no
logical hardscape connection between the two (or three) modes. Thus the player is not able to
incorporate the transition between modes in the cognitive map, because he cannot actively
navigate this transition. In those cases he must construct a cognitive route, and rely on this
knowledge in order to navigate between spaces. Continuous spaces (whether with or without
cuts), as discussed in §3.5 and §3.6, do not incorporate non-navigable transitions between
areas, so they are more suitable for the construction of cognitive maps.
§3.3.2: Warp rooms
The second type of fragmentary space with non-linear continuity is the warp room.
The warp room differs significantly from the Overworld because it is in principle a nondiegetic device, while the Overworld is a diegetic device. In this way the warp room offers
less spatial coherence than the Overworld. So what is warping? Warping is a term that is
derived from science-fiction. It indicates the mode of space travel that is based on Einstein’s
relativity theory. According to Einstein, space is a relative and not an absolute phenomenon. It
is bendable, and could be manipulated by man. The distance between two coordinates could
be reduced to zero, if the space between them could be bended. Space ships in science-fiction
could use this principle to travel the universe. But warping is in fact not travelling; it is rather
the inverse of travelling. Travel is movement through space. In principle the subject is moving
in relation to the space, which is standing still. But in warping is the subject that is standing
still, and the space that is moved towards him (which reminds of the spatial orientations of the
Pulawatans and Aboriginals in §2.1). A subject that is warped would look like it would
disappear into nothingness.
Warping is a widespread phenomenon in gaming. It is used as a device for instance
travel. In games that require a lot of back-tracking, and that moreover consist of a large space,
it will take up a lot of time and become tedious to travel large distances, only to pick up minor
items for example. The game The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2003) consists of a
large continuous space without cuts (as discussed in the next subsection). The main ways of
movements are sailing and walking. But to sail from one side of the sea to the other side
would take up too much time and is dull. So The Wind Waker has implemented a warp device,
that is diegetically disguised however. The player could control the winds with a magic wand
called the “Wind Waker,” so he could also summon a tornado that brings him closer to the
place where he wants to be. This warping makes the game play more stream-lined and
pleasurable, but it decreases the coherence of the fictional world. It answers more to the logic
of the “rules” of the game than to the logic of the “fictional world” of the game, to use Juul’s
terminology. Travelling makes the space more real, it makes the fictional world more
believable, while warping makes the space feel more like a game space.
The warp rooms in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (1997) work in the same
way. In the beginning the player is thrown into a warp room, as seen in image 8, which lets
him choose between five zones. When he has completed these five zones, he has to defeat a
boss, and then he could take the elevator to the warp room above. In total there are five warp
rooms, plus a secret warp room. The level structure is non-linear, because one constantly has
the choice between five levels. But the warp rooms also function as bottlenecks, because it
restricts the player from entering levels in higher warp rooms.
Warping functions in the game as an instant transportation to the level of one’s choice.
But that means that the coherence between the levels that one plays is decreased. There is no
spatial logic in warping, and there is no coherent connection between the levels in one warp
room. In total, there are five different imagescapes, so there are five different surroundings.
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Normally, levels with the same imagescape are expected to be closer to each other than levels
with different imagescapes. In linear games like Sonic the Hedgehog one plays three stages
with the same imagescape in a row, before one enters the next zone, which also consists of
three stages with the same imagescape. These similar looking stages have the effect of being
grouped together, and forming an area together. But in Crash Bandicoot 2 the stages with the
same imagescape are scattered over the five separate warp rooms. This has the effect of a
higher variation of imagescapes, of surroundings, which could be more interesting for the
player. Furthermore, the device of the warp room as a means of instant travelling could well
explain that the order in which one plays the levels is more varied. In the first warp room,
there are three zones that feature a jungle environment, and two with a polar landscape. The
second warp room gives access to polar environments, jungle surroundings, and a level that is
played in the sewer. In the third warp room an ancient ruin area is added, and in the fifth one
could play two levels in outer space. The warp rooms themselves also have a theme. The fifth
warp room is themed as the outer space levels, as could be observed in image 8, and the first
room is themed as the jungle levels. The second is a cold snowy warp room, the third a sewer,
and the fourth an ancient ruin. So levels that would normally be thought as lying close
together, and that would be navigated by the player in one continuous movement in the case
normal travelling, are scattered throughout the playing session of Crash Bandicoot.
Image 8. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (Sony PlayStation: Naughty Dog, 1997).
Warp room
So because the logic of the imagescapes is broken, the fictional world becomes less
coherent. But on the other hand, because it is still a game that features back-tracking, the
fictional world becomes more believable. The player could always return to a lower warp
room, and play all the levels there. This is because all levels feature at least three challenges.
The first challenge is just completing the level, and this gives access to higher warp rooms.
But there is always also another challenge, like finishing the level while destroying all the
wooden crates that are scattered through the environment, or finishing the level without
destroying one single crate. The player could replay every level in the game to try to complete
the other challenges. The possibility of revisiting the levels, and also actually doing this,
results in a more consistent fictional world. The levels still exist, and this could be verified
whenever the player wants.
The game Super Mario 64 also has a non-linear spatial structure based on warp rooms.
But in that game the warp rooms are pseudo-diegetic. The game is located in a castle, in
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which are hanging a lot of paintings. Mario can jump into a painting, to navigate the area that
is depicted on that painting. Just like the warp rooms in Crash Bandicoot there is no spatial
logic in the transition from the castle to the level, and there is no legitimate means of travel.
The player has no idea where the level is located in relation to the castle, and he has no idea
how he has got there. In Crash Bandicoot the warping function does not try to hide itself, but
in Super Mario 64 the warp room wants to be embedded in the fictional world of the game.
I would expect that games with a warp room structure encourage the player to build a
cognitive route instead of a cognitive map. This is because the spatial relationship between the
levels is unclear, but one could only know the way to get there: through the warp. Games with
an overworld structure are expected to encourage the player to conceive a cognitive map
instead of a cognitive route, because the objective relationship between the locations is
foregrounded. Furthermore, on the overworld there are not many landmarks that encourage
the conception of a cognitive route. The detail of the environment is usually saved for the
areas ‘underneath’ the overworld, as we have seen in Final Fantasy VII in images 5 and 6.
§3.4: Continuous space with cuts
Still even higher spatial coherence than overworlds could be found in games with
continuous spaces. There are two kinds of continuous spaces; with cuts and without cuts.
(Looped space is treated here as a ‘special’ case, because it is not possible to build the entire
game space around this structure.) Because the continuous space without cuts results in the
most coherent space possible in video games, this type is discussed in the next section: §3.5:
Seamless space. In this section I will focus on continuous spaces with cuts.
An example of a game with a continuous space with cuts is the Metroid series.
Metroid is a series by Nintendo from 1986. This was a game that featured a point-of-view
from the side, so it was a two-dimensional side-scrolling game, the paradigm form of the day.
The original Metroid on the Nintendo Entertainmaint System (or Famicom as it was known in
Japan) saw a sequel on the same console, and a third instalment on the Super Nintendo
Entertainment System in 1994 These games were all built on the same principle, as they were
all three sprite-based two-dimensional side-scrolling action-adventures with non-linear game
play in an open world without warp rooms or overworlds. The main difference with other
games, in spatial terms as well as in game play terms, was that this game featured its nonlinearity on the same diegetic level, i.e. without an overworld or a warp room that was in fact
an “other” space than the game-play space. Metroid and its sequels consisted of several areas
that were connected to each other by tunnels and elevators. But these tunnels and elevators
did not function as quasi-diegetic devices, because there were usually more ways to travels
between the areas, and the relations between the areas were consistent with each other. It was
in fact one continuous world.
After a decade, the series made its come-back on the GameCube, with some
differences and some continuities with the previous instalments. The game, Metroid Prime
(2002), was still an action-adventure, that featured puzzles, back-tracking, and shooting at
enemies, but it was not sprite-based two-dimensional side-scrolling anymore. The game was
built from polygons, and it featured consequently three-dimensional graphics. But also the
game-play was three-dimensional, and it featured a three-dimensional world (including an
innovative wire-frame three-dimensional map of that world). The world was viewed from the
first-person perspective, except when in Morph Ball Mode, then the camera switched to the
third-person perspective. This style was very successful, in financial as well as in critical
terms, and it was continued in sequels for the GameCube, DS, and Wii. The come-back of
Metroid also resulted in a number of old-school two-dimensional Metroids for the GameBoy
45
Advance, namely Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission (2004). This is the title that we
are going to analyse further, because it was a remake of the original Metroid from 1986, but
with enhanced graphics and abilities. It makes a good example of a continuous world with
cuts, in two dimensions instead of three.
The game starts on the surface of planet Zebes, when the space ship of the playercharacter Samus Aran, one of the first female player-characters in the history of video games,
lands to begin her mission. Then the player goes down in the tunnel- and cavern system of the
planet, and the rest of the game takes place underground. One starts the game in the area
named Brinstar. This is a blue cavern, with a yellow background. It is filled with stones and
an occasional ancient statue. There are also areas in Brinstar that have somewhat different
imagescapes, but the bottom-line is a blue-stoned cavern. In this area the soundtrack plays a
cheerful melody that makes one eager to embark on an adventure. After crossing the caverns
of Brinstar back and forth, one could take the elevator down to Norfair. Norfair is deeper and
closer to the core, so it is a hot area with fire and lava. The soundtrack changes to a darker
tune. The background is red. But after travelling a while in Norfair, one could take the
elevator back up to another area, Crateria. This is a cavern that is filled with water. It leads
back to the planet’s surface, to an area called the Chozo Ruins. This consists of the ancient
temples of the Chozo people, the remains of which are scattered through the game.
So after a short time the player has travelled through some of the main areas of the
game. He now has an overview of the underground world of planet Zebes, and through backtracking he should have a clearer idea of how these spaces are interconnected. Now, from the
Chozo Ruins, the spatial orientation becomes more interesting. Because now one goes down
from the planet’s surface with an elevator in the tunnels, but instead of to Crateria this
elevator leads to Norfair, the hot area. So the areas are interconnected like a network, and
there is more than one connection between them. This feature makes the area feel more like a
solid, realistic space, instead of just a game space. When one goes down into Norfair from the
Chozo Ruins, a new place is entered, but still one could recognize the imagescape, the music,
and the hardscape features, such as the lava. This makes one wonder where he is in relation to
the part of Norfair that has been visited before. After playing further, the player will discover
that Norfair is in fact one large continuous area, and he will learn the relation between the two
parts of Norfair that he have travelled.
Image 9. Metroid: Zero Mission (Nintendo GameBoy Advance: Nintendo, 2004) Map view.
The area depicted is Brinstar. Not more than one area can be shown in map view. The passage
ways to the other areas are shown as well. The map view was not available in the original
Metroid, so that game required a much stronger sense of direction from the player.
The space of Metroid: Zero Mission is continuous, although not completely
continuous. The elevators break the continuity, because they prevent the player from using the
same method of travel between the areas that they use within the areas. It bears some
resemblance to warping. Without the elevators the space would be a large world, divided in a
46
several large and distinct areas. But this is compensated by the interconnectedness of the
areas, which make the world feel more consistent.
So the space of the game is continuous, but it is not seamless. It has cuts. The tunnel
system is divided into several ‘parts’ of equal size. On the map this becomes immediately
clear, as could be observed in image 9. These ‘parts’ are viewed continuously when the player
walks through them, but the cuts appear when he travels between these parts, or when he uses
the doorways, that abound in the game. Also when the player uses one of the few elevators, a
cut appears.
In principle, Metroid: Zero Mission has the same back-tracking features as another
two-dimensional sprite-based side-scrolling action-adventure game like Quackshot (1991).
Here you also have to return to areas to use a key that you found in another area. But the main
difference, in spatial terms, is that in Metroid: Zero Mission you don’t use a map, warp room,
or overworld to travel between these areas. Every location is immediately connected to every
other location, because they are all part of one large space. This feature was present in the
two-dimensional Metroids, but the latest edition for the Wii, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
(2007), made the transition to the overworld games again. In Metroid Prime 3 the several
areas are located on different planets. The planets are connected by the Space Ship Mode, and
they are accessible through an Overworld. So the spatial continuity is decreased, as the areas
are not interconnected in the same space anymore.
Another game that features the structure of continuous space with cuts is The Legend
of Zelda: Link to the Past (1991). In principle, Link to the Past has the same spatial structure
as Metroid. Every place is connected to every other place in the same space. But the former
game features a point-of-view from the side, while the latter has a top-down view. This shows
that spatial structures could exist without regard to the point-of-view used in the game. While
former approaches devoted attention to these aspects of game space, an approach to
navigation of the player in game space goes beyond perception and point-of-view, but attends
instead to the overall structures.
Another difference is that Zelda is an open ‘outdoor’ space that features some houses
and caves that one could enter, and that Metroid is almost entirely in an underground tunnel
system, and thus a corridor space. When the player in Link to the Past enters a house or a
dungeon, there is a cut, and the next moment he is in a house that is bigger than it looked from
the outside. This is a feature that one could observe often in games from this period, and it has
similarities with the spatial logic of the overworld, as discussed in section §3.3.1. But
Metroid: Zero Mission mainly consists of ‘corridor’ spaces, a spatial form which heavily
encourages the construction of cognitive routes, as we have seen in §1.3. The tunnel system of
Metroid: Zero Mission also encourages the construction of cognitive routes, as the player
usually moves back and forth, with an occasional t- or y-junction. He navigates through
landmarks in the space. This is especially true for the original Metroid, but Metroid: Zero
Mission added an in-game map to the game, which is also an important help in navigation.
This map, however, encourages the conception of a cognitive map, because it shows the
objective relations between different locations. The area itself, of which the map is a mere
representation, also provides the possibility of constructing a cognitive map of the
environment. As I have shown, the relations between different locations are objective and
constant, and they are interconnected to each other. Furthermore, the area consists of one
single space, without devices such as overworlds and warp rooms that disrupt the continuity
of the space. There are no spatial modes beyond the space in which one is navigating.
The construction of the cognitive map is slightly hindered by the cuts that appear
frequently during game play. The non-diegetic cuts divide up the space, and decrease the
continuity of the otherwise continuous environment. The continuous space without cuts, or
47
the seamless space that I will discuss in the next subsection, will prove to encourage the
construction of a cognitive map to a larger extend.
§3.5: Continuous space without cuts: seamless space
The seamless space is a video game space much like that of Metroid: Zero Mission
and Link to the Past, but then without the cuts. The space is travelled and experienced
continuously, without any kind of fragmentation, passage ways, elevators, warps, etc. The
video game series Grand Theft Auto is characterized by this type of space, and the series has
been lauded for it. The game series is highly popular, and it has received very high reviews,
because of the large open worlds that the games offer, and the freedom of the player therein.
But seamlessness and continuity is also a characteristic of new media in general,
according to Lev Manovich. It is not only a virtue of video gaming. This is also observable in
new media music. The DJ tries to mix together the separate tracks of his composition (which
consists entirely of ‘objets trouvés’) seamlessly. The highest virtue of a mix is that one cannot
determine where the previous track ends and where the new one begins.115 In video gaming
seamlessness is a virtue, as well as a necessity. We have seen in §1.3 that time in games is an
important factor in the experience of continuity. With regard to time, games usually consist of
one long take, that is only interrupted by occasional cinematic sequences. Because the player
has influence on the fictional world, the action in game time must coincide with the action in
real time, otherwise he would not be able to control the character. Because real time does not
have cuts, game time also does not have (many) cuts.
David Myers compares game time not with film time, but with literary time. In
literature, the temporal sequence of the presentation is of utmost importance for the effect by
the reader. The temporal consistency determines for a great part the aesthetic effect of the
narrative. But in computer games, Myers argues, this is not so important. Game sequences
may be played in different order, parts may be skipped, this does not matter. It is rather a
virtue, because it allows the player more freedom.116 I would argue that if literature depends
greatly on temporal consistency, video games depend very much on spatial consistency. If the
book’s time-line has a fault, the book would be less well received. With games, the spatial
structure must be consistent, or the game would be less well received. That is why the
structure of the continuous space without cuts, or the seamless space, received so much praise
in the gaming world; it presents the game space as consistent, continuous, and as close to
natural observation and movement as possible.
Temporal editing breaks the concentration and immersion of the player, but in video
games time is usually seamless. Manovich argues, however, that editing in new media is
usually spatial instead of temporal. Manovich uses the example of the film Timecode (2000)
to clarify what he means with spatial montage; events that happen at the same time are shown
at the same time, but in another section of the screen. In temporal editing the events would be
shown after each other, but in Timecode the events are shown at the same time in different
‘windows.’117 In video games spatial editing is indeed more common than temporal montage.
Because the player needs to be able to influence the fictional world, events need to be shown
at the moment that they are taking place. So many games have a dynamic radar system, that is
shown in one of the corners of the screen.118 The radar system shows enemies, obstacles and
115
Manovich, The language of…, 137, 142, 144.
David Myers, ‘The anti-poetic’.
117
Manovich, The language of…, 40.
118
Interestingly, Manovich also argues on p. 99 that the radar is a ‘new screen,’ that characterized new media, as
we have seen in section §1.2.
116
48
adversaries, and their location at the present moment, otherwise the information would not be
helpful. This is exactly what spatial editing is about; events that happen at the same moment
in different places are shown in different windows on the screen. In many two-player games
spatial montage is a necessity. In a racing game that is played with two players on the same
screen, each player must view his own vehicle in order to control it. The screen is usually cut
in half, horizontally or vertically, so that each player can see his own location, but the events
happen at exactly the same moment. In some first-person shooters the split-screen is also used
in multiplayer games, for example: Metroid Prime 3 and James Bond 007: Nightfire (2002).
But also in many single-player games there could be a split-screen. In Zack & Wiki: The
Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure (2007) there is a fishing sequence. The screen is split vertically;
on the right one could see the fishing rod and act on it, and on the left one could see the fish in
the water and its reaction to one’s actions.
But Manovich does not realize that spatial editing breaks the seamlessness of the space
and perception as well, just like temporal editing does. This is observable in the game series
Civilization. In the first three instalments of the series, there was the possibility to view one of
the cities in more detail. A window with the name of ‘city view’ was shown then on the
screen; spatial montage. But this perspective on the city was nowhere to be seen on the screen
in the rest of the game. It was another ‘spatial mode.’ The cities during normal game-play
looked like generic map icons, nothing like the more detailed city views. It was as if were two
completely different cities in two completely different spaces. In Civilization IV (2005) the
spatial editing was scrapped, and the city view and the normal view were placed seamlessly in
the same space. The innovation was that the player could gradually zoom in and out of the
game space. One could see the entire planet, and its seas and clouds, when zoomed out at the
most extreme. When zooming in, the point-of-view would pass through the clouds gradually,
and landscapes, cities and roads would appear. This middle-view is the most convenient for
governing your empire. But one could zoom in even closer on one city, and the distinct
buildings that are to be found in that city would appear, which is the equivalent to the ‘city
view’ window in previous versions of the game.119 So the city view is seamlessly integrated in
the same space, and there is no use of spatial editing.
One of the greatest examples of games with a seamless space structure is Grand Theft
Auto, or GTA. This is a series that started in 1997 as a two-dimensional top-down viewed
game with a seamless open space. In 2001 Grand Theft Auto III was released, which
revolutionized both the series as well as the entire game industry. This tremendously popular
and highly critically acclaimed game featured a third-person point-of-view in a threedimensional world. The game space consisted of three islands, which were connected only
through a bridge and a tunnel. The game starts on the island of Portland, an industrial area
with references to Queens. The player could explore this entire area, and play its missions, but
the bridge to the next island is broken, and it would not be fixed until he completed a certain
amount of missions on the first island. This spatial feature functions as a bottleneck, a device
that allows the designer some control on the movement of the player, as we have seen in
section §3.3.1. The second island is Staunton Island, the game’s equivalent to Manhattan, and
the third island is Shoreside Vale, which represents New Jersey. Together they represent the
New York area, which is called Liberty City in the game’s fictional world. The three distinct
islands are connected by bridges and tunnels, and when the player crosses one of them, there
will be a cut. This cut is of a relatively long duration, because the space of the next island is
being loaded. This decreases the immersion and the coherence of the fictional world, and the
119
Although the city view is integrated more in the game space, the spatial relation with regard to size is still
symbolical, or ‘map like.’ The cities are much to big in relation to the mountains that surround them, and much
to small for the soldiers that occupy them. Civilization IV is still a halfway between a map and a world, as
discussed in section §3.3.1.
49
player is reminded for a moment that the space is not real; it is only a game (with long loading
times). So GTA III is not yet a complete seamless space.
The sequel, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) is set in the city of Miami (renamed
Vice City in the game) in the 1980s. It features much the same game play as it prequel, but the
atmosphere is completely different. The spatial structure is also much the same, with the
difference that Vice City features two large islands instead of three. That means that there is
only one moment in navigation in which there is a cut and a loading screen. So this game is
more seamless than its prequel. But in the sequel, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas the cuts and
loading screens have all disappeared, so that this is the first completely seamless game.
Image 10. GTA: San Andreas (Sony PlayStation 2: Rockstar, 2005). First-person view of the
city of San Fierro. The city is perceived here in a purely visual mode. But the player knows
that the city that he sees in the distance, is fully traversable in ‘walker mode’ as well.
San Andreas also consists of three areas, just like GTA III, and they are also not all
instantly accessible because of the use of bottlenecks. But between the areas there are no cuts
or loading screens.120 The game is set in a fictive American state called San Andreas, that is
made to represent California in the early 1990s. The three areas consist of three cities, with
their surroundings. The first city is called Los Santos, a Los Angeles look-a-like. Then you
travel to San Fierro, the game’s equivalent to San Francisco. The last city is Las Venturas,
which represents Las Vegas. There are several bridges and tunnels between the areas, that are
interconnected. The last city, Las Venturas, is also connected to the first city, Los Santos. The
player could travel the entire world by foot, but this would take him hours and hours to travel
to his destination. So he can always hijack a car or a motorcycle, and use that as his means of
transportation. The player could travel the streets in the city, he could travel the roads between
the cities, and he could also go off-road to explore the wilderness. There is also a lot of water
between the cities, so he could also use the boat to explore the space, and finally there are also
airplanes and helicopters that are the fastest way to move around. All these different means of
transportation make it possible to explore and appropriate the space from different
perspectives. There are different spatial practices through which the player could appropriate
his own San Andreas.
120
Of course, the large areas had to be loaded from the disc before entering these areas, but the loading times
have been ‘hidden’ by placing them during the driving over the long and relatively empty roads and tunnels
between areas.
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The structure of games with a continuous space without cuts, like San Andreas,
encourages the player to build a cognitive map of the environment. This is also enhanced by
the incorporation of an in-game map, which the player could view at any time, and a smaller
in-game radar, which is visible on the screen at all times. The locations of San Andreas are in
an objective relation to each other, and the player could arrive at these locations through
several different routes. The street- and road plan of the game allow the player to choose his
own routes, so it is not necessary to remember a cognitive route and use that all the time. The
number of possible routes are too many to encourage the player into navigation on the basis of
cognitive routes. Instead, the player constructs a cognitive map, and conducts his navigation
on the basis of this information.
Apart from the seamlessness of the space of games like San Andreas, there are several
other devices that make the spatial perception of the fictional world feel ‘real’ and ‘natural,’
and the spatial conception of the fictional world more coherent and continuous. I will call
these devices ‘reality effects,’ a term by Roland Barthes. According to Barthes, an example of
a reality effect in literature is the device of ekphrasis. Ekphrasis is the literary description of a
still image, and in that way simultaneously a detour from the story progression. For example,
when the protagonist of a story enters a room, certain traits of that room that are of no
relevance for the plot progression are described in full detail. Although this sequence is not
relevant for the story, it does make the space of the fictional world feel more ‘real.’121
Video games do not consist of words but of designed spaces, as has been argued
throughout this thesis. So in order to make these spaces feel more real, the designer could use
the device of spatial ekphrasis, instead of literary ekphrasis. This is apparent in the game Star
Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace for the PlayStation. This game consists of a number of
spaces, that are projected to be onboard a space ship, in a swamp, on a desert planet, etc. But
there is also a level that takes place in the busy city of Theed. To make this space feel more
like a busy city, spatial ekphrasis is implemented. Video game space could have a number of
functions: a narrative function and a purely game-like function. Some parts of the space of the
city of Theed have the function of staging narrative events, like a conversation with one of the
main characters. Other parts have a purely game-like function, like locating a switch that is
needed to progress further into the level, or locating health-enhancements or ammunition for
the character’s weapons. But there are also parts of the space that do not have either function:
nothing is there to be gained for the player, there is no game progression, and there is no
narrative progression. In some cases there is only an inhabitant of the city that tells the
character in a few sentences what’s on her mind, or the inhabitant of the house tells him to get
out of his private residence immediately. The inclusion of these spaces may be said to
function as ‘dead ends,’ as paths in the maze that do not lead anywhere, so to make the feeling
of way-finding and exploration stronger. But they also function as spatial ekphrasis, so to
make the entire game space feel more ‘real’ and less ‘designed.’ It is their irrelevance that has
the effect of making the city feel more like it would go on living even if the player wasn’t
there. But this is an illusion. The space does not exist as such if the player is not there to
witness it, if the player is not there to produce it, as we have seen in section §2.2.
The Grand Theft Auto games also make heavy use of spatial ekphrasis. The designed
spaces are huge, and they are primarily designed as busy cities, even more like Theed. The
narrative and the game-play take place in these cities, but this does not make use of the entire
space yet. The rest of the space is primarily spatial ekphrasis, with no relevance to plot or
game-play. This makes the cities of Liberty City, Vice City, Los Santos, San Fiero and Las
Venturas feel more like they have been there before playing, and that they will still be there
after playing stops. It makes the game space feel like a ‘lived space.’
121
Barthes, Roland, Het werkelijkheidseffect (Groningen: Historische Uitgeverij, 2004).
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Another spatial reality effect has to do with spatial perception, but it results in a more
coherent understanding of the spatial conception: the draw distance. The draw distance of a
game, also referred to as ‘line of sight,’ determines the maximum distance between the pointof-view and the object, within which distance the object would still be drawn by the game’s
engine. As we have seen in section §2.3, the game’s fictional world is delivered ‘just in time,’
it is drawn at exactly the moment when the camera or the player’s eyes are directed towards
it. Like in the poem by Barnas, the space around the corner does not exist yet. The same is
with the space in the distance. There is a maximum distance within which the object will still
be drawn. If this draw distance is very short, there will be ‘pop-up.’ That means that when the
player is travelling the landscape, a building, a tree, or another object will just seem to ‘pop
up’ when the object becomes in critical distance to the camera. This could be observed in the
video games Driver and Driver 2: Back on the streets (2000). This is an urban driving game
for the PlayStation, and one of the precursors of GTA III. The urban landscape looked
realistic, and it had a realistic atmosphere, but the buildings tended to pop up about 50 meters
in front of your car. Because of the short draw distance, the player did not have a long line of
sight. This was inconvenient for the driving performance, but also for the believability and
coherence of the fictional world. When objects pop up right in front of the player, he is
reminded very strongly that the computer is working hard to build the fictional world he is
travelling, and that it could never be real.
In games with a long line of sight, on the other hand, the draw distance is a strong
spatial reality effect. The Grand Theft Auto games make use of this reality effect. When the
player is still on the first island of GTA III, he could already see the skyscrapers on the second
island, Staunton Island. In San Andreas one could already see the skyline of the city when
driving toward it on the highway. Important landmarks, for example the large Gant (Golden
Gate) Bridge of San Fierro is observable from a very high distance, as could be observed in
image 10. When one is travelling towards this bridge, and eventually even drive over it, this
gives a strong reality effect; it makes the world feel real and coherent. The background
appears to be not just an imagescape or a backdrop, but one could actually travel all those
places that could be seen long before in the background. But while these tall towers and
landmarks had an almost infinite draw distance, small objects such as stones had a shorter
draw distance, and they tended to pop up before one’s eyes, especially when travelling at high
speed in an airplane.
A game that pushes this reality effect to the limit is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind
Waker. As we have seen in section §3.3.2, the game consists of a large continuous space
without cuts. The Wind Waker is so original because the game space consists of a great sea.
The sea is a seamless space from itself, naturally. One could travel the sea of The Wind Waker
indeed in a boat, and through these travels appropriate the space. The part of the sea that has
been travelled is shown on the map. In that way it has been appropriated as ‘your’ space, as
the space you have travelled, mapped and cleared of enemies.
Because the sea is a flat surface, the possible line of sight is very far. It is only limited
by the horizon, that has been designed to be relatively far away. The sea is scattered with
smaller and larger islands. One could see the islands from an enormous distance, as tiny
silhouettes. After having spotted such a silhouette, the player can use the binoculars to see
what it is. If it is indeed an island, the player can direct his sails (and direct the winds with the
‘wind waker’) to set sail to the island. During the travel to the island, the silhouette becomes
ever more detailed, until one is very close to it, and one could land on it. Then it appears to be
a completely actionable space. The player explore the island, and complete its missions. What
has been seen from so far away appears to be not a mere imagescape, not a decorative
background, but a completely traversable and actionable environment. The draw distance is
just as far as with San Andreas, and it also has the effect of travelling very long with the
52
object in sight until it becomes detailed, and it appears bigger even when in front of it. Both
are hardscape features, not imagescapes. The bridges and skyscrapers from GTA are also
hardscape, one could crash into them with a car or airplane. But the difference is that the
distant objects in The Wind Waker are completely traversable and actionable, so that there is
also a perspective from within, while in GTA one could only drive past the skyscrapers.
Driving past the skyscrapers offers a very different perspective than driving towards it from
distance, which is also a strong reality effect, but being able to climb and explore the distant
object from within is an even stronger spatial reality effect. It affords more spatial practices
with regard to the object/area.
Later versions of The Legend of Zelda have not been able to employ these reality
effects to the extend that The Wind Waker did. Its sequel on the Nintendo DS, The Legend of
Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (2007), also featured a large sea with a reasonably long draw
distance, but the DS is technologically not as strong as the GameCube, so a lot of the effects
were not possible. For instance, the sea was not a continuous space without cuts, but it was
divided up into four parts, with cuts and loading screens between them. This strongly
decreases the sense of travelling a large open smooth space as the sea, and it feels more like
travelling a designed game space. The draw distant was reasonably large (for the DS): the
island was seen as a silhouette, that became more detailed when drawing closer. But when the
player was close enough, there appeared a cut, and the next moment he would be on the
island, ready to explore it. The spatial relations between these two moments were not correct;
the island appeared bigger when walking on it then when one saw it from the sea. It was also
shaped differently, flatter and broader. They did not seem to be in the same space, and they
did not even seem to be the same island.
The sequel on the GameCube and the Wii, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
(2006), was set on land again, instead of on the sea. It was not a seamless space, because it
consisted of a number of smaller and larger areas, between which you could not travel without
a cut. The draw distance was very large; one could see Hyrule Castle, which was located in
the centre of the map, from most locations in the fictional world. Other landmarks, such as
Mount Goro, could also be seen from far away. This mountain could also be traversed in full,
so it was a feature of the same single (traversable and actionable) hardscape space.
The draw distances influences both the construction of cognitive maps as well as the
construction of cognitive routes. A high draw distance enables the visuality of landmarks far
away, which could thus act as reference points for navigation. The player knows where he is
vis-à-vis a far away landmark that is within sight. At sea, navigation is aided by landmarks
such as firehouses, towers, and mountains. A game that is set at sea, like The Wind Waker,
makes use of these same landmarks. The player could use the landmark to travel to this same
location, and construct a cognitive route. In this case the landmark is used as a piece of
information in a subjective navigation strategy. But the player could also use the landmark to
determine his own position in relation to this and other landmarks, and thus construct a
cognitive map. In this case the landmark is used for an objective navigation strategy, as a
piece of information on a map that displays objective relations. For both types of cognitive
navigation constructions, a long draw distance is highly helpful.
The third spatial reality effect is the ‘diegetic machine act,’ a concept from Alexander
Galloway. In combination with a large draw distance, the diegetic machine act is even a
stronger reality effect. Galloway distinguishes between non-diegetic operator acts (saving,
loading, and pausing the game), non-diegetic machine acts (frame-dropping, crashing, etc.),
diegetic operator acts (move acts and expressive acts, as discussed in section §2.3), and
diegetic machine acts. Diegetic machine acts function according to Galloway primarily as
53
“ambience acts.”122 These actions function as giving the space more atmosphere, more
liveliness, more of the feeling that the space is a real living space that keeps on living even
after having switched off the computer. The game series GTA makes a lot of use of this reality
effect. People are walking on the streets, seemingly doing their daily choirs and minding their
own business. Cars are driving by. Their drivers sometimes argue, and get into a fight. Then
the police or the ambulance has to show up. And all the games does is just watch the whole
thing; he is not necessarily participating in it. Due to these diegetic machine acts, the fictional
world acts on its own.
In large, spatially seamless games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) and Fall
Out 3 (2008) there is a considerable role of the diegetic machine act, and they make the space
of the fictional world very coherent and believable. Enemy creatures and persons are fighting
each other, even without the player intervening. Because of the very long draw distance, one
could see a group of enemies far away, getting into a fight. One could observe from a safe
distance how these enemies kill each other, and then one could choose a convenient moment
to end the fight and claim all the booty for oneself. It makes the game space feel very real and
independent. In games like Oblivion and Fall Out 3, the diegetic machine act also functions as
a simulation of MMORPG game-play. MMORPG stands for Mass Multi-Player Online RolePlaying Game. In the tremendously popular MMORPG World of Warcraft (2004), most
characters and creatures that the player encounters are controlled by a person somewhere in
the real world. So in a sense, the fictional world of World of Warcraft is really a living world
that goes on living and playing after one has switched off the computer. In this fictional
world, the player would also encounter other persons and creatures fighting amongst
themselves, without the player having anything to do with it. This effect is simulated in large
worlds of single-player games like Oblivion and Fall Out 3. It is simultaneously an effect
simulating reality, as well as an effect simulating another kind of game. In that way it is a
simulation of a simulation.
§3.6: Continuous space without boundaries: looped space
Space in reality is infinite and unlimited. The material universe only takes up a small
part of the unlimited amount of ‘empty’ space that is in existence. Space in video games is
designed space, so it is necessarily bounded. The only way of achieving unlimited space in
video games is to create a loop. The popular arcade game Asteroids (1979) tried to open up
the limits of outer space, but it made use of a single screen, with wrap-around. The screen
could not be escaped, but the edges were not solid walls; one could pass through the edges,
but than one would appear at the other side of the screen. In the typology of Wolf, this is type
3: one screen with wrap-around.123 The outer space of Asteroids was quite contained, but at
least the designers made an effort to simulate the open space of reality.
Asteroids was really popular, and it resulted in many clones. One of these clones was
not build into an arcade cabinet or released on one of the consoles; it was released inside the
fictional world of another video game. In the PlayStation 2 game Grand Theft Auto: San
Andreas (2005) the player can walk around in the above-mentioned three cities, and perform
all kinds of activities. These range from exiting activities like drive-by shootings and street
racing to everyday activities like eating a hamburger or changing your t-shirt. Surprisingly, it
was the ability to do these everyday actions that was the reason the game was very popular
and critically highly acclaimed. One of these everyday activities was entering a bar or a
restaurant and playing a video game on the arcade machine that were there. There were four
122
123
Galloway, ‘Game action,’ 10.
Wolf, ‘Inventing space’.
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different arcade games in the fictional world of San Andreas, and one of them was the game
Duality, which was inspired on Asteroids.
The status of this game Duality is peculiar. It is part of the fictional world of San
Andreas. This is clear, because San Andreas represents southern California during the early
1990s, and the game Duality is clearly a game from that era and not from 2005. The function
of the inclusion of a game like Duality, and for the other arcade games as well, is to produce
the atmosphere of that time. But although it is part of the fictional world, it is also really a
game. One could play it, score points on it, try to beat the high score, and one could even
enjoy it. It is a peculiar manifestation of Juul’s theory that games are “half-real,” because they
consist of real rules and fictional worlds. The game Duality consists of fictional rules in a
fictional world, but one could still really play it. The status of Duality is comparable to a
character in a novel that reads a novel, which is in turn printed in full in the first novel, a
device that Italo Calvino plays with in his novels. In literature, the French structuralist
narratologist Genette would call this phenomenon “intradiegetic narrating.”124 (The
narratological levels of game space will be discussed in §4.1.)
Duality is not a perfect clone of Asteroids. The player has to shoot black and white
spheres instead of asteroids for example, but the most important difference is that the space is
unbound and infinite in Duality, while in Asteroids it was contained, with wraparound. The
player could fly in any direction as far as he wants, he will never bump into a wall. All he will
ever see is black and white spheres. Space is looped, and the space filled with black and white
spheres is simple, so it can be easily looped. Earthly space is limited in reality, so it is logical
it is also bounded in a game. But outer space is infinite, and in games it can also be looped to
infinity.
In some cases earthly space can also be looped, but then the effect is magical rather
than realistic. In Super Mario 64 (1996) the final area is located in the top of the tower of the
castle, and it can only be reached by a winding stairs that goes to the top of that tower. But the
player has to have earned a certain amount of stars to reach the top of the tower, because the
end boss is located there. If he doesn’t have enough stars, the passage way is not closed off,
but the stairs to the tower just keep winding and winding without ever reaching the top. One
can run indefinitely, but still don’t reach the boss, because the stair case consists of looped
space. This instance of looped space is different than that of Duality, because in Super Mario
64 space is looped only in one direction. Space in duality is looped in all possible directions,
but because it is a two dimensional game (with a top-down point of view) only the x- and yaxis are looped infinitely. It is easier to implement a multi-directional loop in a twodimensional game like Duality than in a three-dimensional game like Super Mario 64.
In continuous space without boundaries it is impossible to conceive either a map or a
route, because our cognitive skills are not sufficient to envision infinity. The space is looped
until infinity, and boundaries are indefinitely pushed back. Because our cognitive skills are
not able to compute this kind of space, it is often used in video games to achieve a ‘magical’
effect, or to confuse our orientation in a maze. In many games that incorporate maze-like
spaces, space is looped when the player walks in a wrong direction, in order to disorient the
player in the environment. This is done in Wonderboy in Monsterland but also in Final
Fantasy VII. When in the latter game the player enters the ‘Sleeping Forest’ (before he has
obtained the items ‘lunar harp’ with which he can ‘awaken’ the forest) the forest consists of a
looped space through which he can walk until eternity.
124
Gérard Genette, Narrative discourse. An essay in method (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983) 230.
55
§3.7: Alternative spaces
Since video games are spaces that are concerned with spatial exploration and spatial
appropriation in some way, spatial orientation of the player is of great importance. In some
games, the spatial orientation is put the test even more by the incorporation of alternative
spaces. The game space has an alternative existence in some other alternative dimension,
reality, or in the past or future, with small alterations to the spatial layout. But actions in the
one space have effects in the other space, so the designers could construct complex puzzles
and challenges based on this principle.
In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the land of Hyrule is duplicated with some
alterations in the ‘Golden Land’ of the past. This is also called the ‘Dark World.’ The
atmosphere of this alternative space is much darker and less benign. This is also apparent
from the background music, which changes from a cheerful and motivating tune to a darker
tune in a minor tone. So the changes in the hardscape are less dramatic than the changes in the
imagescape. One could travel to this Dark World by using the Magic Mirror. The Dark World
is indeed a kind of distorted mirror image of the Light World. One could then travel back to
the Light World by using the portal that appears at the place where one used the Magic
Mirror.
An interesting example of how this alternative space is used to affect game play is the
way to access the dungeon level of the Swamp Palace. To enter this dungeon, the player has
to explore the swamp in the Light World. There is a structure in the middle of the swamp,
which turns into the Swamp Palace if the player enters the Dark World. But the Swamp
Palace is not yet accessible, because the entrance is blocked by water. What the player has to
do now is return to the Light World, and pull a switch that will drain the water from the
structure. Then the player can enter the Swamp Palace in the Dark World.
This seems like a simple puzzle, because now the answer is given straightaway, but in
fact it is very ingeniously designed. The player wants to enter the Swamp Palace in the Dark
World, but the path is blocked. So he starts to look for a way in, but only in the direct
surroundings of the Swamp Palace. It is required to think outside the box, and when the player
finally makes the connection in his head between the spatial structure of the Light World and
the spatial structure of the Dark World, the player experiences a veritable ‘eureka’ moment.
The player at this point realizes for the first time that actions in one world have effect on the
alternative world.
Other games in the Zelda series make extensive use of alternative spaces as a game
play feature. In The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time the player can switch between the
land of Hyrule of when Link (the player-character) was a child, and the land of Hyrule of
when Link was a grown-up. The changes in the imagescape are not a dramatic as in Link to
the Past, but there are similar puzzles implemented in the hardscape design. In The Legend of
Zelda: Twilight Princess the world of Hyrule changes into day and night. But the alternative
space of this world is the world of Twilight, where it never becomes day, but also never fully
becomes night. Other games have also used the principle of the alternative space to design
puzzles and exploration challenges. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes uses a Light World and a Dark
World, that are to be entered through portals that are positioned at fixed places in the
landscape.
Sonic the Hedgehog CD (1993) is a game that featured several alternative variants of
the same environment. The standard imagescape design is the ‘present’ time of the space. By
turning switches to ‘past’ or ‘future,’ and then running so fast that Sonic breaks through the
sound barrier, one is able to travel to alternative spaces of the same area. These represent the
past and the future. These alternative spaces are not used as puzzle elements or game play
challenges, but more as rhetorical elements. If one travels to the past, and free all the animals
56
and plant life there, one could then travel to a ‘Good Future.’ The imagescape of the good
future is green, clean, and ecologically responsibly technological. If you do not set things
straight in the past, the future that you travel to is a ‘Bad Future,’ which is polluted, industrial,
and dangerous. The imagescapes of the Good and the Bad Future differ significantly, as well
as the background music. But there are also changes in the hardscape design, and in the game
play. In the Good Future there are no enemy robots (because the player destroyed the machine
that produced them in the past), and the space is more friendly and less challenging altogether.
The effect of this on the player is that he learns that actions in one space (that represents the
past) have effect on the other space (that represents the future); an political ecological
message.
The effects of this spatial structure on the conception of a cognitive map or a cognitive
route are complicated. On the one hand, if the alternative space is seen as a totally other space
(with merely coincidental hardscape and imagescape similarities), then the transition between
the original space and the alternative space is like a warp, and could only be explained and
understood on the basis of a cognitive route. But on the other hand, if the alternative space is
seen as parallel space (with mere minor differences with the hardscape and major differences
with the imagescape of the original space), then this structure demands the conception of a
cognitive map quite acutely. It demands a lot of the spatial insight of the player. The player
can usually enter the alternative space on a few locations in the original space, and he then
arrives at the parallel coordinate in the alternative space. He thus has to have a rather precise
conception of the alternative space in order to anticipate on the location he will be transported
to. He also needs to have an accurate conception of the original space, because the player is
usually expected to act in the alternative space in order to effect changes in the original space.
While working in the one space, he has to take the spatial structure of the other space always
into account, which strongly encourages the conception of a cognitive map. In fact, he has to
construct two parallel cognitive maps.
§3.8: Heterotopias
The heterotopia, a concept from the short article “Of other spaces”125 by the French
philosopher Michel Foucault, as we have seen in section §1.1, is open to many interpretations.
He states first of all that while the 19th century (and much of the 20th century) was obsessed
with history, we are now (in the late 20th and early 21st century) in the epoch of simultaneity,
the epoch of space. But also the concept of space has changed through time. In the early
modern era, space was conceptualized as extension, under the influence of Gallilei. Space was
homogeneous, but recent thinking has moved to the consensus that space is actually
heterogeneous, under the influence of Gaston Bachelard and the phenomenologists.126 This is
consistent with the work of Henri Lefebvre, who has argued that space is never ‘pure’ or
‘objective,’ but always a construction and an interpretation. Social relations are implemented
in space, and because social relations are heterogeneous, social space is necessarily also
heterogeneous.127 Much in the same vein, Gilles Deleuze has distinguished between smooth
space and striated space. Smooth space is the ‘free’ space of the sea and the desert, while
striated space is the ‘hierarchical’ space of the city and the state.128 Because the city is a
125
Foucault, ‘Of other space’.
Ibidem, 22-23.
127
Lefebvre, The production of space, 11.
128
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, ‘Chapter 12: 1227: Of nomadology – the war machine,’ in: Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari, A thousand plateaus. Capitalism and schizophrenia (London: The Athlone Press, 1988) 351423.
126
57
differentiated social space par excellence, the striated space of Deleuze has much in common
with the heterogeneous space of Lefebvre and Foucault.
The heterotopia is a spatial anomaly. It is a site that is not consistent with the law or
the logic of the rest of the space. The heterotopia is a site that has “the curious property of
being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralize, or invent
the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect.”129 Foucault gives the
example of the brothel. The brothel contradicts all the other sites of the city as a social space.
If the city’s spatial layout is a reflection of the city’s norms and value and social organisation,
then the brothel as a heterotopia is the site that harbours the practices that fall outside of those
norms and social organisation. It is not part of the official doctrine, but it still exists and
continues to function in the social space, so it is relegated to a heterotopia. When entering a
brothel, one could immediately sense that you are outside of normal social space, even when
it is entered without intentions.
Foucault discusses six principles of the heterotopia. First is the principle that the
heterotopia is present in every society. Second, each heterotopia has a function in society,
which could also change. Third, the heterotopia is capable of combining several incompatible
spaces, as the stage in the theatre. The fourth principle is that the heterotopia is a site that
opens onto other slices of time, to heterochronies. Examples of these are museums, libraries
and cemeteries. The fifth principle is that the heterotopia is not freely accessible, but either
compulsory or forbidden. The last trait of heterotopias is that they have a function in relation
to all the space that remains. Foucault gives many examples of heterotopias, that adhere to
one or more of the above principles: the boat, the train, the mirror image, the brothel, the
female place for menstruation, defloration and childbirth, the theatre, the cemetery, the prison,
the psychiatric hospital, the oriental garden, the museum, the library, the sauna, the military
barracks, the motel, etc.130
The heterotopia in video games is to be understood in the first place as a spatial
anomaly. These spatial anomalies could have many different shapes and causes. The first type
of heterotopia is the ‘secret level’ or the ‘special stage,’ a type of place outside of game space.
Sonic the Hedgehog features a special stage, which is accessible only by achieving certain
conditions. So it adheres to Foucault’s fifth principle. When the player clears a normal stage
while in possession of at least 50 rings, a giant ring appears at the end of the stage. If he
jumps through this ring, he is transported to a space that has no real location in the fictional
world, and where other laws govern. There is no steady ground to walk on; instead the player
keeps tumbling through a rotating system of tunnels. The background changes from one
psychedelic image into another, much in the same way as the Escherian lizards change into
birds. From all these contradictions with the rest of the game, the ‘special stage’ heterotopia is
very much a spatial anomaly.
The difference between a ‘secret level’ and a ‘special stage’ is that the former is a
single space that one could access by achieving a number of conditions, and that is usually
located at the end of the game. The ‘special stage’ is a space that is also only accessible under
a certain condition, but one that recurs throughout the game. A ‘secret level’ is for example
the sixth warp room in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back.
The spatial anomaly could also be produced by the actions that are possible inside that
space. In many action-adventure games with large explorable worlds, the player has a number
of actions at his disposal, for example running, jumping, fighting, etc. The fictional world is
usually filled with enemies, so the ‘expressive act’ of fighting is an essential action in many
games. However, in the action-adventure game Ōkami (2007) the expressive act of fighting is
not available in the home village. The reason for this is that there are no enemies. But the
129
130
Foucault, ‘Of other spaces,’ 23.
Ibidem, 24-27.
58
effect of this spatial design choice is that the player feels at home in this part of the game
space; it is the place where he has started his journey, the place to which he will return
throughout the game, and the place where he is safe from attacks. But the normal game rules
and game logic of the rest of the space do not apply here; it falls outside of the normal game
‘law,’ so to speak, so it is a heterotopia. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has a similar
place: the village where the player starts is a ‘safe haven,’ where a lot of expressive acts are
not available; they simply do not work there. The ‘hack & slash RPG’ Diablo 2 (2000)
consists of four large areas, which also feature a ‘safe haven,’ a spatial anomaly that is not
really part of the game because the normal game play does not apply here.
Tomb Raider 3 (1998) has the most striking example of this type of ‘home ground’
heterotopia. The game consists of a number of levels that function as obstacle courses, as well
as puzzle spaces. They are located in various areas around the world, such as India, Nevada,
and the South Pacific, and they are accessible through selection in the game menu, which is
not unconventional in video gaming. But the protagonist Lara Croft’s mansion is also
playable, traversable, and actionable, although she can not fire her weapon inside the house.
Furthermore, this space is accessible through an entirely different path; by selection from the
main menu, instead of the level menu. The location of Lara’s house in relation to the other
levels is not at all clear, and from the location in the menu it seems like it is not part of the
main game. It is one of the clearest examples of the ‘home ground’ heterotopia.
Another example of a spatial anomaly in video games is the ‘intertextual’ heterotopia.
This is a space in the game that functions as a reference to a space in another game. It is not
entirely part of the ‘official’ game space of the present game, but it has some relation to it. An
example of this is from San Andreas. Towards the end of the game, the player-character is
becoming involved with a few Italian mafia families in Las Venturas, which also have
connections with the mafia branch in Liberty City, the space from GTA III. A lot of references
to this game (and to Vice City as well) are made, an intertextual pleasure for the familiar GTA
player. But at a certain moment the player can accept a mission to assassinate a person in
Liberty City itself. He takes the plane on the airport in the coherent fictional world of San
Andreas, and then he is transported, in a cinematic sequence of the airplane flying, to Liberty
City of the early 1990s (while Liberty City in GTA III was set in the early 2000s). The space
of Liberty City that is available in this heterotopia is a small slice of the entire space of GTA
III, and moreover the imagescape is slightly changed. It is winter in Liberty City, and the
streets and buildings are covered with snow, while in GTA III the season was not distinct,
although it certainly was not winter. This is a contrast with the warm climate of San Andreas.
This heterotopia is consistent with Foucault’s fourth principle: it opens onto another
time, a heterochrony, of a time in the future, of a game that is not this game, of a world that is
not this world. It is also consistent with the sixth principle, as it stands in relation to all the
other space that remains. It contrasts with the climate of San Andreas, but it also shows the
game play continuities within the series. It shows the roots of the space that the player is
currently living in. But it is not part of San Andreas, nor of the coherent game space. One can
not go to this place before the mission, and after the mission is finished one can never return
to it. So it is also consistent with the fifth principle: it is not freely accessible. It is not
depicted on the map, and it is not normally accessible. It is a spatial anomaly, a heterotopia.
The ‘intertextual’ heterotopia appeared in another instalment of the GTA series as well,
although the intertextual reference is not to another game but to another film. In GTA: Vice
City there is an apartment in a block of houses in the fictional city that represents Miami, that
immediately reminds the player of the scenes in the movie Scarface131 (1983), in which the
protagonist Tony Montana nearly escapes death in a bloody bathtub. In this example the
131
The movie Scarface is also located in Miami, and the game Vice City attempts to revive the atmosphere of
Miami of the 1980s of Scarface and Miami Vice on more occasions than just this one.
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heterotopia is freely accessible; the player is allowed to return to the house, so it does not
adhere to the fifth principle, but it is very hard to find in the huge environment of Vice City.
The previous heterotopias, the ‘secret level,’ the ‘special stage,’ the ‘home ground,’
and the ‘intertextual’ heterotopia, are all spaces that were designed by the designer, part of his
plan, although they were anomalies to the rest of the space. They were heterotopias on
Hendriks’ first (and in the case of the ‘home ground’ second level) of game space, as
anomalies of the designed game space. For the player they are anomalies, but for the designer
they are still part of his plan, so they are on this level incorporated in the striated space. But
the ultimate heterotopia would be the spatial anomaly that is unexpected by the player, but by
the designer as well.
Image 11. Super Mario Bros. Minus World
A famous example of this kind of heterotopia is the Minus World of Super Mario
Bros., as seen on image 11. This I would call the ‘glitch’ heterotopia. This level is accessible
through a glitch in the game, by passing through a wall that was meant to be solid. If the
player walks through this wall, he is placed in “World -1.” Actually, the first number is not
written, because it should say “World 36-1.” But because this number was not written, the
world has begotten a name that perfectly fits its character as ‘glitch’ heterotopia. The Minus
World is identical to World 2-2 and World 7-2, but when the player enters the green pipe at
the end of the level, he is warped back to the beginning of the Minus World. So it is a looped
space as well, although the loop contains a cut when one enters the green pipe. The Minus
World is a spatial anomaly, both on the level of the designed space as on the level on the
spatial practices. It is not freely accessible, and is thus consistent with the fifth principle. Its
relation to the rest of the fictional world is not intended, but it does make the rest of the space
feel artificial, as it breaks the coherence of the fictional world. One is literary playing
‘between the lines’ of the game, in a space where one should not be. One has passed beyond
the presentation, and is taking a peek into the game’s code, that has been revealed by the
glitch.
In contradiction to the Alternative space the heterotopia is a complication that does not
encourage an enhanced spatial insight, but rather an addition that is distorting and
incommensurable with the spatial logic of the rest of the space. In the ‘special stage
heterotopia’ the connection between the normal space and the special space is not clear and
also incomprehensible. The ‘secret level heterotopia’ is then more in line with the normal
space, and could even function as a ‘spatial reality effect’ as discussed in §3.5. The ‘home
ground heterotopia’ is also a logical part of the environment, although normal game play is
not applicable here. It could thus be incorporated in the cognitive map. The ‘intertextual
heterotopia’ is a part of the space that does not follow the logic of the fictional world, and is
60
not understandable without knowledge of the other worlds to which these heterotopias refer.
The example of San Andreas could not be understood as part of the cognitive map, because
there is only one way to this place; by aeroplane. It has no location on the map of the game
world. Furthermore, once the scenes in this heterotopia have been played out, the player is
transported back instantly, and there is no possibility of back-tracking. So this example only
allows for the construction of a cognitive route. The heterotopia from Vice City does have a
location on the map, and could thus be incorporated in a cognitive map. In fact, because it is
so hard to find it encourages the construction of a map and route. The ‘glitch heterotopia’ is
accessible only by walking through a wall that was supposed to be solid. Only if one knows
the location of this wall, one is able to reach the heterotopia. There is only one route that one
has to remember, and the player should pay attention to landmarks along the way. On the
whole, the heterotopia distorts the construction of a cognitive map of the entire environment.
In this section we have seen how spatial structures of video games influence the
conception of cognitive routes and cognitive maps by the players of these games. Although
the map and route is of course a cognitive construct, the ‘textual’ side determines and allows
the construction of these maps and routes. I have discussed a typology of the spatial structures
based on the level of continuity and coherence of the environments. I have distinguished
between fragmentary spaces with none, linear, and non-linear continuity, and continuous
spaces without boundaries, with cuts, and without cuts. Furthermore, I have discussed two
complications, Alternative spaces and heterotopias. Some structures favour the construction
of cognitive map, other structures favour the construction of a cognitive route for player
navigation through the environment. Other structures complicate the conception of both
cognitive constructs.
In §3.8 we have seen that the ‘intertextual heterotopia’ is not to be understood without
knowledge of other ‘texts’ to which these spaces refer. We could understand this as an
example of how the space of the fictional world of the game is demarcated by narratological
boundaries, which are in this case being transgressed. In the next section I will analyse the
narratological boundaries of game space in more detail, and show how the spatial structure’s
coherence comes under pressure when these boundaries are being transgressed.
§4: Beyond the virtual world
In the previous section we have discussed a typology of spatial structures of the
fictional worlds of video games. Apart from the ‘standard’ structures, I have discussed two
possible complications of game space; alternative spaces, and heterotopias. In this section I
will discuss another important complication of game space, which comes into being when the
video game breaks through the narrative boundaries of space, and communicates or even acts
through the boundary of the screen into the world that the player thus far had perceived as
comfortably ‘real.’
But there is always already some extend of narrative boundary breaking in video
games, due to their medium-specific characteristics. The relation between the player and the
fictional world of the video game is different than that between the reader and the fictional
world of the novel. The player has to actively explore and appropriate the space, while the
reader only has to cognitively reproduce what is written on the pages, as I have shown in
subsection §2.4. There needs to be maintained a stable physical link between the extradiegetic player and his intra-diegetic avatar in order to make the game work. So by haptically
61
acting in this fictional world, the space becomes ‘quasi-physical.’ But when the ‘quasiphysical’ space invades the ‘physical’ space of the player, the structure of the game space is
complicated, and so is the possibility of constructing a cognitive map or route of the space of
the video game.
§4.1: Narratological boundaries of video game space
Instabilities of the connection between the player’s space and the diegetic space have
been discussed by game scholars before, but these publications failed to assess the
consequences of this for the structures of video game space. Jesper Juul discusses this kind of
instability as a conflict between the “rules” and “fiction” of the game, the two main concepts
of his book. He discusses an example from the text-based adventure game Witness (1983):
>wait
The rain is falling heavily now.
>drink rain
(Sorry, but the program doesn’t recognize the word “rain.”)132
In this example, there is a conflict between the rules and the fiction of the game, according to
Juul. The player enters a diegetic command that is not recognized by the game, and the game
answers with an extra-diegetic response. The player is not addressed to in his identity as
character in the game, but rather as a person that is sitting behind his computer.
The previous example was non-intended by the game, at least the player is expected to
give a “fictional reading” (see discussion on Ryan in §1.1) of the game and not willingly enter
commands that have a great chance of not being recognized by the game. But in other cases,
the confusion between the roles of player and character is intended by the game. Juul also
discusses a very common scene in conventional video games, in which a diegetic character
gives information about objects in the extra-diegetic world, most likely game controls. In
Super Mario Sunshine (2002) an intra-diegetic object called the Fludd talks to Mario about
the lay-out of the GameCube controller.133 This situation has everything to do with the
necessary link between player and avatar, as discussed above.
The American game scholar Laurie Taylor discusses another example of (nonintended) instability of the link between world and player, with regard to the position of the
player in the game space. We have already seen in §1.2 that Taylor favours a ‘player-centred’
and ‘experiential’ approach to game space. She argues that the ‘seams’ that hold game space
together could easily fall apart. She analyses the example of the first-person game The X-files
game (1998), as seen in image 12. The player-character of this game is agent Wilmore, and
the player sees the world through the eyes of agent Wilmore from the first-person point-ofview. But the space of the video game breaks down when the player looks in the mirror, and
sees the reflection of agent Wilmore, and not of himself. This results in a situation that could
not be logically dissolved; the point-of-view is simultaneously occupied by the player-ascharacter and by the character agent Wilmore. But agent Wilmore is inside of the space of the
screen, while the player is outside of the space of the screen. But then again, the character of
Wilmore is “performatively” linked to the player, so he should also be outside of the screen.
The point-of-view is located at a coordinate that is impossible to determine.134
132
Juul, Half-real, 179.
Juul, Half-real, 184-187.
134
Taylor, ‘When seams fall apart.’
133
62
Image 12. The X-files game (PC: Hyperbole studios, 1998). In-game view. Agent Wilmore
looks in the mirror.135
Taylor analyses this situation from the theory of psychoanalysis and Lacan’s
discussion of the mirror image. The connection between the player and the player’s position
in the game space implies a type of identification, and that identification is understood by
Taylor as the identification of the mirror stage in Lacan’s developmental psychology. But
with regard to space, this situation could better be explained in terms of narratological
boundaries. The same goes for Juul, who discusses the situation in terms of “rules” and
“fiction.” When analysing these examples from a narratological framework, it becomes clear
that there exist boundaries between intra-diegetic, extra-diegetic, and non-fictional spaces,
which can be crossed in various ways, by the player and by the game itself.
In various art disciplines, from literature and film to theatre, the narrative could be
seen as an act of communication between a sender and a receiver on three different levels.
The German narratologist Manfred Jahn relates these three levels of narrative communication
in an onion-shaped model, as seen in figure 13. First there is the layer of non-fictional
communication. This is the communication of an author as a real person writing a book that is
then read by the reader as a real person. This layer is non-fictional. The next layer consists of
the communication between the narrator and what he calls the addressee. This layer is
fictional, as it takes place only inside the text, but it stays on the level of what Genette calls
narrative discourse. The inside of the onion consists of the communication between intradiegetic characters. Jahn calls this level the level of action, as he sees utterances by characters
also as “speech acts.”136
The position of the narrator could be analysed in more detail. If the narrator is
homodiegetic, he is part of the fictional world, of the innermost layer of the scheme, as well
as of the middle layer of fictional communication and discourse. If the narrator is
heterodiegetic, he is not part of the fictional world, but only of the level of fictional mediation.
Normally the boundaries between the non-fictional level, the level of fictional
mediation and discourse, and the level of action are hermetically closed off from each other.
The characters on the level of action are not aware that they are mere characters in a story.
But in the case when these boundaries would be transgressed, this would be called
“metalepsis.” In literature one could observe the play with these boundaries when characters
seem to attempt to establish contact between them and the author or the reader. Or one could
think of the case in which authors seemingly join the action of the story world. The first case
would be called “diegetic-to-extra-diegetic metalepsis” and the latter “non-fictional-todiegetic metalepsis.”137 But all three layers could be playfully transgressed in various ways, as
135
Image from: Taylor, ‘When seams fall apart’
Manfred Jahn, Narratology. A guide to the theory of narrative (University of Cologne 2005). Online available
at: http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm (accessed January 2009) N2.3.1.
137
Jahn, Narratology, N2.3.5.
136
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one could also imagine a narrator acting as an author, an author as a character, a reader as a
character, etc. Because metalepsis consists of the transgression between the three different
levels, I would call this “vertical transgression.”
Figure 13. Three levels of the conventional narrative situation138
But not only are the narrative layers hermetically sealed off, also the roles of author
and reader, and narrator and addressee. When the boundaries between these institutions are
transgressed, I would talk about “horizontal transgression,” according to the model by Jahn.
For this model seems to portray narrative communication as a one way street, but actually
there can be a diffusion of active roles. In the scheme the arrows all point in one direction,
from the active left side to the passive right side. But in the case of hypertext literature, the
reader is assigned a more active role that moves to the left direction of the author, as he
configures and reconfigures the textual elements provided by the author when he navigates
through the work. This kind of “material” configuration in the case of hypertext is hardly
typical of the conventional narrative situation, but according to the German literary theorist
Wolfgang Iser the reader always has an active role in the mental constitution of the text while
reading it.139
In video games the above model of narrative situation does not work in the same way
as in literature. This difference arises from the obvious fact of constant horizontal
transgression that is essential of the video game. The video game player has a different kind
of active role than a reader. For the Finnish scholar Markku Eskelinen this is enough reason to
distinguish the gaming situation radically from the narrative situation, and exclude it from the
realm of narrative. He departs from the classical concept of the (literary) narrative situation as
an instance of “recounting,” and goes on to characterize the dramatic situation as an activity
of “enacting,” the performative as “taking place,” and the finally the gaming situation as
“manipulation.” This can be seen in figure 14. These are four types of handling the narrative
‘raw material.’ In games the raw material is merely treated as equipment for the player to
manipulate, so the dominant user function vis-à-vis the narrative material would be to
configure, not to interpret. 140
138
Drawn from: Jahn, Narratology, N2.3.1.
Wolfgang Iser, ‘The reading process: a phenomenological approach,’ in: David Richter ed., The critical
tradition. Classic texts and contemporary trends (Boston 1997) 956-968.
140
Markku Eskelinen, ‘The gaming situation’ GameStudies (July 2001). Online available at:
http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/eskelinen/ (accessed January 2009).
139
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Figure 14. Eskelinen’s four types of (narrative) situations141
As we have seen in section §2.4, Raessens gives a more critical overview of the
participation of the player in the game, one that does not go in the direction of arguing for a
radical break from narrative on the basis of this, as Eskelinen does, neither in the direction of
assigning a role of empowering authorship to the player, as Neitzel does.142 Raessens
distinguishes between three general domains of participation: interpretation, reconfiguration,
and construction. In the domain of interpretation the percipient is already active, as he
actively engages the art work. The process of reconfiguration then is typical for the video
game, but the role of the player is here limited to “moving pixels” around over the screen. For
example, in the game of Pong (1968) the player is able to move pixels representing a table
tennis bat around over the screen, but this in no conceivable way makes him the “author” of
the game of Pong. It is only in the third domain of participation; construction, that the player
has a veritable agency to create. Whereas with reconfiguration the player is involved with
existing game elements, with construction the player creates new game elements. As one
could see in figure 15, the three kinds of participation are not unique to the video game, and
the video game in turn can include every one of the three types of participation. In image 15
Raessens has replaced interpretation with deconstruction, to emphasize the player’s active
position vis-à-vis the game “text.”
Figure 15. From interactivity to participation in computer games143
141
Drawn from: Raessens, ‘Computer games as…’
See: Britta Neitzel, ‘Narrativity in computer games,’ in: Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein eds., Handbook
of computer game studies (Cambridge and London 2005) 240-241.
143
Raessens, ‘Computer games as …,’ 380.
142
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The narratological layers of fictional communication have also been used to analyse
structure of fictional space, especially in theatre studies. The concept of the ‘fourth wall,’144
an imaginary wall that separates the stage and its performers from the audience, is in fact a
narratological boundary between the intra-diegetic world, and the extra-diegetic and nonfictional world in Jahn’s scheme. In art forms like theatre, the intra-diegetic fictional world
and the extra-diegetic world are spatially separated by a ‘fourth wall,’ but the concept could
be applied to other art forms with a less concrete spatiality as well, like literature. In nonelectronic games there also exists a spatial separation that divides the space of play from the
space of non-play. The Dutch historian and game theorist Johan Huizinga argues that play
activity creates a temporal as well as a spatial boundary, and uses for this the concept of the
“magic circle.”145 In non-electronic games the magic circle is upheld by the lines that
demarcate the tennis court or the football field, but in video games the magic circle is actually
not a circle but a screen, the ‘fourth wall.’ Communication through this screen, from intradiegetic characters to extra-diegetic players and situations, breaks the ‘fourth wall.’
The examples from Witness, Super Mario Sunshine and The X-files game from the
beginning of this subsection show how this boundary could be blurred. This could result in
destabilisation of the connection between player and avatar, as an intrusion of ‘real’ world
elements into the fictional world as well as an extension of the fictional world of the game
into the real world. It is this last phenomenon that could have great impact on the construction
of a cognitive map or route by the player. In the next subsection I will analyse examples of
this phenomenon, and argue how they could function in the player’s cognitive construction of
the space.
§4.2: The other side
In some cases the video game extends its reach beyond the screen, into the world the
player perceives as real. The game could cross the narratological boundary between intradiegetic and extra-diegetic action and communication, and break out of the ‘magic circle’ and
through the ‘fourth wall.’ These are then not cases of ‘accidental metalepsis’ as in the
examples of Witness and The X-files game, or ‘conventional metalepsis,’ as in the tutorial of
game controls in Super Mario Sunshine. It should rather be characterized as ‘stylistic
metalepsis,’ because boundary transgression is here intended to be an element of the design of
the game or its story, and because it is a design choice that is regarded as belonging to a
certain ‘style’ of the particular designer. They should thus be incorporated into the spatial
structure that comprises the entire game.
An example of this is the video game In Memoriam (2003). In this game the player has
to solve a mystery of a missing journalist investigating a series of murders, by gathering
information and evidence and by solving puzzles. This information and the clues to the
puzzles, however, are not only to be found within the confines of the game’s fictional world,
but the player also has to search for clues on the internet, both on specially-created websites
for the game as well as on regular already existing ‘real’ websites. Also, during the game the
player receives e-mails in his regular e-mail account from characters in the game and the main
antagonist.
This is neither ‘accidental’ nor ‘conventional’ transgression of narratological
boundaries, but is a design choice intended to have a certain effect on the player. It also
belongs to the ‘style’ of this particular game designer, Eric Viennot. Viennot, who is trained
144
Elizabeth Bell, Theories of performance (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2008) 303.
Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens. A study of the play-element in culture (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1955) 1011.
145
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as a visual artist, presents himself as the ‘auteur’ of his interactive fiction that bears the
trademarks of his particular ‘style.’146
In the game In Memoriam two narratological boundaries are being transgressed; that
between the intra-diegetic level of action and the extra-diegetic level of fictional mediation
and discourse, but also between the inner level and the level of non-fictional communication.
The game extends its reach into domains that are normally used for the player’s non-fictional
communication, like his e-mail account and his internet browser. The boundaries of the magic
circle are blurred. The game space is thus extended into cyberspace, into spaces that are
normally perceived by the player as ‘real’ instead of ‘fictional.’ But the game does not extend
its reach into physical space, like the game Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes (2004) does.
Hideo Kojima, the designer of the Metal Gear Solid series, is also being regarded as a
‘game auteur’ next to the likes of Sid Meier, Yu Suzuki, and Shigeru Miyamoto,147 because of
his distinctive style (which consists of playing with narratological boundaries), although this
style is not appreciated by everyone equally.148 Moreover, he presents himself as a game
auteur, by putting a signature on the cover of his games, a practice that is very rare in the
game industry. In the style of one of the first recognized ‘auteurs’ of cinema, Alfred
Hitchcock,149 Kojima appears in the fictional world of the video game in ‘cameos.’ In Metal
Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) the protagonists are Solid Snake and Raiden, who are
investigating a ship and an offshore platform for signs of great new weapon system codenamed ‘Metal Gear.’ On the player’s investigation he open lockers in the crew’s quarters, and
inside those lockers the crew not only hangs up pictures of Japanese swim suit models, but
also of the wittingly smiling Hideo Kojima. The game designer transgresses two
narratological layers by appearing on the level of action in Jahn’s scheme.
In the Metal Gear Solid series the game intrudes the physical space of one’s living
room (or wherever playing takes place), on several occasions. This is done in various ways;
by referring to non-fictional objects in the real world, and even by acting and influencing
physical objects on the other side of the screen. During the game of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons
of Liberty the player switches half-way between player-characters, from Solid Snake to
Raiden. Not much is known about this character, but later on in the game it is revealed that he
was adopted by the leader of the terrorist group that he is fighting against. In his youth, he did
a lot of VR training to become a strong soldier. This point of virtual reality plays a large role
in Raiden’s life. In the game events this point is taken to an extreme. His commanding officer,
the Colonel with whom he is constantly in touch via a communication device, suddenly starts
to act strange. The whole mission that you have been playing as Raiden turned out to be an
S3, or; a Solid Snake Simulation. The terrorist leader had set it up as a sort of VR training, to
make Raiden into the perfect soldier. The Colonel was of course a central part in this
simulation, as he was the one who guided Raiden through the situations. But at one point the
simulation starts to malfunction, and the Colonel starts to talk ‘nonsensical’ and breaks the
illusion of the simulation. During the conversation the Colonel’s voice is distorted. What
follows next is a large part of this conversation in full:
Colonel: “Raiden, do you copy? You must continue your m-mission.”
Raiden: “I’ve lost all my gear. I need to locate Snake.”
Colonel: “He was never factored into the simulation. Leave him out of this.”
Raiden: “I can’t do much naked, especially in this temperature.”
146
In Memoriam – official website, http://www.inmemoriam-thegame.com/fr/gam2.htm (accessed January
2010).
147
Galloway, ‘Allegories of control,’ 90.
148
Ernest Adams, ‘Postmodernism and the three types of immersion,’ Gamasutra (9 July 2004)
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040709/adams_01.shtml (accessed January 2009).
149
Robert Kolker, Film, form & culture (Boston, etc.: McGraw-Hill, 2006) 135.
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Colonel: “That’s true -- you won’t be able to attack or enter the Hanging Mode either.”
Raiden: “I think Snake has my gear.”
Colonel: “Raiden, take out Solidus and his men. You must recover Arsenal [another Metal
Gear] intact.”
Raiden: “Colonel, are you under orders from the Patriots [the group that is also after the Metal
Gear]?”
Colonel: “Your role -- that is, mission -- is to infiltrate the structure and disarm the terrorists.”
Raiden: “My role? Why do you keep saying that.”
Colonel: “Why not? This is a type of role-playing game. The point is that you play out your part
-- and I expect you to turn in a perfect performance!”
Raiden: “Colonel, I just remembered something.”
Colonel: “What?”
Raiden: “That I’ve never met you in person. Not once.”
Colonel: “Hmm. Complete your mission according to the simulation!”
Raiden: “Colonel, who are you?”
Colonel: “No more questions. We have Rosemary.”
Raiden: “What do you mean by that?’
Colonel: “Over and out.”
[line disconnects and immediately connects again]
Colonel: “Raiden, turn the game console off right now!”
Raiden: “What did you say?”
Colonel: “The mission is a failure! Cut the power right now!”
Raiden: “What’s wrong with you?”
Colonel: “Don’t worry, it’s a game! It’s a game just like usual.”
Rosemary [appears out of nowhere in the conversation]: “You’ll ruin your eyes playing so
close to the TV.”
Raiden: “What are you talking about!?”
Colonel: “Raiden, something happened to me last Thursday when I was driving home. I had a
couple of miles to go -- I looked up the sky and saw a glowing orange object in the sky, to the
east! It was moving very irregularly… Suddenly, there was intense light all around me -- and
when I came to, I was home. What do you think happened to me…?”
Raiden: “Huh?”
Colonel: “Fine, forget it…”
[line gets disconnected and connected again]
Colonel: “Honestly, though, you have played the game for a long time. Don’t you have anything
else to do with your time?”
What we can see here very clearly is that the Colonel is alluding to the fact that the
events in the game are not real but simulated, and that Raiden is the main subject of the
simulation. But this does not seem to come through to Raiden. First, the Colonel says that
Snake is not a part of the simulation. That means that the simulation referred to here is part of
the diegetic world of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. But Raiden seems to ignore this,
and persists on his wish to locate Solid Snake, because he needs his gear. Then the Colonel
switches from the intra-diegetic simulation to the extra-diegetic simulation to mention that he
can not enter Hanging Mode. This way of talking about a stealth tactic that lets Raiden hang
from a ledge to hide from enemies is typically addressed to the player as player, and not to the
player as character. As we have seen in §4.1 it is not unconventional to let in-game characters
talk directly to the player about which buttons to use to make this or that action, and the Metal
Gear Solid games make good use of this. But in this case the Colonel talks to Raiden and not
to the player directly. Furthermore, this statement does not have the function to instruct the
player, but to convey story information, namely that the Colonel is not “real” as Raiden
thought. This is another example of vertical narratological transgression from the intradiegetic to the extra-textual level.
68
Image 16. Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes (Nintendo GameCube: Silicon Knights and Konami,
2004)
Furthermore, the Colonel refers to objects and situations in the ‘real’ world, like the
Playstation’s power switch, and the fact that the player has been playing too long and should
get some sleep. In Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes an intra-diegetic character named Psycho
Mantis also makes references to the extra-diegetic world. This enemy does not only have an
arsenal of conventional attacks, he also uses his psychic powers to battle Solid Snake. He
controls the mind of a character that is supposed to be on the side of Snake. But the
narratological transgression is especially foregrounded when he uses his psychic powers to
control the extra-textual world of the player. He lets the player think that he has changed the
TV channel, when the screen turns black and in the top right corner the word “HIDEO” is
displayed. Hideo is of course the given name of the designer, but “hideo” or “bideo” ()
is also similar to the Japanese spelling of the English word “video,” because the Japanese
language does not have the “v” sound. Then he tries to read the mind of the player himself.
He could then say: “I see that you like Nintendo games.” This statement is not addressed to
the player as a character, but also not as a player. It is addressed to the player as a nonfictional person. Psycho Mantis then goes on: “You seem to like The Legend of Zelda, don’t
you?” Psycho Mantis knows even more detailed information about the player in a nonfictional context. In reality, the game just reads the memory card in the GameCube, and then
lets Psycho Mantis utter a scripted mind-reading. But it takes a while for the player to figure
this out, and at least at first the effect of this transgression on the player is stunning.
Psycho Mantis is also able to physically act in the ‘real’ physical world. He says he
can move the controller if the player puts it on the table. When it is put on the table he uses
his “psychic powers” to move the controller, but it is just the vibration function that makes the
controller move. The effect at that moment, however, is again stunning. It produces the eerie
feeling of an intrusion through the usually comfortably stable glass screen of the television.
Psycho Mantis says he can read the player’s mind through the controller, and so he can dodge
every bullet that one fires at him. What the player then has to do is put the controller in
another socket, so Psycho Mantis doesn’t know where the player is anymore. But after a while
he finds the player again, and one has to change the controller again.
These transgressions of narratological boundaries, from receiving ‘fictional’ e-mails in
a non-fictional e-mail account, to references of in-game characters to the player’s sleepiness,
his personal taste in video games, and making the controller physically move around on the
69
table, result in a destabilization of the boundaries of the ‘magic circle,’ and thus of the
structures of game space. These devices have a confusing effect, and thus function in a
complication and decreased ability of the player’s cognitive conception of maps and routes.
The attention of the player is guided away from the space behind the screen, but rather to the
effects of the game on the other side of the screen, the physical ‘real’ world.
Video game space is necessarily more complicated than just the space behind the
screen. Due to medium-specific characteristics there is a physical link between the extradiegetic player and the intra-diegetic space, which incorporates the agency of the player in the
fictional world. This results in situations as in-game characters referring to extra-diegetic
control mechanisms, but also to a destabilisation of the point-of-action and point-of-view
when the protagonist of a first-person game looks in the mirror. These situations could best be
described in terms of narratologically structured space. Game space could be delineated by
implementing narratological boundaries, which separates the magic circle from the outside
world, and intra-diegetic space from extra-diegetic space.
In some cases these boundaries are blurred and transgressed on purpose, as a stylistic
choice in game design. The structures analysed in §3 were internal structures, but the space
beyond the virtual world is about the limitations of game space. When the boundaries are
transgressed, there is no coherent spatial structure conceivable that could incorporate the
presence of game space outside of the screen. There is no connection, so also no route, and no
map possible. The player just has to accept a certain amount of ambiguity, and postpone the
construction of a map that covers the entire space indefinitely.
Conclusion
The ‘spatial turn’ in video game studies has thus far yielded several relevant results.
Viewing video games as spaces has produced an acceptable status quo in the classic
‘ludology-narratology debate,’ in which the possibility of telling stories through video game
was being discussed. Games are to be understood as ‘narrative space,’ and this conclusion
from the article by Jenkins (2004) is now widely accepted. A wide range of approaches to
game space has since been devised. Some accounts draw inspiration from fine arts and film,
others from psychoanalysis and phenomenological philosophy. But no approach has been
implemented that is able to explain simply how players are able to act, move and succeed in
these (sometimes complex and elaborate) environments at all. The player needs to navigate
through game space somehow, and devise strategies in order to achieve this. My approach is
simply based upon the presupposition that players need some kind of navigation strategy in
order to find the way through the game environment. Like other animals, humans use roughly
two kinds of navigation strategies: they construct a cognitive map or a cognitive route. A
cognitive map is a construction that foregrounds the objective relations between the different
locations in the environment, and a cognitive route foregrounds the participant’s subjective
trajectory through the environment.
In this thesis I have analysed a wide range of video games in order to gain insight in
how the structures of these fictional participatory environments facilitate (or complicate) the
navigation of the player, by facilitating the conception of either a cognitive map or a cognitive
route, or a combination. I have shown that video games offer a broad range of possible spatial
structures, and that each spatial structure functions differently for the navigation of the player,
and his cognitive strategies. In order to gain insight into the behaviour and cognition of the
70
player in game environments, I have implemented a functionalist approach. I have shown how
game spaces are always designed, and thus have a function for the player. On a very practical
level, apart from affective, emotional, aesthetic, etc. functions, the player first and foremost
needs to be able to navigate the space. The structure of the space determines for a great part
the navigation of the player.
In the first section I have placed this study within a wider context of ‘spatial
discourse,’ that is studies in geography, sociology, history, art history, philosophy, literary
studies, etc. dealing with space in one form or another. In a wide range of studies an increase
of spatial thinking and terminology has been developed, to the point that there has been talk of
a ‘spatial turn.’ This spatial turn could also be observed in game studies. In several studies the
video game is viewed as a space, to which the player has a relationship in one form or
another. My innovation vis-à-vis these approaches is to view the game space as an
environment, through which the player needs to navigate. At the end of section 1 I have
shortly attended to the subject of time, and have shown how also the conception and
experience of game time is redirected to game space; namely, time in games is experienced as
the advancement through the game, which is in turn closely connected to the position of the
player along the trajectory in space.
In the second section I have introduced the theoretical foundations of my approach and
research project. First and foremost I have explained the terms ‘cognitive map’ and ‘cognitive
route’ in more detail, and have given examples of how they work in animals and humans.
Furthermore, I have alluded already to the way how spatial structures in video games could
function as the ‘textual’ basis for the construction of cognitive maps and routes. In §2.2 then I
have delved into this ‘textual’ basis of video game deeper, and I have shown how the
ontology of video game space is a contested subject. One could take three standpoints on the
subject: realist, moderate constructionist, and extreme constructionist. Furthermore, I have
explained in this subsection how game space is built up from the ‘atoms’ of pixels and
polygons. In §2.3 I have explained that game space is not only designed by the designer but
also for the player, and that game space is always a place for the player to act in. The possible
actions determine for a large part the function and structure of the environment. In de final
subsection I have discussed the peculiar relationship between the player and his avatar, and I
have shown how this relationship differs fundamentally from that between the reader and a
character. The ‘text’ is being produced by the player on the fly and on the screen in the case
of video games, instead of reproduced in the mind of the reader in the case of literature.
Furthermore, because the character is reproduced in the mind of the reader, the connection
between the reader and his character is usually mental, psychological, and emotional. The
player is connected to the avatar in a physical way; he determines directly the movement of
the avatar’s body by physically moving a joystick and pushing buttons. Usually, there is little
to none psychological and emotional involvement with a game character, so the bond between
the two should be typified as ‘quasi-physical.’ This conclusion is of utmost importance for
two further considerations: first for the view of the game space as a participatory environment
in which the player then ‘quasi-physically’ navigates and participates, and second for a
correct understanding of the situation of the transgression of the narratological boundaries of
the game into physical space, as was the subject of section 4.
In section 3 I have analysed in detail the possible structures of game space, with regard
to the navigation and spatial conception of the player. I have developed a typology of spatial
structures, based on their level of coherence and continuity. First I have discussed
Fragmentary space without continuity. This type of spatial structure has been conventional in
the years between roughly 1985 and 1995, but it has continued to be implemented until this
day. In this spatial structure levels follow each other without any kind of continuity. There is
no possibility of back-tracking. This structure encourages the player to construct a cognitive
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route instead of a cognitive map. The second structure is the Fragmentary space with linear
continuity. This is much the same as the first type, but there have been implementations of
cinematic movies and imagescape design that function as a spatial orientation of the separate
areas in relation to each other for the player. Thus, it improves the cognitive route
construction, and it also opens the possibility of a cognitive map. In §3.3 I have discussed
Fragmentary space with non-linear continuity. This kind of space usually involves backtracking, which increases the realism of the space and verification of the cognitive map. There
are two kinds of this type of space: overworlds and warp rooms. The former has some maplike qualities, and thus encourages the construction of cognitive maps, the latter still involves
a large amount of route making. In §3.4 the Continuous space with cuts was the subject. This
kind of space has departed from the fragmentary level-based structure, and consists of one
large environment in which the player can travel back and forth. Because the player can
determine his own path in this kind of space, the structure encourages the possibility of
cognitive maps. But this construction is slightly impeded by the implementation of various
cuts during navigation. This has been solved in the Continuous space without cuts, or
seamless space, which I discussed in §3.5. In §3.6 I have pointed out how a peculiar type of
continuous space, could be used to distort the construction of cognitive maps and routes and
therefore achieve a magical or surreal effect, by looping the space so it does not have
boundaries. Two elaborations of the above types of spaces were discussed in §3.7 and §3.8.
First I discussed Alternative spaces, which demand and encourage a quite accurate conception
of a cognitive map of the environment. Second and last I discussed Heterotopia, which in
some cases could distort the cognitive treatment of the environment, because it has different
‘laws’ and logic than ‘normal’ space.
Finally, in the last section I have discussed a further complication of game space: it
can extend itself beyond the screen and reach into the physical world we perceive as real. This
situation is to be understood as if game space is limited by narratological boundaries. From
narratological theory, especially from literature and theatre studies, the narrative situation
could be viewed as an onion model with three concentric circles. The inner circle consists of
the space of the story action, the second circle the space of the fictional discourse, and the
outermost circle the space of non-fictional communication. If the space extends itself outside
of the inner circle, narratological boundaries are being transgressed, and the spatial structure
is being complicated. Of course, every video game needs at least a minimum of narratological
boundary crossing, because the player as a non-fictional entity has direct influence in the
fictional world (through his avatar). In §4.2 I have discussed how the conception of the spatial
structure is being distorted and challenged by incidents of intended narratological
transgression. The effects on the player are amazement and disorientation, and an uncanny
feeling of ‘real’ space being invaded.
The results of this study could be made of use in several ways. There could be
practical (design) implementations based on this study, and also a great deal of further
research could be conducted on the basis of these results. I will begin with the practical
implementations. Game designers could think about how the spaces they design have effects
on the cognition, emotion, and behaviour of the player. They would be able to make
expectations of how certain design choices, like level-based structures, overworlds,
bottlenecks, back-tracking, warp rooms, etc. have effects on the navigation of the player
through the environment, and his conception of that space. Designers could afford the player
with spatial structures, land marks, routes, maps, etc. that improve the player’s cognitive
treatment of the environment. They could also decide to play with the expectations of the
player of certain spatial structure, withhold information, and make combinations, or guide the
player in the wrong direction. The player could be disoriented by the level design, or a
magical effect could be achieved by looped space.
72
Second, the results of this study could be used as a basis for further research. The
cognitive component of this study should also be expanded. I have repeatedly stated that the
approach to space in this project is functionalist; I start at the premise that the player needs a
cognitive conception of the space in order to navigate the virtual environment, and I analyse
the function and role of the spatial structure in this process. This study has concentrated on the
‘textual’ side. But this research should be complemented with a cognitive and empirical side.
We could connect the results of this study with empirical research of the player in the virtual
environment. We could examine whether there is a pattern in the explorative movement of the
player through the environment. Does he make concentric circles from his initial position, or
does he first explore the boundaries of the environment and then fill in the ‘map’ within this
contours? Or does he try to identify goals in the environment and find routes to them? We
could also let a player explore game environments with different spatial structures, and
examine at regular intervals the status of the cognitive map the player has constructed. This
way we could research which structures afford the construction of the cognitive map
empirically, and how spatial information is gradually added to this map (or route).
Furthermore, if the hippocampus is the part of the brain that is most involved in spatial
conception and cognitive mapping, then we could also examine the activity of the
hippocampus in various stages of game play and exploration, to see when spatial activity is at
its peak and when it is decreased. We could also examine what the effects of the incorporation
of an in-game or an on-screen map are on the conception of a cognitive map of the video
game. As we have seen in §3.4 the original Metroid did not incorporate a map, but its remake
Metroid: Zero Mission did. Research could be conducted to find out differences in the spatial
conception of both games, which have the same spatial structure. The outcome could be that
not only the construction of a cognitive map is enhanced (or neglected) with the inclusion of
an in-game map, but also that the player has an entirely different conception of the spatial
structure of the game, and that navigation is based more on routes than on maps.
Further research could also be done in narrative functions of game space. We could
use the structures and their effects for an analysis of how narrative works in games. At the
beginning of this conclusion I have alluded to the fact that the view of game space as narrative
architecture meant a break-through in the debate on the narrative possibilities of games. In
Jenkins’ view, the story in a game is not represented along a certain time line, but rather along
a certain spatial structure. The space is the signifiant of the story as a signifié. We have seen
in §1.3 how the temporal experience of the game is to be redirected to the spatial structure.
We could use the results of this study to understand better the narrative structures on the basis
of the spatial structures of video game space. The designer could decide to use a spatial
structure that allows for a maximum of authorial control, like the Fragmentary space with
linear continuity. But for a story that allows alternative endings and player’s choice over
narrative development, other structures could be used. Further research could analyse the
functions of different spatial structures for narrative effects, and a wide range of video game
stories could be classified according to their spatial narrative structure, much like the Russian
formalist Vladimir Propp150 has done for the Russian folktale in 1928.
We could also research if the ‘textual spatial cues’ are interpreted in the same way in
different cultures. Next to the possible differences between male and female spatial
conceptions, cognitive mapping, and route making, there could also be differences in players
from different cultures. As we have seen already in §2.1, different cultures and languages
have different spatial conceptions. The Pulawatans and the Aboriginals conceive of travelling
as space moving through the traveller, instead of the traveller moving through space.
Languages also could also use different kinds of spatial orientations; the Dutch and Japanese
150
Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the folktale (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973).
73
use a subjective orientation (the object is next to or behind the speaker), but the Guugu
Yimithirr uses an absolute orientation (the object is north or south-east of the speaker).
Furthermore, it has been found that the Müller-Leyer illusion151 does not work in all cultures
equally. It is based on the rectangular architecture of the West (and others), while cultures
with predominantly circular architecture (like some African cultures) are not fooled by the
illusion. If the lines of the Müller-Leyer illusion are of equal size to the eye, then the one with
the inverted arrowheads would be farther away and thus logically longer. In cultures without
this geometrical thinking, the illusion does not work, and it is possible that other spatial
insights are also not applicable. We could investigate the Western spatial reasoning that lays
at the basis of game space, and ask the question whether diffusion of video games to other
cultures also leads to a diffusion of spatial experiences, perceptions, conceptions and
structures to other parts of the world.
I have begun this thesis in the introduction by comparing the spatial behaviour and
strategies in video games with the spatial behaviour and strategies of visiting an unknown
city, and I have shown how some games like The Getaway, but many more, have modelled
the map and structure on existing cities, in this case London. Experimental psychological
research has found that taxi drivers in London have a larger hippocampus than non-taxi
drivers have.152 The hippocampus is probably the part of the brain that is also responsible for
the creation of cognitive maps, as we have seen in section §2.1. Because taxi drivers of
London are required to do extensive training, and because they have a lot of experience
driving through the enormous city of London, they have better spatial abilities than average. If
the spatial behaviour of taxi drivers enhances their spatial abilities by growth of the
hippocampus, then it is possible that in video game players this phenomenon could also be
observed, because playing video games also requires complex spatial abilities. This could
mean that a whole generation growing up playing spatially complex video games have larger
hippocampi than before, and that video games makes you (spatially) smarter, a proposition
that resonates strongly with the writing of Steven Johnson; Everything bad is good for you.153
But apart from this optimistic argumentation it would be interesting how and in what ways
playing video games could change the spatial behaviour and spatial conceptions of players
when they are not playing video games, and how games influence how they see the world.
151
In this optical illusion there are two equally long lines. One line has two arrowheads on both side, and the
other has two inverted arrowheads. Most people perceive the former line as the shortest, while they are really of
equal length.
152
Maguire, E., et al., ‘Navigation- related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers,’ in: Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences 97 (2000) 4398-4403.
153
Steven Johnson, Everything bad is good for you: How today’s popular culture is actually making us smarter
(New York: Riverhead Books, 2005).
74
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80
Ludography
Explanation: The name of the game is printed in bold italics. Between brackets is the platform
on which the version of the game in question has been played, followed by the developer and
the release date.
Asteroids (Arcade: Atari, 1979).
Battlefield 1942 (PC: Digital Illusions, 2002).
Chess
Civilization (PC: Sid Meier, 1991).
Civilization IV (PC: Firaxis, 2005).
Command & Conquer (PC: Westwood Studios, 1995).
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (Sony PlayStation: Naughty Dog, 1997).
Diablo 2 (PC: Blizzard North, 2000).
Doom (PC: Id Software, 1993).
Driver 2: Back on the streets (Sony PlayStation: Reflections Interactive, 2000).
Fall Out 3 (Microsoft Xbox 360: Bethesda Game Studios, 2008).
Final Fantasy VII (Sony PlayStation: Square Soft, 1997).
Getaway, The (Sony PlayStation 2: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, 2002).
Go
Grand Theft Auto III (Sony PlayStation 2: Rockstar North, 2001).
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Sony PlayStation 2: Rockstar North, 2002).
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Sony PlayStation 2: Rockstar North, 2005).
Ico (Sony PlayStation 2: Team Ico, 2001).
In Memoriam (PC: Ubisoft, 2003).
James Bond 007: Nightfire (Sony PlayStation 2: Eurocom, 2002).
Mario Kart DS (Nintendo DS: Nintendo, 2005).
Metal Gear Solid (Sony PlayStation: Konami, 19999
81
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Sony PlayStation 2: Konami, 200???)
Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes (Nintendo GameCube: Silicon Knights and Konami, 2004).
Metroid Prime (Nintendo GameCube: Retro Studios, 2002).
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Nintendo GameCube: Retro Studios, 2004).
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Nintendo Wii: Retro Studios, 2007)
Metroid: Zero Mission (Nintendo GameBoy Advance: Nintendo, 2004).
Myst (PC: Cyan Worlds, 1993).
Myth: The Fallen Lords (PC: Bungie Software, 1997).
New Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo DS: Nintendo, 2006).
Oblivion, (The Elder Scrolls IV) (Microsoft Xbox 360: Bethesda Game Studios, 2006).
Ōkami (Sony PlayStation 2: Clover Studios, 2006).
Pac-Man (Arcade: Namco, 1980).
Quackshot (Sega MegaDrive: Sega, 1991).
Quake (PC, Id Software,1996).
Shadow of the Colossus (Sony PlayStation 2: Team Ico, 2005).
SimCity (PC: Maxis, 1989).
Sims, The (PC: Maxis, 2002).
Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega MegaDrive: Sonic Team, 1991).
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sega MegaDrive: Sonic Team, 1992).
Sonic CD (Sega MegaCD: Sonic Team 1993).
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Sega MegaDrive: Sonic Team, 1994).
Sonic & Knuckles (Sega MegaDrive: Sonic Team, 1994).
Sonic Heroes (Sony PlayStation 2: Sega Studio USA, 2003).
Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo Entertainment System: Nintendo, 1985).
Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo Entertainment System: Nintendo, 1988).
82
Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64: Nintendo, 1996).
Super Mario Sunshine (Nintendo GameCube: Nintendo, 2002).
Star Wars episode 1: The Phantom Menace (Sony PlayStation: LucasArts, 1994).
Street Fighter (Arcade: Capcom, 1987).
Tekken 3 (Sony PlayStation: Namco, 1998).
Tomb Raider III (Sony PlayStation: Core Design, 1998).
Witness (PC: Infocom, 1983).
Wolfenstein 3D (PC, Id Software,1992).
Wonder Boy in Monster Land (Sega Master System: Sega, 1988).
World of Warcraft (PC: Blizzard Entertainment, 2004).
X-files game, The (PC: Hyperbole Studios, 1998).
Zack & Wiki: The Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure (Nintendo Wii: Capcom, 2007).
Zelda, The Legend of: Link to the Past (Super Nintendo Entertainment System: Nintendo,
1991).
Zelda, The Legend of: The Wind Waker (Nintendo GameCube: Nintendo, 2003).
Zelda, The Legend of: Twilight Princess (Nintendo GameCube: Nintendo, 2006).
Zelda, The Legend of: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS: Nintendo, 2007).
83

routes and maps - Ruben Meintema

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