ダニエルの冒険

Today we had another class of CS4067 and began defining ludology and narratology a little more. We started looking at the terms ludus and paidea. Rather than defining them, I’ll just direct you to this blog entry where they are defined more competently than I could explain.

I’ve been hearing both in and out of class that ludology and narratology are generally considered opposing theories. Likewise, ludologists and narratologists generally do not like each others’ ideas. It’s probably from a lack of reading experience, but myself and others in the class are having difficulty seeing why the ideas are said to be incompatible. Personally, I believe that both are equally relevant. How relevant either is in a particular game isn’t, however, entirely because of the designer’s decisions; it’s largely due to the player’s take on a game.

Let me give you the example of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, affectionately known as “Mohaa” or “Moh” by my friends when we play it. The seminal game of the Medal of Honor series is so dear to us that we do our very best to annunciate the acronym, no matter how unnatural it is. I love the single-player story-mode, but the multiplayer team deathmatch mode (like all deathmatch games), has no story whatsoever. For most players of this game-mode, there is very little narratological attraction. However, compared to most other players, my particular group of friends has a much stronger narratological attraction.

This is because of “House”, a game-mode we created ourselves. We load a particular map with a house/bar into which one can enter. Each team must fight to occupy this house, and this new objective adds not only a new ludological point of view to the battle, but gives a story to what’s going on. Instead of allied and axis forces running around shooting each other without meaning, there is now a depth to the game that didn’t exist before. It’s still the same game: none of the assets or code has changed. It’s just a personal perspective which enhances the game by adding our own story and objective.

On a final note, I gave up on Spore pretty quickly and am currently totally engrossed in Crysis. Is that because of the lack of narrative in Spore and strong linear story in Crysis or is it a problem of ludology? Or something else?