Game is an interactive narrative
- 1. Telling story in game -Game is an interactive narrative Narratives are an influential part of our life and culture. Stories always have some special sense of meaning to the world. It is not only literature that tells stories but also history can be seen as a kind of story telling as well. Narrative can be showed as many types, such as films, drama, comic strips and even paintings. Thus it seems reasonable to assume that games tell story and which make narrative in an interactive way. The issue of narratively in games has, in fact, gained a certain prominence attention from the public. From studies of hypertext in the 1980s and 1990s gave opinions about the possibilities of "interactive storytelling" as a new form of narrative in digital media and the study also include games, the so-called text adventures (Bolter, 1991; Landow, 1992,1994). Narratives in games The popular computer games are just forty-two years old (Neitzel, B, 2005). Game is made for giving players fun in an interactive way by computers or other machines. We use narratives to make sense of our lives, to process information, so most games have a story introduction written on the package, placing the game in a large story or creating an ideal story that the player has to realize. In my view narrative in games can be divided into two part, have the sense of world outlook or non-world outlook. Space Invaders (Taito, 1977) is a game need we use the world outlook. From the science fiction we clearly know that these aliens are evil and should be chased away. In that game we are presented with an ideal story that we have to using skills to reach the goal about destroy aliens and make the world peaceful. As a reason of game has narrative in it, the translations of narrative from game become obviously common. In other words, game is a narrative medium, stories from other media can be retelling in games and games can be retelling in other media. Star Wars and Mortal Kombat are examples for prove it（Juul, J 1995）. The arcade game Star Wars (Atari, 1983) is about from movie to game, it is based on the George Lucas movie of the same name (1977). The game used the background story from the movie and it has some corresponds to a scene in the movie. In the game, if you complete the mission, the Death Star explodes which same like the movie. However, there also some different, like most characters from the movie are missing and some events that are same in the movie have become simulations where the player can either win or fail. Then from game to story, Mortal Kombat (Mid way Games,1993) can be an example which become a movie in 1995 by New Line cinema. It is a fighting game and has a dynamic system that allows many different people to interact with many different outcomes. But the Mortal Kombat movie is not a dynamic system,
- 2. but a story with a specific set of characters and also has a specific outcomes. It seems like the game characters become more detailed movie characters and the open simulation is converted into fixed events. From both sides on translate between game and movie, it can be clearly seen that game has narrative that can let players both into and control it, which obviously interactive narrative. Users with interactive narrative For interactive with games, the purpose is make sure that player must have had an enjoyable gameplay experience when working towards the story inside (Ince, S 2006). Basically, it always about linear storytelling that player works to reach a goal for revealing the next piece of the story. The goal has to mimic the player’s situations that mean it has to be one that you would want to work for. It makes narrative be a very useful carrier for doing this. God of War made in 1995 that is a video game based on the Greek mythology. Then God of War 2 and 3 came out in 2007 and 2010, the three games become a continue story. From this game, players act a man named Kratos who overcome difficulties to become god of war and then revenge in Olympus. This is a first-person narrative that gives players a strong feeling into the story while playing the game. Conclusion Game is a brilliant carrier for interactive narrative. Games always make sense by adding a story to them which useful for player get into the game itself. Bibliography Bolter, J.D.(1991). Writing space. The computer, hypertext, and the history of writing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Juul, J. (2005) ‘Games telling stories’, in Raessens, J. and Goldstein, J. (ed.) Handbook of computer game studies. Cambridge: The MIT Press, pp.219-226. Ince, S. (2006) Writing for video games. London: A&C Black.
- 3. Landow, G.P. (1992). Hypertext. The convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Landow, G.P.(1994).Hyper/Text/Theory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Neitzel, B. (2005) ‘Narrativity in computer games’, in Raessens, J. and Goldstein, J. (ed.) Handbook of computer game studies. Cambridge: The MIT Press, pp.227-245.