Textual Analysis in Games
- Pirre Vaarala
- Sep 15, 2016
- 4 min read
This time, folks, we take a look at the analysis of video games. Take a good seat since this is going to be fun fun fun-fun-fun FUN!
Diane Carr wrote an article about textual analysis and its importance in analyzing video games, which I will now reflect upon in order to get a better understanding of game analysis. More often it is analyzed what makes the game - what are the elements, design, gameplay - than what are the reasons behind those building blocks.
If we take a video game and look at its basics, it's always constructed in one certain way. Sure, there can be different choices on how you can modify your gameplay but in the core the game itself stays the same - and this is where the role of the player comes in. The meaning of the game changes according to the person playing it, according to the unique choices they make during their journey. For example, even if the look of the character doesn't make any real difference in the plot itself it does affect the experience of the one playing the game. Player makes their choices based on the ideas they have based on their experiences and preferences. Does the colour of the character's hair really matter all that much? Not necessarily for you, but for someone else the difference between having brightly coloured and natural hair might be important.
The role of the player can also be crucial in setting the overall mood of a game. There are games that let you decide between different storylines that change the whole ending of the game (most often this is the case in visual novels). Considering those games, the outcome of each player's decisions cannot be anticipated beforehand since they all make their decisions according to an individual pattern, and though those patterns also the meaning of the game can change drastically.
What we can deduce from all this is that games are not isolate like many other forms of media, e.g. traditional art and television, are. Playing a video game affects you both externally and internally, since in most cases you don't play a game just for the sake of completing the game but also to get something for yourself personally. What that something is is different for every player - some play games as a stress relief to take a break from their everyday lives, some enjoy the feeling of success they get from problem solving tasks. The reasons are personal and different with every player. When you think about analyzing other forms of media you can't look at the question in the same depth as video games are considerably more interactive to the user. Advertising, be it television or printed advertising, affects the audience and prompt different reactions but does not engage the audience to the same level since they cannot actually control what happens in the advertisements. Video games hide numerous elements inside that you have to look at on their own and related to each other when you're making an analysis on them, which is why the depth of such analysis in considerably larger.
Now, how is the meaning constructed in a video game? Sadly I don't feel like my experience through actually playing video games could be considered broad enough for answering this question since most of my game knowledge comes from watching others play and reading the backstories, but I could always try to look at it through a game that I'm rather familiar with and that doesn't actually give all that much freedom for the player to modify the gameplay: Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, the final game in a series of six by LEVEL-5.
The Layton series tells the story of an almost stereotypical English gentleman Hershel Layton and his young apprentice Luke Triton who are situated in London solving mysteries, but also travel around the world in the span of the series. These mysteries are presented within the game in the form of puzzles that on their own are separate from each other but add up to the story as they are solved. There is a certain amount of puzzles you need to solve in order to advance and finish the game, and extra puzzles you can solve if you want to but that are not necessary for completing the journey. Simple and straightforward, isn't it? These games don't really leave much room for the player to modify the story as they go. Then what is it that makes the game series as popular as it is - 15.5 million sold copies worldwide and one of the most popular Nintendo DS series overall(1)?
Beneath the seemingly basic and boring surface of cliché character profiles and simple gameplay format lays the revelation that the plot is not about happy-go-lucky puzzle solving for fun. Game after game unveils the backstories of not only the main characters, but also the antagonists and support characters and their actual relations to each other. Azran Legacy finally gives an answer to a question that players have had since the fourth game in the series (Professor Layton and the Last Specter) regarding the main antagonist - and that answer is a turning point for the protagonist's story as well.
Besides the deeper plot hidden beneath a veil of simplicity, the game series also challenges the player to actually think and use their brains to advance. The key to getting players intrigued in the problem solving business is that you get graded according to your performance.
Each puzzle grants the player picarats (currency in the game) according to how well you did in the puzzle. Wrong answers reduce picarats, and in some challenges you may have a time limit you need to keep in mind. Picarats can be exchanged to extra goods in the game, like character profiles and music, which keeps the player active, wanting to achieve more of these "trophies".
How I see the question of meaning being constructed in the Layton series is through keeping the player aware and active by challenging them to actually think, not just skim through the tasks, and by giving them a plot and setting that seem simple enough at first to be easy to approach but that actually hide a much more complex story of each character involved.
This could just be my opinion but I mean - there are 15+ million people who apparently agree with me - so why not give the English gentleman and his top hat a try?
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