Interactive Narrative Research Based On Video Game Cases

With the diversified development of narrative media,telling stories in interaction form has become popular,and interactive narrative research has also emerged.This article selects interactive narrative,a new narrative form,as the research object.On the premise of clarifying relevant concepts of interactive narrative,combined with case analysis and researcher's individual experience,this paper conducts research on its media characteristics,structural and unique experience.The paper is mainly divided into six parts:The introduction chapter briefly introduces the current situation of the widespread and misused of interactive narrative theory in related research fields,summarizes the research situation of narratology and ludology,and expounds the basic connotation of the concept of interactive narrative.The first chapter summarizes the tendency of ludology in game studies,and rebut its main arguments,such as "video games cannot be used as narrative medium","video games are not textual",and "video games have essential conflict with narrative in the context of classical narratology".On the basis of correcting the deviation of the focus of discussion and defining the concepts of narrative,game and video game,this paper discusses the issue of "whether video game can form a narrative",and demonstrates the rationality of narrative being established on game.Chapters2-4 are the key of the whole article.Chapter2 differentiates and analyzes "interactivity",the core concept,distinguishes it from another confusable concept "reaction",and summarizes the three interactive forms——human-computer interaction,human-content interaction,and interpersonal interaction that exist or may exist in interactive narratives.And mainly selected four story-dominant games in the marketto distinguish the interactive narratives and the non-interactive narratives.Chapter3 studies the structure and composition characteristics of interactive narrative works in order to visually differentiate it from traditional narrative forms,including four aspects:the nested structure of narrative script and narrative text,the tree structure of narrative texts,the real-time nature of the narrative generation process and the playeras the subject of experience.Chapter4 starts from the subject and object of experience,analyzes that the subject reconstruct itself and construct a personal narrative throughestablish avatar in virtual world.Discuss that interactive narrative forms a unique psychological experience by frustrating players' intentions and inducing them into the narrative cycle.At the same time,analyzes a simulated emotional experience.Based on the discussion of the whole paper,the conclusion part reveals the difficulties of the development of interactive narrative in video games,designers and the construction of interactive narrative theory.It is suggested that there are other dimensions of interactive narrative development,including the possibility that player become the narrator again.It predicted that interactive narrative has great development potential for progress.In summary,interactive narrative is a new narrative form that partially overlaps with video games in concept.Based on the combination of interactivity and narrativity,its text has typical characteristics of openness,instability,fragmentation,and personalization.Therefore,it is impossible to apply the theoretical structure of classical narratology to understand it,and a new theoretical system must be established for re-examination.At the same time,we should also realize that there are still great possibilities for interactive narratives in the vast fields beyond video games.