A Study Of The Narrative Characteristics Of Video Games

As China’s socialism with Chinese characteristics enters a new era,the main contradiction in society has been transformed into a contradiction between the growing needs of the people for a better life and imbalanced and insufficient development.In order to meet the cultural needs of the people,the development of the cultural industry has also become an indispensable aspect.The report of the 20 th National Congress pointed out the need to accelerate the construction of Chinese discourse and narrative system.With the development of China’s economy,the issue of Chinese culture going global has become increasingly prominent.China often faces two dilemmas in carrying out international communication work: on the one hand,there is a conflict between Chinese discourse and the Western centered discourse system,which shapes China and conflicts with China’s desire to seek independence,prosperity,and strength.This conflict leads to a significant deviation between communication expectations and communication effects;On the other hand,Chinese culture is vast and profound,but lacks a unified and concise narrative system that can summarize the entire spiritual core and historical origins of Chinese culture,and is widely recognized by the world,making it difficult to understand and tell Chinese stories.The electronic game industry is one of the important forms of contemporary cultural industry,which has emerged with the development of information technology.It integrates media such as text,images,and sound,with interactivity as its core feature,and has become another new form of cultural industry after movies.This article selects the highly representative work of electronic game narrative products in recent years,"The Thirteen Airborne Defense Circle," as the research object.Using the theory of possible world narratology,it analyzes the recursive nesting of fiction and reality between the possible world and the real world constructed by "The Thirteen Airborne Defense Circle," and traces the source of reality for the fictional representation of the possible world.This article decomposes the narrative content of the game "Thirteen Airborne Defense Circle" into three components: text,interaction,and image music;And through a combination of questionnaires and interviews,survey and collect the narrative experiences of game players.Analyze the narrative characteristics of electronic games from two dimensions: game products and game players.And based on this,four key points for improving the narrative ability of electronic games are summarized: the relationship between interactivity and narrative,the multidimensional interaction of text interaction,image music narrative,the technical dependence of game narrative,and the particularity of non-linear reading.This article summarizes the narrative characteristics of electronic games into interactivity,multi-dimensionality,technicality,and nonlinearity based on the four key points of improving game narrative ability Interactivity refers to both the interaction between players and electronic devices such as computers,as well as the interaction between players and game creators and players through electronic hardware devices On the one hand,multidimensional refers to the absorption and accommodation of various artistic expressions from past history in the narrative of electronic games,which is multidimensional in content;On the other hand,the narrative of electronic games adopts visual,tactile,auditory,and other methods to interact with players,which is also multidimensional in form Technicality refers to the reliance of electronic game narrative on electronic game technology,while also promoting the development of electronic game related technologies Non linearity is similar to hypertext reading.First,it refers to the ergodicity of cyber texts.Players usually want to get all the pieces of the story and try to exhaust every possibility in the story space;Then it refers to the non-linear nature of game content,where the plot organization in the narrative space of the game is limited to the sequence of the plot and lacks temporal order;Finally,it refers to the nonlinearity of the player’s reading process,which is different from movies and books.In movies,it is represented by movie duration and editing,while in books,it is controlled by plot organization and page layout.Electronic games lack a relatively fixed linear reading experience that is linked to reality.Although a few games attempt to control the player’s reading behavior through time limits and other methods,under the inherent mechanisms of electronic games such as saving and difficulty setting,It is difficult to provide players with a relatively stable gaming process.I hope this study will contribute to the improvement of narrative theory in domestic electronic games,draw inspiration from excellent game production experience abroad,and promote the development of the domestic game industry.