You’re the Star of the Story?Adventure Games in Virtual Reality

Anastasia Salter

@anasalter

University of Central Florida

Adventure Games: Non-violent, narrative, character-driven play

For more detail, see:

Mark Meadows, Pause and EffectEspen Aarseth, Quest GamesClara Fernandez-Vera, Shaping Player Experience in Adventure GamesAnastasia Salter, What is Your Quest?

The many (mostly white male) faces of classic adventure games…

Image by Salvini

Walking Simulators: Adventuring via Exploration

An aesthetic practice of walking seems to have moved beyond the 19th century Romantics, transcended the

physical and manifested in the virtual through walking simulators such as Year Walk, Gone Home and Dear Esther. The playful readings of places have become

designed games revolving around a story to be uncovered by a solitary player.

Carbo-Mascarell, Rosa. "Walking Simulators: The Digitisation of an Aesthetic Practice." DiGRA/FDG. 2016.

“Walking simulators” can be described as the discovery of “slowness” in video games. These kinds of games feature a

leisurely pace, and often lack opportunities for interaction that are connected to the topics of fighting and resource

management (e.g. there are no enemies to kill, and no depleting stocks of any kind). In comparison, the design in many current

AAA video game titles focus on keeping the player busy. In addition, on-screen info displays are rare in these kinds of

games.

Koenitz, Hartmut. "Beyond “Walking Simulators”–Games as the Narrative Avant-Garde." (2017).

Virtual Reality(or, “not a film and not an empathy machine”)

Janet Murray

Read:

https://immerse.news/not-a-film-and-not-an-empathy-machine-48b63b0eda93

Adventure Gamers on the Holodeck

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Challenges facing VR Narrative Games

1. Interface2. Identity

3. Disembodiment

(especially for those othered by typical VR bodies)

Case Study: Rick and Morty, Adventure -> VR

1. The VR Identity Crisis

It's frustrating, not having a good clear access to what exactly the protagonist really knows. The player is stuck running around doing his best

to look out for this character's interests without having full access to his memories or total control over his thoughts.

And yet that too factors very effectively into the characterization: the player is coping with the constraints imposed by the narrative, while the

protagonist is struggling with a long-term devotion to cheap whiskey. The player would like to know more.

Gradually those two desires converge. In the winning playthrough, the player-protagonist finally achieves both agency and understanding.

Emily Short

The Accretive Character Player (2009)

Third-person action games are fine, but leave you feeling like you could’ve experienced the same on

a normal monitor. But first-person adventures? Pretend I just kissed my fingertips like a French

chef or whatever.

Hayden Dingman, reviewing The Assembly

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3090088/software/the-assembly-hands-on-the-future-of-vr-is-adventure-games.html

2. Interface(or, these hands are not your hands)

3. Disembodiment

…leaving you behind?

Thank you!

Anastasia Salter / @anasalter