Author: Caleigh McEachern
Between the New York Time’s best seller’s list, countless online streaming services and the seasonal release of ever-improving video games that push the technological and artistic boundaries, we as readers, viewers, and players have no shortage of storytelling mediums to immerse ourselves in.
Despite the differences between how books, film, and video games present their stories - a nuanced sentence in a Hemingway short story; a deliberate, lingering camera pan in a David Fincher film; and the hidden area in a video game - all share a common thread. Each of these modes of storytelling are crafted to provide the reader, viewer, or player with an opportunity to interpret meaning.
How do we as readers and players arrive at our interpretations? The more story driven video games I play, the more I recognize that such video games can provide as much opportunity for interpretation and as much literary value as works of classic literature. In this two-part series, I look at the ways we interpret meaning in both texts and video games, and how video game players use the same processes of interpretation that readers do to understand their spatial environments.
In Part One, I draw from the theory of hermeneutics developed by 19th century philosopher and theologian, Friedrich Schleiermacher, to understand how both readers and players approach the grammar and context of their objects of interpretation, and how video games create spatial stories for players to interpret. Part Two analyzes the video game BioShock Infinite, and how it uses environmental storytelling to provide players with opportunities to interpret meaning from their interactions with the game’s environment.
The theory and methodology of textual interpretation is called hermeneutics, and to understand how readers interpret meaning from texts, we may turn to the work of the man known as the “Father of General Hermeneutics,” Friedrich Schleiermacher. Schleiermacher was a 19th century philosopher and theologian whose ideas helped to form the modern school of hermeneutics. Schleiermacher argued that there are two ways we understand text: grammatically and psychologically.
Our grammatical understanding of a text requires knowledge of the language, the word meanings, the grammatical rules and syntax. To understand what a sentence means, we must understand how the rules of our language system work. Our psychological understanding of a text stems from our understanding of the author’s intention with the sentence, and the author’s style, character, and distinctive point of view. As we understand what a sentence means grammatically, we may then make an interpretation of what the sentence means based on what we are able to glean from the author’s intention with the sentence.
There is perhaps no better sentence that illustrates our grammatical and psychological understanding of a text than this hallmark flash fiction often attributed to Ernest Hemingway:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Our grammatical minds read that sentence and understand the parts of speech at play. We understand that the capitalized F in “For sale:” denotes that it is the beginning of the sentence, and that the colon following the word “sale” introduces the reader to a list or object. When our eyes reach the comma after “baby shoes”, our grammatical minds might think that the next words will be a continuation of the list, as we know that a colon is often followed by a list. However, what follows the comma is a clause that describes “baby shoes”; these baby shoes have never been worn. The grammatical structure of this sentence is crucial for the sentence to have an emotional impact on the reader. What occurs after the words “baby shoes” is a reveal, a moment of discovery and interpretation.
Had the sentence been worded as “For sale: unworn baby shoes”, the sentence would be grammatically correct, but it would destroy the reveal of the sentence, and the opportunity for the reader to enact a psychological understanding of the text. It is when we discover that the baby shoes were never worn that our minds leap to an interpretation, an explanation for why the shoes were never worn. The leap of interpretation requires our psychological minds to think about and conclude why the baby shoes were never worn.
Had the sentence simply read, “For sale: baby shoes”, there would be nothing to interpret. Babies grow out of clothes quickly, so there is nothing worth thinking deeper about. The word “worn” also offers readers another interpretive opportunity. The word “worn” has two meanings in this context – as the past tense for wear, meaning the baby shoes were never put on the baby’s feet, but “worn” in this sentence also evokes a somber feeling, as the baby shoes never had the opportunity of being worn in or worn down. The sentence is deliberately worded as “For sale: baby shoes, never worn” to create an emotional impact.
This single sentence tells us more than just information. It tells us a story. At the heart of that story is a moment of discovery and an interpretation by the reader.
In video games, the moment of discovery and interpretation are essential in creating an emotionally impactful story. Games are interactive, and the best game storytelling uses the player’s interactivity within the game’s environment to convey information. So, while readers interpret text, video game players interact with their surroundings to interpret their environment.
The video game player’s interpretation of the game’s space also requires a grammatical and psychological understanding of the game world. The grammar of the game consists of the rules and internal logic that governs the game, which a player must understand in order to play the game well. Much like how readers must understand the language system to understand the grammatical meaning of the text they are reading; video games have their own “language system” that governs the way players exist within the game world. A game’s controls (what buttons a player presses to interact with the world), the boundaries of the world, and who and what you can interact with, all comprise the “grammar” of the game.
Some game logic is genre specific, and players who play games of that genre can expect that those games will share those features and logic, such as the controls of firing a gun in a First Person Shooter, fast travel capability in an Open World game, an inventory and crafting system in a Role Playing Game, and platforming in a 2D side-scroller.
Some game logic has become ubiquitous across many genres: players can expect that when they see red barrels, those barrels will explode, and when they see a shining oil slick on the ground, that oil slick will catch fire when ignited. The player’s understanding of the game’s internal logic will ensure that the player comprehends how the game requires the player to play to be successful in achieving the game’s objectives.
The psychological understanding comes from discerning clues in the game’s environment to discover information about the game’s world. The developer’s intention with the space, the way the levels are designed to be moved through, and the ways in which information is relayed to the player through hidden objects, spaces, and dialogue are all aspects of the psychological content in the game world.
Games that require players to engage with their environment to learn more about the game world employ what Henry Jenkins calls “environmental storytelling.” In “Game Design as Narrative Architecture,” Jenkins argues that video game narratives are “spatial stories” and that “designers don’t simply tell stories; they design worlds and sculpt spaces”. Jenkins argues that “a game designer can somewhat control the narrational process by distributing the information across the game space”.
Game designers can use the artistic style, the environment, the layout of the level, as well as the ambient sound, soundtrack and sound cues to convey information about the game world. In the same way readers understand a text’s psychological meaning, video game players will draw a psychological meaning from this visual, spatial and sonic information to interpret the game world and their place in it.
Video games tell emotionally impactful stories by creating environments and encounters that convey important narrative information and advance the story through the player’s actual gameplay. By interacting with the game’s environment and by finding the hidden information distributed across the game space, players discover more information about the game world and interpret what this information means.
This kind of environmental storytelling provides the player with more opportunities to draw their own psychological understanding of the space. Unlike games with episodic structures that relay the story to the player through animated cut scenes, environmental storytelling gives the player agency to control the progression of the story and create a layered narrative as they explore and play. Video games are a powerful storytelling medium that leverage their environments and interactivity to create moments of discovery and interpretation.
In Part Two, I explore how the critically acclaimed game, BioShock Infinite, uses environmental storytelling to provide players with moments of discovery and interpretation to create emotionally impactful player experiences. Check back for it in a few weeks.