Acta

Ludologica
Faculty of Mass Media Communication

Vol. 7, Special Issue

Theory
Education
Design
Development
Research
Special Issue 2024
History
Marketing
Games and Language
Experience
Criticism
Psychology
Social
Aspects
Future
Editorial
Board

Editor-in-Chief
Zdenko Mago

Guest Editors
Norbert Krek-Polyák
Zsófia Orosz-Réti

Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Zuzana Kvetanová

Publishing Consultant
Martin Solík

Indexing Process & Technical Editing

Zuzana Kvetanová
Veronika Šašalová
Mária Dolniaková

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Michael Valek

Advisory Board
Peter A. Bruck
Slavomír Gálik
Koichi Hosoi
Zora Hudíková
Michał Kłosiński
Małgorzata Łuszczak
Juraj Malíček
Hana Pravdová
Jaroslav Světlík

Editorial Team
Anna Hurajová
Michal Kabát
Miroslav Macák
Veronika Šašalová
Magdaléna Švecová

Illustrations
Andrea Kianičková

Graphic Production Coordinators & Cover

Martin Graca
Martin Klementis
Journal
Orientation

Acta Ludologica is a scientific journal in the field of games

and digital games. The journal contains professional sci-
entific reflections on digital games; it also offers academic
discourses on games, especially media and digital com-
petencies, creation, design, marketing, research, devel-
opment, psychology, sociology, history and the future of
digital games and game studies.

Acta Ludologica is a double-blind peer reviewed journal

published twice a year. It focuses on theoretical studies,
theoretical and empirical studies, research results and
their implementation into practice, as well as professional
publication and scientific reviews of digital games.

Acta Ludologica
Vol. 7, Special Issue 2024: Games and Language

Publisher
Faculty of Mass Media Communication
University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava
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Price: 4,99 €

Published twice a year.

ISSN 2585-8599
e-ISSN 2585-9218
EV 5620/18
EV 29/22/EPP

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
Editorial

Commands and Silences: much challenged and transformed by game studies

since its conception. Certain games, despite it be-
Language at Play in Digital ing self-contradictory, include for instance a narra-
tor, such as the aforementioned Zork. Early on in the
and Tabletop Games game, this narrator draws the player’s attention to a
doorway with Gothic letters on it. If the player wants
to inspect it, it will turn out that the engraving says,
At their core, all digital games are conversations. “This space is intentionally left blank”, as a goofy
Be it pressing a button or typing a command, the metatextual nod towards the player. The idea of
fundamental allure of all gaming experience is such metareferentiality (metafictional and metaludic
the continuous interaction between player and alike) is in the focus of Aylin Pekanık. Her study offers
machine. This holy grail of interactivity, natu- a taxonomy of metagames, arguing that their evolu-
rally, presupposes the existence of some kind of tion demonstrates the maturity of the medium.
language to facilitate it. From programming lan-
Language, then, both as the magic of coding and
guages as codes to human languages as the basis
as narrative control, shows the natural and una-
of narratives, large language models, as recently
voidable cultural context in which any playing ex-
emerging technologies, are increasingly utilized
perience can emerge. This is why some games
in game development, further complicating the
seek to offer a uniquely ludic experience pre-
already nuanced relationship between games and
cisely by avoiding language – written and spoken
language. A notable recent example was when
alike. The 2011 docugame The Cat and the Coup
mods for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim integrated
does just that, considering a transcultural con-
ChatGPT as an interactive tool, creating the illu-
text and audience in presenting a local, personal
sion that NPCs are now able to unscriptedly com-
but ludic instance of counter-microhistory, as
municate with players in real-time. Artificial or hu-
Mohammadreza Golshani suggests in his study.
man, descriptive or prescriptive, highly abstract
Similarly, Imola Bülgözdi focuses on the word-
or matter-of-fact in nature, language is the means
less world of the game Journey, focusing instead
and milieu of all in-game interactivity; even non-
on the music, the nonverbal interactions and the
verbality is put forward as the silent or primordial
affective qualities of connecting with someone
Other of a world based on texts and language.
through playing.
This special issue of Acta Ludologica, “Games and
Even more so than digital games, tabletop role-
Language”, explores how language shapes and is
playing games (TTRPG) are dependent on lan-
shaped by games, how it sets up the social, cultur-
guage as the primary means of communication.
al and critical context of games, and how games,
András Hlavacska presents an experiment that
in return, challenge the conventions of communi-
was conducted to scrutinise intra- and extraludic
cation, storytelling, and meaning-making.
interactions during TTRPG campaigns. Proceed-
In the beginning was the word – and the word had ing with this idea, Orsolya Nagy explores the in-
to be very specific as one tried to interact with tersection of TTRPGs, cosplay, and transmedia
old-school text-based adventure games, like Zork: storytelling through a case study of The Wayward
you could not just use a lantern, you had to be very Wanderers by the TikTok-favourite team Some-
specific about lighting it. In a more recent exam- where Bound. In this case a transmedia-specific
ple, Cryptmaster, you had to type out the letters ‘language’ is then developed to comment on, for-
of skills and spells so that the characters you were ward, and challenge canon narratives. Finally, the
in control of, would use them. The word of code, in contrasting perspective on the topic is presented
this sense, becomes a means of command, and in by Ana Arán Sánchez, who applies games and
a broader context a word with magically perform- playful approaches to foreign language learning.
ative powers. Any virtual world is bound by the
From the poetic mechanics of Baba Is You to the
code, meaning that language, in certain cases, is
silent vernacular of The Cat and the Coup, from
an indisputable tool of control – literally and meta-
non-verbal connections in Journey and transme-
phorically too.
dia storytelling in tabletop RPGs to using play-
The 2019 indie game Baba Is You taps into this ful approaches in foreign language learning, this
magical, creative capacity of language. Imre Horváth special issue explores the many ways language
traces poetic defamiliarisation in the gameplay, shapes and is shaped by games. Language, in
presenting a possible typology of intersections commands or silences, becomes both the medi-
between referentiality and what he coins ‘intrapro- um and the message, defining how we play, con-
cedurality’. The problem of referentiality and func- nect, and create meaning.
tionality lies at the heart of the analysis of in-game
fictionality and factuality by Tamás Csönge, identi-
fying the core problem with descriptive language. MA Norbert Krek-Polyák
At the same time, language, even in-game language & Zsófia Orosz-Réti, Ph.D.
use is inherently tied in with narrativity – a concept University of Debrecen

2 Editorial
Contents

GAME
STUDIES
Ludopoetic Interplay in Baba is You
Imre Olivér Horváth........................................
4
Objects Really Matter:
Ludo-Representationalism
and the Reality of Digital Games
Tamás Csönge.................................................
16
“Insert Your Soul to Continue”:
The Self-Reflections of Metafictional
Digital Games
Aylin Pekanık...................................................
34
Paws and Politics: A Postcolonial Reading
of The Cat and the Coup
Mohammadreza Golshani..............................
50
A Wordless World: The Circulation
of Affects in Journey
Anshika Garg, Jyoti Prakash Pujari,
Imola Bülgözdi.................................................
68
Preparing a Tabletop Role-Playing Game
Experiment: Methodological Notes
for Studying the Immersion of Tabletop
Role-Playing Game Participants
András Hlavacska...........................................
84
The Transmedial Connection of Tabletop
Role-Playing Games and Cosplay
in The Wayward Wanderers Campaign
Orsolya Nagy...................................................
98
Playful Learning Approach in an English
Class in a Rural Normal School
Ana Arán Sánchez...........................................
114

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 Acta Ludologica 2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue

Ludopoetic Interplay
in Baba is You
Imre Olivér Horváth

Imre Olivér Horváth

University of Debrecen
Department of British Studies
Egyetem tér 1
4032 Debrecen
HUNGARY
[email protected]

Imre Olivér Horváth is an assistant lecturer at the Department of British Studies in the
Institute of English and American Studies at the University of Debrecen. He wrote his
dissertation on the poetry of Thom Gunn. His research interests include the poetics of
digital games and their interpretation through the lens of lyric poetry.

4 Game Studies
ABSTRACT:
The study investigates aspects of ludopoetic interplay in Baba is You, a digital puzzle
game that radically reimagines the relationship between language, gameplay, and mean-
ing-making. Through a close reading of selected game levels, we identify several features
that render the game poetic: its use of emotive linguistic markers, its emphasis on verbal
creation, and the player’s engagement with and enjoyment of linguistic play. By analys-
ing the game’s unique mechanics of rule manipulation, we examine how players interact
with language as both a procedural system and a poetic medium. The study identifies five
modes of interaction between referential (metaphorical) and intraprocedural (metonymi-
cal) transfers of meaning, including exclusion, diversion, and mutual support. We argue
that the game achieves its poetic quality especially by prioritising metonymy over meta-
phor, foregrounding the materiality of language and the performative power of words. By
enabling players to dynamically reconstruct game rules through linguistic manipulation,
Baba is You transforms gameplay into an act of linguistic creativity.

KEY WORDS:
Baba is You, ludopoetic interplay, lyric address, lyric poetry, procedural figurativity.

DOI:
10.34135/actaludologica.2024-7-SI.4-15

Introduction
While the narrativity of digital games has been discussed since the birth of the me-
dium, little attention has been paid to the lyricism of digital games. Some have focused
on formal features, discussing digital games in connection to lyric genres and traditions
(Montfort, 2005; Asad, 2011; Grace, 2011; Papa, 2014). Although the word poetics is often
used to describe game mechanics, relatively few (e.g. Harrell, 2013; Sezen, 2015; Kubiński,
2017) have drawn clear parallels between actual lyric poetry and digital games. Ensslin
(2023) has provided a theoretical framework for interpreting digital text-based works of
art which she calls ‘poetry games’. She notably contends that poetry games “seek to de-
familiarize and innovate the gaming experience through highly idiosyncratic ludonarra-
tive mechanics” (p. 13). Defamiliarization1 through form as a mode of poetic expression
is central to further research, for example, in the concept of poetic gameplay: “gameplay
that is deliberately made strange, or defamiliarized, to create a poetic effect, drawing at-
tention to the form of the work as a way to encourage reflection” (Mitchell et al., 2020,
Abstract). Furthermore, Magnuson (2023) describes poetry as a “form of intervention
[that] explores the tension between signified meaning and material meaning present in
a given context” (p. 95) and then applies this to the mechanics of various digital games.
The tension between signified meaning and material meaning plays an important
role in the puzzle game Baba Is You (Hempuli, 2019). It was released in 2019 by Finnish

1 Remark by the author: The concept of defamiliarization (ostranenie) was coined by Russian formalist
literary critic Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky (see Shklovsky, 1917/1965). The term was applied to the study of
digital games by Pötzsch (2017).

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
developer Arvi Teikari (Hempuli) for PC and Nintendo Switch, with an expanded version
available for iPhone and Android in 2021. The game became a great success: it has an
“overwhelmingly positive” rating on Steam (“Baba is You”, n.d.), with over eighteen thou-
sand positive reviews. Baba is You is unique feature is that the player can dynamically
manipulate the rules of the game space by moving words on the screen in order to solve
puzzles in radical and surprising ways. The player is constantly confronted by the per-
formative power of language: she is taking control of the diegetic reality of the game space
by creating new sentences, as well as breaking up and rearranging existing ones. Sen-
tences, therefore, have ludic functions (they are game rules), but they also have rhetorical
power. They are figurative: meaning is transferred between the words placed next to one
another, often evoking the experience of reading a poem. The levels have several poetic
features, such as emotive language, titles, rhythm, and lyric address. The ludic and poetic
dimensions of the gameplay exist at the same time and place. They relate to each other in
different ways, alternating between affirmation, distraction, indifference and divergence.
This study explores this field of relationality by close reading the game levels of Baba Is
You as spaces dedicated to simultaneous puzzle-solving and meaning-making.

Grammar and Performativity

The game has maze-like levels, consisting of various components, displayed in a top-
down view. Components include objects (stones, walls, flags, grass, water, etc.), characters
(e.g. Baba, a creature resembling a sheep or a rabbit), and words, some of which stand for
objects, characters, empty fields and other words. All components (i.e. objects, characters,
and words) are the same size, and all of them can be manipulated (they can be traversed and
moved, and some of them can be transformed, produced, and destroyed) if the rules on the
map allow it. The words themselves act as objects, they are physical parts of the puzzle. The
rules are brought to life by sentences made out of the words. At least three of them must
be arranged vertically or horizontally to form a sentence that is meaningful to the game. To
do this, the player needs a word that acts as a noun (BABA, ROCK, FLAG), a verb (IS, HAS,
MAKE), and a word that completes the statement (this can be a noun or a property, but not
a verb or a conditional operator like FACING or NOT). Almost all the words included are ex-
isting English words, and although the syntax used in the game does not necessarily follow
the rules of English grammar, sentences must adhere to the fixed word order of the English
declarative sentence (the verb comes after the subject, and the other parts of the sentence
come after them). A rule is binding as long as the words are connected in the way described
above: if the connection is broken, the rule no longer applies.
The linguistic information in the game space can be thought of as pseudocode, that
is, a textual representation of an algorithmic process, a feedback loop (Manovich, 2002).
It is structurally similar to artificial languages used in programming: if one looks at a piece
of code written in C#, Javascript or Python, one also sees instructions consisting of Eng-
lish words that differ from the morphological and syntactic features of natural English
texts. In digital games, the player has no direct access to the code during gameplay. In
other words, she has no say in how objects behave in the game space: she moves the play-
er character around, she uses keys to open locks, she is stopped by walls etc. In Baba is
You, however, some of the text that acts as code is practically put on the screen. The words
decide which character is controlled by the player, which object opens the door (or pos-
sibly another object), and which object performs the function of the wall (if any is needed).
The words placed in the game space as rule-making components complicate the typology

6 Game Studies
that ludologist Aarseth (1997) has devised for digital games and other cybertexts.
These texts are composed of scriptons (“strings as they appear to readers”) and textons
(“strings as they exist in the text”), linked by a “traversal function – the mechanism by
which scriptons are revealed or generated from textons and presented to the user of the
text” (p. 62). Words in the Baba is You levels are scriptons (sequences of signs that can be
interpreted by the player), but they are also textons, since they affect the behaviour of the
objects in the game space.
While most digital games simulate aspects of reality (e.g. walls are hard), the game-
play of Baba is You entails the constant reconfiguration of the rules that govern the
diegetic reality of the game, which often creates completely unrealistic situations. In the
level “Sorting Facility”, for example, the sentence ROCK + ON + WATER + IS + KEY turns
a stone that has been pushed into the water into a key. Although most of the time the
player controls the character named Baba, any component, in fact, can be the player’s
avatar as long as the word that represents said component is combined into the sentence
[component] + IS + YOU. The player can even impersonate multiple components at the
same time, including words. During gameplay, the sentence [component] + IS + YOU must
be intact at all times: if nothing is being impersonated, the game is lost (although all moves
can be reversed and all levels can be restarted). To solve the levels, three conditions must
be met: the sentences [word representing component A] + IS + YOU and [word representing
component B] + IS + WIN must be put together, then component A must touch compo-
nent B; by default, Baba must touch the flag. This state is hindered by the other rules and
components, but the sentences must typically act together for the puzzle to be solved.
The ability to manipulate the rules of the game this way gives the player considerable
agency. The introductory video before the first level thus depicts the act of creation, more
specifically, creation with words. In the background, there is a chaotic arrangement of
floating grey tiles, stones and wall segments, then a flower appears and turns into the word
BABA, and the iconic figure leaps out of nowhere. From another flower, the word WALL
emerges, and two walls appear on the screen, one below Baba and one above it, forming
a frame. From the third flower, the word ROCK is created. Three rocks block Baba’s path,
dividing the space enclosed by the walls into two parts. Finally, we witness the creation of
FLAG, which is placed beyond the rocks. Further flowers give rise to further words, creat-
ing rules: WALL IS STOP (walls are hard, they stop moving components, including us),
ROCK IS PUSH (rocks can be moved), FLAG IS WIN (the flag becomes the goal). Finally,
the words BABA and IS are joined by the word YOU, and we are given instructions on how
to control Baba. At this point, the intro seamlessly turns into the first, tutorial level of the
game. To solve the puzzle, the player needs to push one of the rocks out of the way and
then touch the flag. Right on the first level, the game makes it clear that the behaviours of
the objects are defined by the bits of language in the game space.

Configurability
and Uncertainty
It is not linguistic omnipotence over the created world that players of Baba is You
experience, however, but the wonderful interconnectedness of its world. The second
and third levels “Where do I go?” and “Now what is this?” are still tutorials. “Where do
I go?” teaches the player that if she dislocates the first word of a sentence, the rule
that the sentence was formulating no longer applies. By taking apart the combination

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
WALL + IS + STOP, Baba can go through the wall because it will not stop it. The player ex-
periments with the game components, moves things around, destroys things, learns the
specific language of the game. The naming of the character Baba is related to this infantile
position: the labial sounds ‘b’ and ‘a’ evoke the early phase of language acquisition, when
the cooing infant is trying out basic elements of language. According to the developer, the
name Baba (and Keke, another character in the game) were inspired by the bouba/kiki
effect (r/NintendoSwitch, 2019). Experiments show that the majority of people (even at a
few months of age) associate certain speech sounds with the same visual shapes: they as-
sociate the phoneme sequence ‘bouba’ with rounded shapes and ‘kiki’ with pointy shapes
(Ozturk et al., 2013). The infantilisation of the player is further reinforced by the charming,
cute2 characters of the game.
It is in this infantile position that the player’s relationship to language is constantly
evolving. “Where do I go?” teaches the player to use the undo option, which is important
right from the start because sentences pushed to the edge of levels typically cannot be
taken apart (as on most levels, the player cannot pull words, only push them). To make
certain rules unchangeable, some sentences are placed on the edges of the levels. The
edges, therefore, also mark the boundaries of the diegetic reality of the levels. “Now what
is this?” makes it clear that referentiality in the game space works differently from the
spaces outside of it. Although the word WALL refers to the wall object, it only carries the
known property of real walls (i.e. we cannot go through them), if a sentence in the level
explicitly states WALL IS STOP. In “Now what is this?”, the player controls a piece of wall
as a character while a set of flags act as a de facto wall. To solve the puzzle, the player is to
compose the sentence FLAG + IS + WIN and then, controlling the wall object as a charac-
ter, she is to touch the wall of flags.
The configurability of game rules suggests existential questions. The game levels
are mostly barren, but they give a sense of completeness of existence. Even the simplest
levels contain a living creature (usually Baba), some kind of obstacle (usually a wall), a tool
(words, stones, etc.), and an end point (usually a flag). In the level “Out of reach”, water
separates Baba from the flag. The sentence WATER + IS + SINK is placed beyond a wall,
so that if Baba touches the water, it sinks. Baba can die, but its death always depends
on the arrangement of words in the level. In “Still out of reach”, an impenetrable wall of
skulls separates Baba from the flag. Beyond the skulls, however, there is also the sentence
SKULL + IS + DEFEAT, which creates the rule that when the player touches a skull (the
universal symbol of death), she loses the game. However, the puzzle can easily be solved
by trying to move, instead of the skulls, the words of the sentence that makes the skulls
dangerous. Death in Baba is You is thus a linguistic construct, not the inevitable end of
existence. The same is true for change in a broader sense. In “Changeless”, the sentence
ROCK + IS + ROCK creates the rule that rocks cannot be transformed into another ob-
ject (if the same two words are joined by IS, the object they represent cannot be trans-
formed using another sentence). The stone must regardless be turned into a flag to solve
the puzzle. In order to make the sentence ROCK + IS + FLAG take effect, the sentence
ROCK + IS + ROCK must be broken down. The title is thus an ironic comment on rock, a
symbol of stability: it is an illusion created by language.
The game makes the relationship between the player and his avatar similarly am-
biguous. The claim that the title of the game makes is put into question early in “Now what
is this?”, as the player here controls a rock, not the title character. Apart from Baba, the
characters Keke and Me also appear as characters, but since the player can take control
of any object, the prior category of characters becomes meaningless: we can only think

2 Remark by the author: For the emergence of cuteness as an affect in digital games, see Bódi (2023).

8 Game Studies
of Keke and Me as characters because they both have faces, and because the sound ‘keke’
is not a real English word, and ‘me’ is a personal pronoun. The singular, independent at-
tribute of “character” is also called into question, since several objects can perform this
function at the same time. In “Volcano”, for example, a lava flow separates Baba from the
flag. By assembling the sentence LAVA + IS + BABA, the lava flow turns into a swarm of
Babas that, astonishingly, start moving together to reach the flag.
Although only components with the YOU function attached can be controlled, oth-
er components can also be made to move by forming the sentence [component] + IS +
MOVE. The components animated this way can push other components in the game
space. Besides Keke, robots and ghosts are most likely to come to life this way, express-
ing this semi-autonomous role symbolically as well. In “Further fields”, the dichotomy
of animate/inanimate is further complicated: in order to solve the puzzle, nothing per-
forms the function of YOU for a short time (it appears that the player has failed), and
then the characters with the MOVE attribute attached push the player character into
a position where the sentence KEKE + IS + YOU is activated, and the player is in con-
trol of Keke again. The levels “Horror story” and “Security check” invite the player
to think about her avatar in radically different ways. In “Horror story”, the sentence
EMPTY + IS + YOU allows the player to take control of the empty black space.3 In “Security
Check”, the sentence NOT + BABA + IS + YOU allows us to control all objects in the game
space, with the exception of Baba, simultaneously.

Emotion and Rhetoric

While the game makes the player enjoy the relativism of its objects, it also cre-
ates affective meanings to involve the player emotionally. In “Affection”, a heart, signi-
fied by the word LOVE, takes on the function usually fulfilled by the flag object. The
player controls Baba, who cannot touch the heart because of the algae surrounding it
(ALGAE + IS + DEFEAT). The player must send Keke, who is not affected by the word
DEFEAT, to get the heart using the MOVE attribute. Love, signified by its universal symbol,
is therefore the goal of the two characters, which they achieve together. In this way, the
game not only guides the player towards the goal of solving the puzzle but also makes
a general statement: love is a value in itself, a victory. It encourages the player to imag-
ine Baba and Keke as beings in love with each other, and their feelings fulfilled by them
reaching the heart. (This remains meaningful even in the not directly related levels: in
“Blockade”, the player controls the moon and must reach the star, as they belong together
like Baba and Keke.) The fact that Keke also has object-like qualities (he is pushed here
and there, transformed, etc.) is not even different from the romantic (lyric) tradition that
often objectifies the beloved. In “Double moat”, for example, Keke acts as a key, bringing
into play the old metaphor of the key to the heart.
To make sense of the examples above, Bogost’s (2010) concept of procedural
rhetoric is useful: it is “the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and in-
teractions rather than the spoken word, writing, images, or moving pictures” (p. ix), or
“a technique for making arguments with computational systems and for unpacking com-
putational arguments others have created” (p. 3). In “Seeking acceptance”, a claim about
the nature of love (it being an important goal to be achieved through collective effort) is

3 Remark by the author: For a discussion of the gap between the absence of the signified and the presence of
the signifier in the semiotics of zero, see Rotman (2016).

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
created by the gameplay (the procedure). The fact that Baba and Keke’s joint effort is
needed to pass the level argues for Baba and Keke’s commitment to each other. Some-
thing similar happens in “Double moat”: it is through the other that one achieves victory.
However, meanings are not created via procedures exclusively. The word LONELY, for ex-
ample, which occurs repeatedly, has considerable affective force. As a conditional opera-
tor in the game, it denotes an object standing alone in space, that is, a state in which the
object does not overlap with any other object. However, in “Floaty platforms”, the sen-
tence LONELY + BABA + IS + DEFEAT, quite like the sentence LONELY + BABA + IS + YOU
in “Shuffle”, is impossible to interpret non-referentially: the game suggests that loneliness
(in general) is defeat (in general), and that the player is lonely, regardless of the ludic func-
tion of the LONELY attribute. The player finds herself in a similar situation in “Love at first
sight”. Here, she controls a heart due to the sentence LONELY + LOVE + IS + YOU. The
goal is to separate two birds adjacent to each other, then push one of them into the water
(destroying it), so that the other one can eventually fulfil the function of the goal, which
suggests a story of love and intrigue.
In addition to their emotional connotations, there are other qualities that motivate
the player to interpret the levels as poetic works. As mentioned, each level has a title,
which is displayed in large letters in the middle of the screen when a level is loaded. Some-
times they suggest a solution (the title “Double moat”, for example, suggests building a
moat), or they put the puzzle in context (as in the case of “Affection”), similarly to the title
of a poem. The level, of course, does not look like a poem in the traditional sense, but when
the player presses the Escape key, the rules (sentences) that apply to the level appear in
the menu screen vertically arranged, as if they were lines of poetry. The short words give
the sentences considerable power. In English-language poetry, single-syllable words, typi-
cally of Germanic origin, are of great importance, as they can make complex statements
about the world in condensed manner, and they also contribute to the naturally iambic
thumping of English. All words in the game are one or two syllables long in order to fit a
single square. The game also takes advantage of zero derivation in English (words can be
changed from one category to another without changing its form): certain words that acts
as a noun can simply be placed in the position of the property (where typically adjectives
are placed) to function as one. The interchangeability of words gives the player a sense of
repetition, which is an important feature of lyric poetry.
The central role of the singular second person pronoun (YOU) is another such fea-
ture. The player must connect this word to a noun in order to control the object it signifies,
and at the same time, she creates something like lyric address: the game “speaks” to the
player through an object that is “addressed”. Culler (2015) describes lyric address as a
fundamental parameter of lyric poetry, central to the lyric tradition. Lyric address, accord-
ing to Culler, has three agents (triangulated address): the speaker of the poem addresses
the reader indirectly by addressing another addressee. Lyric address is one of the pillars
of Culler’s model of lyric: “Disrupting narrative, invocation, or address makes the poem an
event in the lyric present rather than the representation of a past event” (p. 8), which is
a fundamental difference between lyric poetry and prose. In this respect, lyric present is
similar to what we call simulation: it is not a representation of past events, but a continu-
ous occurrence in the present.
Magnuson (2023) discusses games with lyrical qualities and identifies lyric address
as a basic property of such games. The three agents of address are the creator of the
game, the player, and the game/character: in the digital games Passage (Rohrer, 2007)
and The Graveyard (Tale of Tales, 2008) (Magnuson calls them game poems), “there
exists an implicit question of how ‘you’ as the player are positioned in relation to each
game’s respective author(s) and the ambiguous ‘enacted utterance’ of each game”

10 Game Studies
(Magnuson, 2023, p. 42). Baba is You does not perfectly fulfil the criteria of a game poem
as Magnuson defines them (for example, while the levels are short, the game itself is not),
but it still gives lyric address an important role. It is a necessary feature in all of the levels,
it is constantly present to mediate between the player, the avatar and the game space. The
title (and the rule/sentence BABA + IS + YOU) suggest both the lyricism and the interac-
tivity of the game.
The level titled “Poem” is a game version of a Valentine’s Day poem. Here the word
YOU, which allows the player control over Baba, becomes associated with ‘you’, the person
addressed in the love poem. In the level, words are arranged side by side and underneath
each other to produce a regular, rhyming, rhythmic poem. The original, oft-parodied, well-
known poem is the following: ‘Roses are red, / Violets are blue, / Sugar is sweet, / And so are
you’. The poem makes use of a simile: you are as sweet as sugar. Roses and violets are used
as parallels: the colours red and blue are natural, familiar attributes of flowers. Therefore,
the poem implies that it is a well-known, obvious, natural fact that you are sweet. The puz-
zle, however, disrupts the clarity of the original, and reinterprets the naive, kitschy poem.
In order to solve the puzzle presented in “Poem”, the player is to think metonymically, not
metaphorically. The flowers around the poem (and Baba, the flag, the wall) are not illustra-
tions: if the words RED and BLUE are switched (ROSE + IS + BLUE, VIOLET + IS + RED),
the flowers change colour. One of the solutions is to push the word VIOLET to the left, then
push the words from up from the bottom. This turns the flag blue (FLAG + IS + BLUE),
BABA becomes the goal (BABA + IS + WIN), and the nine roses are controlled by the player
(ROSE + IS + YOU). The player must then touch Baba with one of the roses to win.
The three agents of triangulated address are, from another perspective, text and the
two readers it ‘addresses’: the computer and the user. They both interpret the sentence
ROSE + IS + YOU, yet the metaphorical reading is created only by the user. It may be useful
to interpret the game as a special case of codework. Cayley (2002) defines codework as
“literature which uses, addresses, and incorporates code: as underlying language-animat-
ing or language-generating programming, as a special type of language in itself, or as an
intrinsic part of the new surface language or ‘interface text,’ as [he] call[s] it, of writing in
networked and programmable media” (para. 3). The starting point for these experimen-
tal texts is that computer code and literary texts are composed of the same signifiers.
Their aim is to reveal the code that is usually hidden from users in our digital world. The
basic assumption of critical code studies is that computer code is meaningful and can be
interpreted (Marino, 2006). In this respect, an important question is whether codeworks
can be run: it is rare that these texts can be simultaneously read and decoded not only by
humans but also by computers (Cayley, 2002). If we interpret Baba is You as an example
of codework, it clearly falls into the latter category. Cayley (2002) calls the distinguishing
feature of codeworks that can be run on a computer an ambiguous address: the work is
read both as code and as text. The sentence ROSE + IS + YOU, for example, is read by the
computer as code, not as text. In other words, ROSE + IS + YOU is interpreted metonymi-
cally, as meaning is transferred on the basis of the proximity between words and not the
similarity of their meanings.

Procedural Figurativity
There is a fundamental difference between referential (metaphorical) and intrap-
rocedural (metonymical) transfer of meaning: the former refers to something within the
universe outside of the game, while the latter refers to objects in the game space, it has

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
to do with the rules of the game and the solution of puzzles. De Man (1979) makes a dis-
tinction between metaphor as a paradigmatic structure based on the logic of substitu-
tion that presupposes a real unity between the agents of the metaphor, and metonymy
as “a syntagmatic structure based on contingent association” (p. 15). He criticises the
Romantic idea that metaphor is superior to metonymy. In his reading of Proust, he stress-
es that metaphors are also metonymies: “precisely when the highest claims are being
made for the unifying power of metaphor, these very images rely in fact on the deceptive
use of semi-automatic grammatical patterns” (p. 16). In Baba is You, the referential (that
is, metaphorical, universal, rhetorical, text) and intraprocedural (that is, metonymical, lu-
dic, grammatical, code) transfer of meaning4 can relate to each other in several ways.

a) Only intraprocedural meaning is created

In this case, words and objects may represent phenomena from the world outside
the simulation, but the sentences put together have no poetic value and do not prompt
referential interpretation. They only make statements about things in the game space. In
the level “Lava flood”, the sentence LAVA + IS + MORE + AND + HOT causes lava to start
flowing from the four corners of the level. However, the sentence BABA + IS + HOT makes
the lava harmless and Baba can walk on it. The task here is not to preserve the character’s
health, but to preserve the goal (the sentence FLAG + IS + MELT makes it vulnerable),
which the player can do by pushing the word IS onto it. It would be difficult to attach any
referential meaning to this act. In some cases, the level does not even try to imitate outside
reality. In “Keep out!”, for example, the sentences TREE + IS + HOT or FUNGUS + IS + MELT
cause the mushroom to melt when touched by the hot pine tree. Of all the categories of
meaning transfer, this one is the most common and the most unimaginative. Since this
does not produce general statements, Bogost’s (2010) notion of procedural rhetoric does
not apply to this category.

b) Only referential meaning is created

“Lonely Flag” presents a female character with a heart above her, the sentence
ANNI + IS + BEST below her and a few stars scattered about randomly. The name Anni is
clearly a reference to the woman, but the words ANNI nor BEST do not do anything, their
presence is not relevant to the puzzle. They have a purely referential / poetic function:
after the completion of the game, the credits give thanks to a certain Anni Leskelä for
her “encouragement, feedback and support throughout the project” (“ANNI”, n.d.). The
sentence ANNI + IS + BEST is thus a confession or dedication disguised as a game rule
in a playful context, and in this respect can be considered an Easter egg (for more details
see Mago, 2019). As far as we know, this is the only example of this category in the game.
We cannot speak of procedurality here, so Bogost’s (2010) notion of procedural rhetoric
cannot be applied to this category either.

c) Intraprocedural and referential meanings are created simultaneously, but the

latter merely hints at something outside the game
Even though the puzzle does not actually bring these referential meanings into play,
the association provokes some thought in the player. The sentences with the operator
HAS are examples of this. The English verb ‘has’ expresses possession, yet the function

4 Remark by the author: This dichotomy is similar to Magnuson’s (2023) distinction between signified
meaning and material meaning. Signified meaning refers mainly to the metaphorical meanings of poems
and game poems, while material meaning refers to formal features such as rhythm, rhyme, line breaks, as
well as the interplay of image, sound and interaction. We cannot apply Magnuson’s terminology to Baba is
You because the words are placed in the game space.

12 Game Studies
of the word HAS in the game is different: when an object is destroyed, it is replaced by
another object. For instance, if the sentences KEKE + HAS + KEY and KEKE + IS + SINK
are active, KEKE will become a key if it is placed on water. The meaning that Keke is in pos-
session of a key is merely associative. In “Tunnel Vision”, the player transforms Baba into
a rock, then assembles the sentence ROCK + HAS + ROCK, and pushes the rock into the
water by controlling Keke. The rock disappears but is immediately replaced by another
rock. The player is to repeat this three times, then touch the flag with the thusly preserved
rock to win. In the meantime, the player might ask, if one possesses only oneself, does one
remain oneself after one is destroyed? This philosophical question is in no way addressed
by the game. A similar train of thought is induced by the combination of the sentences
BABA + IS + YOU and BABA + IS + WIN: if one takes oneself as their goal, what else is
needed but oneself? Even so, it would be ridiculous to treat these as serious revelations.
Bogost’s (2010) notion of procedural rhetoric may apply to this category, but the claims
being made are trivial.

d) Intraprocedural and referential meanings are created simultaneously in a way

that the referential meaning diverts the player’s attention from the intraproce-
dural meaning
To solve the puzzle, the player must ignore referentiality in favour of intraprocedural-
ity. Besides “Poem”, “Bottleneck” can also be put into this category. In this level, there are
three components next to each other that seem to form a sentence: SKULL + IS + [the ac-
tual skull object]. This is, of course, not recognized by the game as a valid sentence. When
read as a line of poetry, it is a meaningful sentence (the skull is the same as the picture of
the skull), but when read intraprocedurally, it is an incomplete sentence consisting of two
elements and an obstacle (the skull). The player solves the puzzle by connecting the word
DEFEAT to the skull object, which also connects the sentence FLAG + IS + WIN indirectly.
It is important to note that although intraprocedural meaning is the dominant one in this
category, referential meaning is certainly brought into play as well, and it is part of the
puzzle. Bogost’s (2010) notion of procedural rhetoric can be applied at the meta-level: the
puzzles argue for the primacy of intraprocedural meaning. It is the category most closely
related to what Mitchell et al. (2020) call poetic gameplay: the game draws attention to
formal particularities, thereby defamiliarizing the player and creating rhetorical meaning.5

e) Intraprocedural and referential meanings are created simultaneously, and they

have a mutually supportive relationship
Referentiality adds to intraprocedural meaning, which in turn brings into play ref-
erential meaning. In “Love is out there”, Baba is surrounded by a wall, outside of which is
the goal/heart (LOVE + IS + WIN). The title can therefore be interpreted in two ways: on
the one hand, the heart object is literally beyond the wall in the game space, and on the
other hand, love is available in the world, it is just a matter of finding it. There is no strong
contrast between the two statements, they do not cancel each other out. In fact, “Love
is out there” encourages the player to see herself as Baba enclosed within the loveless
walls and ponder her way out. The level can be read as a ludic adaptation of life wisdom
as well. In “Heavy words”, the sentence TEXT + IS + FALL causes the words to ‘fall’ (move)

5 Remark by the author: Mitchell et al. (2020) identify five categories of techniques (interaction, gameplay,
agency, time, and boundaries) for the defamiliarization of player expectations. “Poem” and “Bottleneck”
defamiliarizes gameplay. Like in the game Akrasia (Team Aha!, 2008), the game objective is not what it first
seems. There, “the player initially thinks the goal is to collect all the ‘pills’, but these pills, while keeping the
player in the ‘high’ state, actually negatively impact the character’s life. The ‘true’ objective is to stay ‘sober’
by avoiding the pills” (Mitchell et al., 2020, para. 32).

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
downwards when they are pushed. The words certainly seem to be affected by gravity, yet
at this point it is very clear to the player that the words have a symbolic weight, that is, they
determine the way the level (and our world) works. The sentence TEXT + IS + FALL thus
applies to the game space and to the world outside the simulation too. Bogost’s (2010)
notion of procedural rhetoric applies to this category, moreover, the game reflects on its
own procedural rhetoric.

Conclusion
With the above typology, we would like to show not only the possible ways referenti-
ality and intraprocedurality can relate to each other, but also that Baba is You emphasises
its preference of intraprocedural meanings: the concrete to the abstract, metonymy to
metaphor, code to text, simulation to representation, and, overall, a preference of play to
the lyric and lyricism in the conventional sense. The abstract associations, the metaphors,
the lyricism, the referentiality provide much needed colour, without which the game would
be dry and boring. The dominance of intraprocedurality is, however, very appropriate,
both from a ludologist point of view (which is sceptical about the territorialism of literary
studies [see Eskelinen, 2001]) and the point of view of literary pedagogy.
Baba is You, after all, is undoubtedly a poetic game: it uses emotive linguistic mark-
ers, it imagines language as performative, it assigns importance to the way the player en-
gages with language, and the pleasure she takes from playing with language. But above all,
it is poetic because it draws attention to the materiality of language, quite like codeworks
that reveal the hidden computer code. It does not allow the player to ignore the bearer
of meaning, primary meanings, and puts emphasis on the signifier. These are important
steps in learning to appreciate lyric poetry. Students who find it difficult to engage with po-
etry in school tend to see poems as puzzles to be solved, in which the figurative meaning
of the encoded text has to be deciphered. Ironically, in Baba is You, the figurative meaning
is often found when the player is not actively trying to solve the puzzle, but when she is
contemplating and being playful.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Asad, M. (2011). Making it difficult: Modernist poetry as applied to game design analysis [Master’s
thesis]. Georgia Institute of Technology.
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Ensslin, A. (2023). Literary gaming. MIT Press.
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ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 Acta Ludologica 2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue

Objects Really Matter:

Ludo-Representationalism
and the Reality of Digital
Games
Tamás Csönge

Tamás Csönge, PhD.

University of Pécs
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Ifjúság street 6
7624 Pécs
HUNGARY
[email protected]

Tamás Csönge is a senior lecturer at the University of Pécs (Hungary), Department

of Film and Visual Studies. He is a member of The International Society for the Study
of Narrative. Working within the framework of rhetorical and classical narratology, he
wrote his doctoral dissertation on the topic of perspectivation and character narration
in film and has published on the topics of narrative complexity, film narratology and
game studies in edited volumes and the journals Acta Universitatis Sapientiae Film
and Media Studies, Frontiers of Narrative Studies, and Ekphrasis. His other research
interests include film theory, the theory of fictionality, and ideological aspects of
contemporary popular culture.

16 Game Studies
ABSTRACT:
The aim of this paper is to identify the reasons for the contradictory conclusions of the fic-
tionalist and the realist theoretical positions on the ontological status of digital game objects.
First, the applicability of the Waltonian notion of fiction regarding digital game objects and
events is challenged. The paper clarifies that the debate contains a categorical misunder-
standing, and that it is not really about the discursive quality of fictionality (or factuality),
but about an ontological opposition between represented and real objects. It is then dem-
onstrated that digital game objects belong to a special category of non-physical informa-
tional entities that realists rightly consider real because they exhibit systemic behaviour, but
fictionalists are also correct regarding their function as signifiers of non-real, represented
objects. Following Aarseth, a distinction is made between represented, simulated and real
objects. It is argued that simulated digital game objects are real objects, but not necessar-
ily the same kind of objects as those they represent: a virtual library is a library, but a vir-
tual kitten is not a kitten. Finally, it is suggested that the main reason for the confusion about
the existential status of game elements is an issue of descriptive language: a confusion be-
tween signifier and signified and the uniform designation of heterogeneous phenomena.

KEY WORDS:
descriptive language, digital games, fictionalism, realism, representationalism, simula-
tion, virtuality.

DOI:
10.34135/actaludologica.2024-7-SI.16-33

Introduction:
Is This a Real Game?
The paper aims to contribute to the debate between ludo-fictionalism and ludo-real-
ism, where representatives of the more widespread former position such as Atkins (2003),
Tavinor (2009, 2012), Meskin and Robson (2012; Robson & Meskin, 2016), Willis (2019),
and Nader (2022) claim that, despite their interactivity, the content of digital games are
essentially fictional because they “represent fictional characters, places, and events:
that is, a fictional world” (Matsunaga, 2016, p. 89). In opposition, researchers leaning to-
wards a realist approach such as Frasca (2002), Juul (2005), Aarseth (2011, 2014, 2023),
Coppock (2012), Chalmers (2017), Matsunaga (2016), and Klevjer (2019) dispute this
claim and argue that our relationship with digital games, even if they do not have a physi-
cal realization, is still very different from our relationship with fictional worlds and entities.
It is useful to start with the idea that most of the debate is not really about the ap-
plicability of the quality of fictionality (understood here as an aesthetic category or com-
municational device),1 because the adjectives of fictional and real are not in fact opposites,

1 Remark by the author: Fictionality is understood in this text as a distinct autonomous quality, a widely
used rhetorical device and mode of sense-making, rather than as a literary or artistic form/genre. For a
conceptual distinction between fiction and fictionality, see Walsh (2007) and Nielsen et al. (2015). For the
difference between rhetorical and other approaches, see Zetterberg Gjerlevsen (2016).

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
but lie at categorically different levels. We will therefore refer here only to some of the
essential features of the specific concept of fictionality that we consider to be the most
viable for our purposes.
The primary aim of this paper is to demonstrate – without relying on the over-mys-
tified and diversely understood notions of player experience or immersion – that the two
theoretical positions are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and that both positions are
valid about the referents of their claims, but that these referents are simply not the same.
Digital games often contain representations of objects (most fictionalist arguments dis-
cuss this aspect), and that these representations are not the same as the digital game
objects that act as their signifiers (often called props), but are at the same time objects in
themselves. In this sense, digital games are real-time systems that can be manipulated by
the player and therefore contain real events and objects (realist approaches tend to focus
on this aspect of digital games). These objects belong to a special category: they are infor-
mation-based (non-physical and software-generated) objects that can exhibit systemic
behaviour in a virtual environment. Their properties and behaviour can be described by
well-defined rules, and unlike mere representations of characters or objects in a novel,
their properties can be tested and explored by the player, so they are never accidental or
inconsistent. Together with other elements of the game, they form a system where they
usually have a ludic function: they help or hinder the player’s progress in the game.
It is in this context that the much-problematized concept of simulation as machin-
ery with a dual nature can be situated and defined: in this sense, it is the execution of an
interrelated set of operations that utilizes the actual behaviour of a rule-based system
(the ludic aspect) while generating analogies in a semiotic process to model real-word
phenomena (the representational aspect).
The final point of the reflection is to demonstrate how differences in theoretical com-
mitments have led to the seemingly coherent and logical arguments for the fictional or real
nature of game content in both approaches. It is assumed that the main reason for the confu-
sion about the reality of game elements is an issue of descriptive language: more precisely a
confusion between signifier and signified and the uniforming designation of heterogeneous
phenomena. The issue with naming and describing game elements is that, often, their rep-
resentational content is referenced, so that descriptions lump together very different types
of objects, simply because they express similar figurative elements. If we describe a game
scene in which a knight opens a chest with a key and finds some gold inside, many things
will be left out that are crucial to understanding it as a game, such as: which element is in-
teractive, functional, and which is not: the chest, the key, the gold, or the character? Does
the player control the knight? Is the gold just decoration or does it have a specific in-game
value? Can the player collect the gold and use it to buy useful equipment for her character?
The argument that sparked our interest in the subject is Aarseth’s (2007) claim
about the ontological heterogeneity of games, pointing out that a source of many theo-
retical misunderstandings is the fact that complex software programs are called ‘games’,
which are usually more than just games: they contain algorithmic and representational
elements as well. According to Aarseth (2007),
computer software is a kind of metamedium that is able to emulate the older media
of text, image, and film. But they also contain items that are different from the ele-
ments we recognize from older media. These elements are ontologically different,
and they can typically be acted upon in ways that fictional content is not acted upon.
(Aarseth, 2007, p. 36)
As they are extremely heterogeneous in terms of their structure, it is not easy to give
a common, all-encompassing definition of electronic chess games, Minecraft (Mojang,
2011), SimCity (Maxis, 1989) and Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red, 2020), not to mention

18 Game Studies
that this heterogeneity also exists within the diverse palette of non-electronic games.
Games can contain different types of elements, both within and across genres: simula-
tion, representation, narrative, fiction. 2
The term „fictionalism” is increasingly used in the context of game studies by schol-
ars, often from the field of analytic philosophy. Sometimes called ‘virtual fictionalism’,
‘virtual irrealism’ (Chalmers, 2017), or ‘ludo-fictionalism’ (Aarseth, 2023), but of course
related claims appear in many more works in the field. Tavinor (2019) clarifies that it most
often refers to gameworld fictionalism, meaning “that the worlds depicted in games, where
they exist, are fictional” (p. 1).
Here, realism is also used in a more general sense, following Heim (1998), as a way
of asking about the ontological specificity of a particular object, in this case the realness
of certain aspects of digital games. The term is not used in the aesthetic sense of a move-
ment or an artistic style as used by many scholars. For example, Atkins (2003) describes
realism as a stylistic type of fictional mode. Matsunaga (2016) talks about “realism in
simulation” and “realistic simulation” (p. 101), which are also non-ontological categories
for him. That is, by realism we do not mean some artistic or cultural codes of truthful,
authentic depiction (of which Madame Bovary in literature or the paintings of Gustave
Courbet are prime examples), but we try to characterize digital game content as part of
reality. It also follows that this ontological realism does not refer to a discursive mode of
factuality either, whether understood as a conceptual framework concerning the status of
references or as a ‘communicative resource’ (Nielsen et al., 2015). So the realist position
does not assert that game objects (as signifiers) refer to real objects (as signifieds) or are
a mechanical imprint of reality (like footage from a documentary), but emphasizes that
they are real objects themselves (just like virtual money in a bank account).
In what follows, we argue that many of the discussions about the realism of digital
games are often (overtly or unconsciously) not really about the nature and question of fic-
tionality (even if the term is used), but about representation, so that it can be pointed out
that the ludo-fictionalist position is actually a ludo-representationalist one.

Ludo-Fictionalism:
Is This Just Fantasy?
Walton’s (1990) definition of fiction is enduringly popular among fictionalist ap-
proaches related to the analytic tradition (Meskin & Robson, 2012; Robson & Meskin, 2016;
Nader, 2022; Ricksand, 2020; Tavinor, 2009, 2012; Wildman & Woodward, 2018; Willis,
2019). Since ludo-fictionalism as a theoretical stance has been largely shaped by Walton’s
theory, it is worth briefly discussing its nature and how it has been applied to digital games.
Walton’s (1990) starting point is to relate representational art forms to children’s games.
For him, paintings, plays, films, and novels can be best understood if they are compared to
dolls, hobbyhorses, toy trucks, and teddy bears. The activities in which representa-
tional works of art are embedded and which give them their point are best seen as
continuous with children’s games of make-believe. … [Walton] shall argue that rep-
resentational works serve as props in such games, as dolls and teddy bears serve as
props in children’s games. (Walton, 1990, p. 11)

2 Remark by the author: Hungarian game scholarship has reflected on this kind of internal heterogeneity and
hybridity of digital games in a wide range of ways. See for different approaches: Kiss (2013), Pólya (2020),
Orosz-Réti (2021), and Jancsovics (2022).

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 Or, as one interpreter puts it: “fictional content belongs to those things that func-
tion as props in games of make-believe” (Willis, 2019, p. 50). We would stress that in the
Waltonian view, a prop is a material object which functions as a sign vehicle in a conceptual
(more specifically representational) discourse, and which, in the appropriate context
of reception, is endowed with the rhetorical power to refer to a meaningful element of
that discourse. That is, the prop is not an element of a particular semiotic code, or the
abstract form of a sign, but its physical manifestation. Any natural or man-made ob-
ject can be a prop that encourages an act of imagination to “generate fictional truths”
(Walton, 1990, p. 21), it need not be specifically designed for this purpose.
As Meskin and Robson (2012) point out, the Waltonian approach is not concerned
with the referentiality of fiction, because “it has nothing to do with the existence or non-
existence of the situation that [an] object depicts (or otherwise represents)” (p. 205), but
rather, as one interpreter, Friend (2008) puts it: “Walton is interested, not in our everyday
concept of fiction, but in those works that prompt make-believe, however we pre-theo-
retically classify them. Such works he labels as fiction or, equivalently, representational
art” (p. 154). Friend points out that Walton’s definition is therefore not appropriate for
exploring the conceptual distinction between fiction and non-fiction. So, when Meskin and
Robson (2012) “argue that videogames are artefacts which have a function of serving as
props in games of make-believe” (p. 201), the authors acknowledge that “Walton’s non-
standard account of depiction implies that all pictures – including photographs – are fic-
tions” (p. 205). The consequence of using such a broad definition of fiction is that “almost
all videogames – merely by virtue of being pictorial – will count as fictions in Walton’s
sense” (p. 205). On the basis that “one role of videogames is to mandate imaginings”
(p. 207), they are content with the conclusion that digital games are fictions in the Waltonian
sense, although they stress that this is not their primary or most important feature.
For Walton (1990), a kind of game develops in the subjective relationship with differ-
ent objects, representations and works of art, which is – while based on so-called “prin-
ciples of generation” (Meskin & Robson, 2012, p. 138) – a more open, individuated and
spontaneous cognitive activity that mobilizes the imagination. Aarseth (2011), following
Roger Caillois, calls this type of ‘game’ paideia, and distinguishes it from ludus, anoth-
er type based on fixed rules and skills. However, the ‘game-like’ nature of digital games
is not related to the imaginative activity associated with them or their representational
character, but to their ludic aspects: that is, they contain rules that cannot normally be
bypassed during gameplay. Although for most players it is undoubtedly important, sev-
eral commentators have noted (Newman, 2002; Aarseth, 2004; András, 2019) that some
truly dedicated, hardcore gamers can completely detach themselves from the represen-
tational, aesthetic, and narrative aspects of digital games in order to focus on the game
mechanics. Aarseth (2011) gives an extreme example of two games that differ only in their
appearance – The Suicide Bomber Game (fabulous999, 2002), also known as Kaboom!,
and The Howard Dean for Iowa Game (Persuasive Games, 2004) –, although unique as
aesthetic objects (they evoke different conceptual associations, imply different narra-
tives, and convey different ideologies), are in fact identical as games because of their
shared mechanics. Again, we stress that the term game is used in a narrower sense here.
While in one you must act as a suicide bomber, and in the other you have to recruit voters
for the titular democratic political actor by holding up signs, you have to perform practi-
cally the same game actions to achieve your goals.
Like all cultural representations, ‘Waltonian fictions’ can be created while playing
digital games, but this broadly applicable concept will not be able to distinguish them from
other types of playful activities or representational systems and point to their medium-
specific possibilities, unique mode of operation, and rhetoric.

20 Game Studies
 Other representatives of fictionalism try to escape from this Waltonian trap by us-
ing fictionality in a more specific sense. Tavinor (2009) underlines that “Walton uses the
term fiction in a rather wider stipulated sense. … [Tavinor] want[s] to employ the term
fiction in a more robust sense” (p. 50), therefore, by capturing the discursive nature of
the concept, he defines the fictional mode as something “referring to imagined states
of affairs” (Tavinor, 2012, p. 192). While most contemporary digital games “simulate the
material modality of our primary world to make believable facsimiles” (Makai, 2021, p. 72),
Tavinor (2012) argues that some digital games do not require the imagination of fictional
worlds, for example, Tetris (Pajitnov, 1984) or computerized chess games. Therefore “a
weakened form of the videogame as fictional thesis might state that while videogames
often involve fictive elements, they do not necessarily do so. Videogames are sometimes
works of fiction, and sometimes not” (Tavinor, 2012, p. 187). The definition prompts us to
take a closer look at the different ways fiction can be defined in this context.

Fiction as Ontology
vs. Discourse: Caught
in a Categorical Slip
Descriptions that do not attempt to homogeneously define all digital game content
as fiction tend to oppose fictionality with two conceptual fields: 1) systematic behaviour
(also called virtuality, simulation, algorithmicity), which is often identified with realness,
or 2) factuality (documentary nature). In our view, the first is a false dichotomy, or at least
results in a categorical slip, which also occurs in Aarseth’s (2007) argument when he con-
trasts the real (and simulated) elements of games with the fictional. According to Tavinor
(2012), the fictionality of games is problematic because while “the non-existence of ob-
jects in literary fictions is abundantly clear, in the case of videogames there does seem to
be something there with which [the player is] interacting” (p. 190). But here he does not
contrast the characteristics of the category of fiction with those of real entities, because
the contrast remains true in non-fictional discourses: a written factual account of a histor-
ical event or a documentary film does not allow us to interact with its characters through
the reception of the work, but this does not mean that the objects of the representations in
question are imaginary. The places, events, and people depicted in a factual discourse are
just as absent as those in fiction, meaning that the example is in fact opposing qualities
related to presence and absence. Literary and transmedia scholar Ryan’s (2018) defini-
tion of fictionality also operates on similar semiotic assumptions: “a text is fictional when
it passes as something other than what it is, but without deceptive intent from its author”
(p. 38). Although it is clear from the context, the statement itself is ambiguous as to what
it refers: the text as object or as signifying system?
The concept of fictionality in literature always emerges in relation to the ontologi-
cal status of the signified, while in relation to games, it can concern the game itself as
an object or process (the elements of their structure and their functioning). In this re-
gard, Aarseth (2023) also makes a comment in line with our conclusion that, following
Juul (2005), “much of the later claims of game fictionality seem to conflate the notions of
fiction and representation” (p. 14). Whichever position one adopts on the nature of digi-
tal games, it is clear that representation is the broader category, encompassing both fic-
tional and factual discourse, which can be validly contrasted with the supposed realness

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
of game objects. The real question at the heart of the debate is therefore not whether the
content of games is fictional, but whether they are merely representations.
Since fictionality is a conceptual discourse, it can be properly contrasted with other
conceptual discourses, such as historical or documentary-type representation. In these,
the question of reality will always be a question of reference, and there is no ontological
difference between them and fictional discourses, only a rhetorical one. But if we con-
trast representation with an object that produces a systemic functionality and can be
manipulated by the user in real time, there will indeed be an ontological difference be-
tween the entity represented and the entity that functions instrumentally. It could be said
that the question of fictionality (as rhetoric) can be understood in terms of the status of
the signifieds of representations, while the ontological question of realness applies to
“phenomenological objects” (Aarseth, 2011, p. 65). It is a quite different thing to claim that
the objects and events of a game represent real objects and events (referential signs) than
to claim that they are real objects and events. The debate is therefore largely not about the
rhetorical difference between fiction and non-fiction, but about the ontological difference
between absence and presence, or reference and existence.
Tavinor’s (2009) comparison is revealing about the representationalist approach to
digital games. He suggests that “the stage gun is simply real and not fictional” (p. 47),
and from this, we can conclude that certain aspects of plays are simply real. By analogy,
it could be said that certain aspects of digital games are similarly real. “But – he claims –
the stage prop gun is simply not the gun represented in the fiction, no matter how much
it might appear to be a gun, indeed even if a real gun loaded with blanks is used” (p. 47).
That is, he correctly points out the difference between signifier and signified in the way
representation works, and that when referring to a weapon ‘in the fiction’, it is really the
latter that we are referring to. Then he draws the conclusion: “What is real in this case is
the prop, and the events that involve the prop, and not the fiction that it is used to repre-
sent” (p. 47). Tavinor takes the Waltonian concept back to its theatrical roots, but in doing
so he also indicates that the realness of the ‘prop’ is of little importance: its only function
as a signifier is to communicate a signified, so we can say that in the play the weapon is
actually present even when the actor is holding a banana in his hand or shaping the object
with his fingers.
Tavinor (2009) examines games along these lines, concentrating on their represen-
tational (sign-like) aspects, assuming that all other ‘material (in this case virtual) aids’ are
not essential aspects of the game. This is based on the premise that games operate in a
similar way to plays, novels, and films, in which mainly the signifieds of representation
deserve to be examined in particular. This assumption is well reflected in statements such
as “virtual representations can present real and fictional things” (p. 49). Here, Tavinor is
explicitly discussing the capacity of digital games to represent real and non-real refer-
ents in specific, unique ways. That is, despite the implication that digital games contain
some kind of real, but virtual objects, their role and significance are secondary to the fact
that these objects serve to represent other objects. Tavinor (2009) thus concludes that
the algorithmic operation in digital games is also a mode of (fictional) representation, al-
though, he argues, more ‘robust’ (since it conveys more aspects/properties of the signi-
fied object) than a static, traditional representation. Moreover “the stage drama gun is
even more representationally robust than the videogame gun, but equally as fictional as
the gun depicted in the movie and the story book” (pp. 46-47). So, while the physicality of
the prop gun makes it more ‘robust’ for Tavinor, his focus is still on the process of semio-
sis and the status of its (‘fictional’) referent. It follows that anything that is considered to
be a real object in a digital game (just like a stage prop gun) is only a vehicle, even if it is
‘functional’, because it is not the same as the object it represents.

22 Game Studies
 As much as fictionalists consider the virtual object to be real (equivalent to the set of
information that is necessary and exists in the form of code), since it is not the same as the
object that the game ‘makes you imagine’ by its appearance or behaviour, as a weapon,
it is only represented. Here, the doubly problematic assessment of fictionality arises in
part from the difference, the non-identity, of the object depicted and the virtual object that
exists as its signifier. This argument is self-fulfilling in its commitment to representation
as a framework (see Meskin & Robson, 2012, p. 206), for how can we contest that the
signifier of representation is not the same as the signified, when this gap is the essence of
all semantic relations? The assumption arising from the position is that the virtual object
in the digital game is not a real gun, since a gun (which is only invoked here as a referent
by the game object) is tangible, capable of firing a bullet and capable of injuring living
beings.
This discursive framing of ludic content where every element is approached as a
sign, a representation, is by no means invalid, it is logical and plausible, but it pays too
little attention to the non-representational aspect of digital games where objects that are
only referred to as props in the spirit of other representational media, are diverse in their
functioning as actual tools of actions and events.

Ludo-Realism:
No Escape from Reality
What most realists focus on are the objects and processes generated by the digital
game’s algorithms, the gameplay and its events created by the operation of the system
and the player’s activity. Their key feature is that they are not merely representations uti-
lizing perceptual and behavioural features of external models, but are elements in con-
nection with which we execute, operate, shape, and manipulate a system. Aarseth (2014)
vehemently attacks the validity of the Waltonian thesis by arguing that:
there is no need for make-believing when players shoot at each other in Counter-
Strike … they are manipulating nonphysical, informational guns that shoot non-
physical, informational projectiles and when their avatars are hit, they do not have to
make-believe that they are eliminated. (Aarseth, 2014, p. 491)
In other words, he rejects the idea that a game object is only a prop, since it “is a
functional object that will directly support the player’s operational play, and not (merely)
prescribe imaginings” (Aarseth, 2023, p. 19). Although he uses the notion of fictionality to
describe positions different from his own, his argument also points to the fact that it is the
notion of representation that should be contrasted with the category to which the game
object belongs, as, he argues “it does not represent; it is, in the most basic sense, useful”
(Aarseth, 2023, p. 19).
Although wavering in his definitions, he takes a moderate realist position, which
could be better described as anti-representationalist, in that he proposes the introduction
of a third ontological category in relation to games: “games are not fictions, but a different
type of world, between fiction and our world: the virtual” (Aarseth, 2007, p. 39). He later
justifies this by saying that:
just because ‘fiction’ is a poor conceptual fit, it does not follow that ‘real’ has all the
analytical power needed, especially if we are experiencing genuinely new material
constellations of human construction, such as the current revolution of artificial in-
telligence. (Aarseth, 2023, p. 21)

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 It is to this position that the proponents of the stronger realist thesis respond,
stressing that the problem with the escape route of virtualism is that it can only describe
its own position in a negative or circular way: “Virtualism has a fault in that it itself ex-
plains nothing. … What is videogame interaction? Virtual one. Then what is it to be virtual?
To be capable of interaction!” (Matsunaga, 2016, p. 91). In contrast, the stronger view
is – as Chalmers (2017) explains – that “virtual reality is a sort of genuine reality, virtual
objects are real objects, and what goes on in virtual reality is truly real” (p. 309). The differ-
ence lies in the fact that Aarseth (2023) tries to refine the category of reality, separating
its significantly distinct versions in terms of human experience and perception, warning
us that “the ludo-fictional thesis fails to grasp the most crucial ontological turn of our
time: from material to informational reality” (p. 15). In this sense, the only essential dif-
ference between what are traditionally called real and virtual objects is their physicality:
“The game object … is not a material entity, but a phenomenological one … why must ‘real’
always mean ‘physical’?” (Aarseth, 2011, p. 65).
Aarseth’s (2007) other argument against the representationalist view is the sys-
tematic nature of digital game simulations (which is the basis of all game mechanics), in
contrast to which “fictions do not have to be logical or consistent, as long as they make us
project mental images, happenings and notions” (p. 36). In a digital game system, there
can be no contradictory states. This is why the mechanics and the representational layer
of the game are well separable, the latter of which, as Aarseth (2023) also notes, is often
arbitrary in its relation to the former.
Klevjer (2019) draws attention to an important distinction in the context of the tem-
porality of digital games. While representation is not ‘real-time’, all events it displays are
pre-coded (although their reception in certain media is time-bound), in gaming, we can
talk about “screen-based real-time environments” and “real-time virtual objects” (p. 733),
whose state can be precisely determined at any moment, their operation unfolding in the
present time. The game may indeed generate event-like representations, it may contain
‘scenarios’, but their occurrence is subject to the same conditions of realization, mean-
ing that they are part of a causal chain, they always have antecedents and consequences
as any event in the simulation. According to Klevjer (2019), “during play, we are, via the
screen, able to experience real-time modeled objects and environments” (p. 733), the
states of the former and the creation of the latter are real events, not just a representation
of a situation.
The realist position’s strength lies in its attention to the differences between a digi-
tal game and other semiotic artefacts and representational media, as well as its focus
on the internal diversity of game elements. However, it sometimes misses the object of
its critique, since no theoretically sound position would deny the systematic nature of a
simulation or the freedoms and possibilities that come from being a real-time process.
For representationalists, the problem with the approach relates to the naming of game
objects. According to them, it is misleading, for example, to describe (and thus identify) a
game object as a gun, because although it has a real function in the game, it is incapable
of injuring flesh and blood creatures. This issue has given rise to quite distinct theories of
how virtuality can be conceptualised.

24 Game Studies
Virtuality and Simulation:
Open Your Doors
To distinguish between ‘fictional’ and ‘virtual’ game objects, Aarseth (2007) gives
the example of two types of doors in Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Gray Matter, 2001):
one is an element that looks like a door, has the texture of a door, but cannot be opened
and walked through – it is a mere decoration. The other not only looks like a door but
also works like a door: you can open it, close it, your avatar can pass through it, and en-
ter a previously enclosed space. In Aarseth’s definition, this is a functioning virtual door.3
Tavinor (2012), on the other hand, places virtuality again within the domain of representa-
tion as a possible (digital game specific, medium-specific) mode of it, and from this per-
spective criticizes Aarseth’s distinction:
The genuine difference that Aarseth refers to between merely decorative doors and
usable doors does not amount to a difference between fictional and nonfictional
doors as he contends, but to a difference between fictional doors depicted in a non-
virtual way, and fictional doors depicted in a virtual way. (Tavinor, 2012, p. 197)
For Tavinor (2009), then, virtuality is posited as a mode of representation (and a
‘fictional’ mode of representation in most games), the specificity of which “is their richly
contingent representational media, their responsive nature, and their consequent interac-
tive opportunities” (p. 50). Aarseth (2007), in comparison, emphasizes the fact that it is an
object with a real mode of operation and behaviour, which also represents another object.
For a more precise definition of this quality, it is worth distinguishing between broad-
er and narrower senses of virtuality. Aarseth, for example, uses the term for objects that
have no physical existence but behave according to fixed, predetermined rules. However,
when he identifies their operation as a (digital, computerized) type of simulation, he adds
a model-like and thus sign-like aspect to the formula. This is clear from the definition he
adopts from Encyclopedia Britannica, according to which, a simulation is the representa-
tion of “the dynamic responses of one system by the behaviour of another system mod-
eled after it” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2024, para. 1).
It is important to clarify that the simulated object is usually not another individual
instance (token) of the same class of objects (type) as the one it models, so if it has only
similar characteristics, it can be interpreted as a representation, but at the same time the
simulated object is a real digital object. What if the simulation reproduces all the charac-
teristics of its target system? If having an impact on physical reality is one of the prop-
erties of the target that the digital model cannot achieve, then it is not really a perfect
reconstruction of the phenomenon, entity, or process. What really lends itself to com-
plete virtual simulation are inherently conceptual or digital systems (such as the game
of chess), but if the created system is identical to the source in all aspects, it is no longer
a simulation: the act of copying something entirely does not constitute representation;
rather, it is a reproduction.

3 Remark by the author: The philosophical point-and-click computer game Doors (Gualeni & Van de
Mosselaer, 2021) was created as a response and critique to Aarseth’s (2011) claim that virtual objects are
not fictional, and fictional objects cannot be interacted with. The game contains several types of doors
(non-interactive, interactive, meta-representational, referential, secret, implied, magical, etc.), which, as
signs and representations, stand in different relationships to their referents. In our opinion, however, the
game does not demonstrate the possibility of interacting with the represented objects (the different type of
doors) or the fictionality of the functioning game objects but rather points out that the represented and the
real object are not identical in the case of game doors, even if they appear as a single complex, simulated
object.

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 Interestingly, Tavinor’s (2012) definition is very similar to Aarseth’s, when he states
that “virtuality refers to the fact that one object can serve as an interactive proxy for
another kind of object because it replicates the functional structure of the target object”
(p. 195). Virtual objects understood in this way are usually also sign-like (by referencing
an external model), but this is not theoretically necessary, even in a digital game, since
the element can function without any intentional, recognizable analogy, simply func-
tioning by the system’s own internal laws. A classic example of this is the shapes and
mechanics of Tetris, which does not aim to model any real-world functionality, yet works
in a systematic way, its objects can be manipulated and produce recognizable patterns
of behaviour.

Hybrid Ontologies: Little

Real, Little No
A theoretical confusion arises for Aarseth (2007) when he tries to conceptualize the
‘not purely representational’ content of a game, sometimes calling it real, sometimes as a
separate category, virtual. Compare these two claims, which are a few lines apart: “When
we play games, in real or virtual environments, we really win or lose, and the events in the
games are real … The bullets in a game of Counter-Strike … are not real bullets, but neither
are they fictional” (p. 39). “Non-fictional doors are virtual, a mode of existence that is nei-
ther fictional nor real” (p. 42).
The uncertainty is caused by the following situation: although the virtual object 1)
has its own autonomous existence, 2) and imitates a real object, but 3) it is not identical to
this imitated object. Some may therefore feel the need to introduce a third ontological cat-
egory. But it is not really necessary to assume, as many do, following Juul (2005) or oth-
ers, a ‘mode of existence’ halfway between the ‘fictional’ (or more precisely represented)
and the ‘real’, with an ambiguous or hybrid status. As we have already argued (see Csönge,
2023), this is simply a complex object that is both a (non-physical but) real object and a
vehicle for the representation of another object. Representation here works on two levels:
through the formal (static) and functional (dynamic) properties of the game object, what
we have called perceptual and procedural iconicity,4 partly to allude to Bogost’s (2007)
concept of “procedural representation” (p. 9).5

4 Remark by the author: The notion essentially corresponds with Eco’s (1976) take on “functional represen-
tations” (p. 209), but procedurality perhaps more specifically expresses the algorithmic nature relevant
to the medium. Perhaps it is questionable on our part to use the term iconicity (in the sense of an iconic
sign), as it carries a strong connotation of visuality or sensory impression, but we still think that the icon as
a technical term is adequate, because it emphasizes the mimetic aspect of the representational nature of
the process. This does not actually change the semiotic meaning of the term, because when Peirce (1994)
introduced it into the discourse, he used it in a broader sense, in connection with any similarity of qualities,
and this sense is still used today:
An Icon is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own, and
which it possesses, just the same, whether any such Object actually exists or not. … Anything whatever,
be it quality, existent individual, or law, is an Icon of anything, in so far as it is like that thing and used as
a sign of it. (Peirce, 1994, p. 368)
5 Remark by the author: András (2021) uses the Bogost-inspired term procedural aesthetics (Bogost, 2007)
to draw attention to unique game rhetorics, such as those in the extremely slow game The Longing
(Studio Seufz, 2020), in which a game is not simply represented by its mechanics and does not pretend
to claim something about our reality outside the game. Instead, it offers a particular aesthetic experience,
thus the emergence of a new reality of perception and action for the player.

26 Game Studies
 Indeed, the fact that Aarseth’s (2007) conceptual system depends on this factor
(the identity of the object in the game and the object represented) for “granting” realness
is demonstrated by the fact that the objects that he claims to be real, even in contrast to
the virtual ones, differ from other non-physical objects in precisely this respect: in this
case, the game object in question categorically coincides with the object represented by
its simulational qualities. He gives the example of a labyrinth, which he considers to be a
real labyrinth, even in a simulation: “a 3D virtual labyrinth in a computer-simulated world
is a real labyrinth, since it can be navigated by the same rules” (Aarseth, 2007, p. 41).
The reason that a real labyrinth can actually be created in the simulation is that Aarseth
(perhaps controversially) interprets the labyrinth not as a physical object, but as a con-
ceptual category that does not include the parameter of physicality. Perhaps a more strik-
ing example is the distinction made by Chalmers (2017) between kittens and libraries,
in which he argues that while a virtual kitten is not a real kitten, a virtual library is a real
library, because it is a conceptual entity, and we would venture to say that its non-com-
puterized version is also essentially digital. It is not hard to see that a virtual library is
not a simulation of a library, if it functions exactly like the physical version. What Aarseth
obscures in his example, but Chalmers (2017) points out, is that virtual objects are real
even if they do not correspond to the object they represent in a model-like way: “impor-
tantly, virtual kittens are still real objects. … virtual kittens at least in principle can be just
as rich and robust as nonvirtual kittens and play corresponding causal roles in virtual
worlds” (p. 326).
The real difficulty, which we suspect leads Aarseth to define virtuality as a separate
ontological category and Tavinor to define it as a representation, is the fact that virtu-
al objects in digital games that represent other objects are in most cases not identical
to the object they represent (if they are, this essentially removes the representational
character), yet in naming them, we hide this difference or describe the former as a sig-
nifier of the latter. Aarseth uses the adjective ‘virtual’ to save the name of the repre-
sented object, to stress the connection between in-game objects and their real-world
counterparts, while acknowledging their difference. Note that Chalmers is careful
to say that a virtual kitten is a real object, not that it is a real kitten which is a biologi-
cal entity that cannot be fully reproduced digitally. When the digital entity is labelled as
a kitten, we inevitably invoke the representational layer of the game, and this move can
cause confusion. It is not inconsistent with either the fictionalist or the realist position
that this object merely represents a kitten, but at the same time exists and functions as
another kind of dynamic object. The present framing suggests that the two approach-
es are not mutually exclusive but merely highlight different characteristics of digital
games.

Descriptive Language:
Mama, Just Killed a Man
Matsunaga (2016) argues that the specificity of digital games is that they create
and display ‘symbols’ in their game events that “are individuated in accordance with
their fictional contents” and “described by using … expressions originally for describing f
ictional contents” (p. 98). In other words, he indicates that the virtual object or event is
named in terms of the representational referent of the simulation: “I drank the elixir”, “I
planted the flag on the castle tower”, while a more literal description of the game events

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
behind them would be “I replenished my health points” and “I completed the main task
required to finish the level”.6
Tavinor (2005) poses the question of realism with examples of criminal activity from
Grand Theft Auto III (DMA Design, 2001): should shooting an innocent bystander in the
game be considered real murder? Or are we pretending to kill them in a purely Waltonian
sense? However distressing it may be for some people, the player is certainly not bur-
dened with the responsibility (criminal or moral) that would be involved in committing
these acts outside the game, so according to the fictionalist view one must consider these
acts to be mere representation.
Tavinor (2012) also detects that this problem is related to the difference between the
language of description (which emphasizes representations) and the real game events.
He acknowledges that in digital games “there exists something with which to interact”
(p. 190), but to describe this something, it is tempting to use a signified of the represen-
tation, for example, of an obviously fictional goblin. This should lead to the paradoxical
situation in which a real player interacts with fictional objects and characters, and where
„there seems to be an ontological gap between the space in which we locate performed
actions as individual events … and the space in which we locate the agent who performs
the actions” (Matsunaga, 2016, p. 89).
There is a simple solution to the problem, to use Aarseth’s door example: the virtual
doors manipulated by the player are very real objects (of a non-physical kind), but not
real doors. Their behaviour and formal properties simply represent doors. Their behaviour
mimics relevant functionality (procedural iconicity) and their audiovisual features (e.g.
texture) imitate formal characteristics (perceptual iconicity). The reason for the misun-
derstanding is that when interpreting the game and describing the game element, the
represented object, the door, is named.
A common way of describing these objects is to add distinguishing adjectives to
the name, but this does not really resolve the linguistic difficulties. When we say ‘virtual
door’ or ‘virtual kitten’, the names of familiar concepts and the adjective attached to them
(coupled with the imitative relationship and the lack of physicality) reinforce the idea that
we can and must define the game object, which has been relegated to a much lower sta-
tus, only in relation to an original and primary object. It is, of course, a misconception that
the adjectives (‘virtual’ or ‘simulated’) denote a distinct ontology, referring to a door or a
kitten existing in a parallel dimension (or possible world). In fact, they refer to a real game
object, and it is only common practice (perhaps to facilitate its conceptualization) to de-
scribe this object based on the representational analogy. Matsunaga (2016) concludes
that sentences describing games refer to real but institutionally constituted objects and
actions:
Such actions as … hitting a home run and striking out in baseball, would all never exist
if there were not the rules of … baseball. Of course, without any rule, you can perform
the action … of clouting a ball far away with a wooden club; but some rule is required
for those behaviors to be counted as a move or a home run: that is, a gameplay ac-
tion. (Matsunaga, 2016, p. 98)

6 Remark by the author: Patridge’s (2017) distinction between “self-involving language” of the fiction
and “indirect, ludic language” (p. 182) is very similar to our conceptualization of the problem. In both
models, the first case refers to situations in which digital game objects and events are named after their
representational referents. In the second case, where we use ludic language, we refer to in-game concepts
that make sense and function within the mechanics of the game, not in the ‘fictional world’ of the game,
such as health points, experience points, damage parameters, etc. The reason for using the language of
representation for description, Patridge (2017) argues, is that “self-involving language is more aesthetically
pleasing due to its directness and simplicity and so seems more natural” (p. 182).

28 Game Studies
 Institutionality means that an action or event acquires its meaning and significance
through a social norm, a community agreement, whose “existence depends on our recog-
nition and acceptance” (Saftescu-Jescu, 2013, p. 149). In his example, this means acting
in the right place, at the right time, in the right way, cooperating with your teammates, and
the acceptance of the rules of the game by all participants. This statement may be true
for some non-digital games, but not for digital games, where the ‘constitutive rules’, that
is, the institution is the algorithmic system itself, which operates more like the physical
laws of the real world with coercive force than our actions with symbolic force. Within the
given framework of a game, it is simply not possible to act in a way that is not a gameplay
action. Therefore, we do not believe that these game actions “are ontologically the same
as institutional facts” (Matsunaga, 2016, p. 100), or any different from any other real-life
event except that they are (partially) non-physical.
Lastly, the problem of homogenization through the utilization of descriptive lan-
guage must be addressed. On the one hand, this occurs in the context of identical names
for a wide variety of mechanics in different games, and, on the other hand, in the context
of linguistic homogenization of heterogeneous elements of individual games.
It is worth noting that when teaching someone how to play a (digital) game, we often
have to explain what the concepts and expressions used in everyday language mean in the
game. Aarseth’s (2011) example is illuminating here: because The Suicide Bomber Game
and The Howard Dean for Iowa Game associate different representations with the same
functions, different descriptions (‘to blow up a bomb’ in one game and ‘to hold up a sign’
in the other) are used to refer to the same game mechanic. To complicate matters, it is not
always necessary or possible to refer to game elements in figurative terms (referring to
the representational layer): this is least necessary in cases of ‘almost pure’ games, such
as the abstract Tetris, where the representational layer is minimal or insignificant. In some
cases, the game activity or situation is named (more or less) in its literal (ludic) sense,
even if the game has a rich representational aspect. Concepts such as winning, losing,
stalemate, fighting, getting ahead, taking risks, escaping, etc. Sometimes we mix the ludic
and the representational categories. An event in the 2D sandbox game Terraria (Re-Logic,
2011) can be described by saying: my avatar (describing the game element) climbed down
(describing the representation) to the bottom of (the spatial dimension is virtual, so this
is also partly a representation) the level (describing the game element), and there I found
(here they refer to themselves as the player because of the first person) a sword.7
To return to the example of murder: it is clear that a virtual murder is not a genuine
one, but as an event it is not fictional, it is a real in-game event that also represents anoth-
er type of event: a murder. For the sake of simplicity, players describe the in-game event as
‘murder’ because of the representation associated with it. However, this single term may
cover different types of game events, specific game situations or mechanisms from game
to game. When the executor is the player, different forms of action and skills (reflexes,
memory, dexterity, attention, intellect, strategic planning) may be required depending on
the genre, there is no single virtual concept of ‘killing’ as there is in reality, where murder
involves a single definable action. Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that individual
names for specific mechanics are not entirely unmotivated: they often cover a similar type
of event, and usually involve the deactivation, removal, or elimination of a game object and
the fulfilment of a player objective. Thus, despite genre schemas and well-known game
mechanic topoi, a given expression and its meaning can therefore only be considered
consistent and predictable within a single game, as this seems to be its standard scope.

7 Remark by the author: This is a representation, but the description of the game element could be: a digital
object for offensive action to help the progress of the player in the game.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
At the same time, there are clearly identifiable game mechanics (‘ludemes’) with associ-
ated technical terms (not always or consistently linked to corresponding representations),
but these are less used by the average digital game player.
The difficulty comes from the fact that by naming the representational aspect (which
is standard practice), the nature of the element becomes ambiguous, or different kinds
of objects and events become difficult to distinguish. There may be an impassable wall
surface that looks like a door, a functional object that can be opened and resembles a real
door, and a secret door that appears as a window in the game. Chalmers (2017) rightly
acknowledges that a single term can imply two different layers: “if an avatar in virtual real-
ity plays the role of Gollum stealing the ring, the event of Gollum stealing the ring is fic-
tional, but this is consistent with the underlying avatars and movements within the virtual
realm being real” (p. 316). He suggests that there is both a represented and a real event
in this case. His assumption is valid, if there is a combination of representational (narra-
tive) and ludic elements in the situation, which is not entirely clear from the description. If
the action of Gollum’s avatar is the result of a pre-determined, built-in narrative segment
(which may still require the active involvement of the player to trigger it), then it is only the
representation of the theft of the ring. And if it is a functional and meaningful state of the
simulation, then alongside this representation, there is a real in-game event, which is of
course not theft, but some other kind of action that can be useful or harmful to the player’s
progress in the game.

Conclusion: Objects Really

Matter?
To conclude the discussion, when game elements are referenced by their repre-
sentational content, the same terms are often used to describe very different types of
components: sometimes real game events, sometimes representations of events and ob-
jects, sometimes actually fictional narratives. That is, the names can be the same for de-
notations with different ontological status. Take the example of the third-person shooter
Max Payne (Remedy Entertainment, 2001), which combines narrative and ludic elements
in a spectacular way. If we say that the character we control, the game’s protagonist,
“Max has been killed”, we are basically naming a real in-game event with a representa-
tional dimension (the character collapses on the ground), which happens as often and in
as many ways as the character runs out of life energy during the game. If we say, “Max’s
family was murdered”, we are describing a fictional event that is part of the game’s sto-
ryline (which, unlike the previous case, cannot be repeated or undone), but which does
not represent a specific gameplay situation or simulation configuration. The two similarly
named ‘events’ cover a very different type of game element.
In many cases, it is much easier to name the representational referent of a game ele-
ment or game object than to elaborate on its exact status and function in the game. For
a specific game, however, this is not a problem at all in communication between skilled
players: an internal language is established so that all parties understand what is meant
by the given expression. For theorists, however, the homogenizing use of language can be
misleading, and they can easily adopt views that concentrate on a single aspect of struc-
turally, semiotically and functionally complex digital games.
On the one hand, fictionalism (or representationalism) rightly draws attention to the
non-reality, the sign-like nature of objects, characters and events used in the descriptions

30 Game Studies
of mimetic digital games. On the other hand, the merit of the realist approach is that it
clarifies that alongside (or sometimes without) this representational character, there is
a real eventfulness and genuineness to the mechanics of the game. Taking all this into
account, we conclude that in the case of digital game simulation the same game element
acts both as a signifier of something else and functions as a tool, an object itself, and that
although purely conceptual objects may be an exception, the represented and the real
object are not usually identical.

Acknowledgment: We are grateful to the anonymous reviewer of this paper for suggesting
valuable academic material and many examples, to which we have added our own reflec-
tions in order to make the arguments clearer and to present the relevant theoretical posi-
tions accurately and impartially.

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 Acta Ludologica 2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue

“Insert Your Soul to Continue”:

The Self-Reflections
of Metafictional Digital Games
Aylin Pekanık

Aylin Pekanık
Hacettepe University
Faculty of Letters
Beytepe Campus
06800 Ankara
TURKEY
[email protected]

Aylin Pekanık is a PhD candidate at the Department of American Culture and

Literature at Hacettepe University. She received her BA in English Translation and
Interpretation and MA in American Culture and Literature at Hacettepe University
with a thesis on the gendered design of female coded androids in science fiction films.
Her research interests include audiovisual media studies, ludology, gender and queer
studies, speculative fiction, and horror fiction. Her previous works include studies on
interactivity as narrative through ludonarrative harmony, depiction of witches and
institutionalized magic in digital games, and personal mythmaking in TTRPGs. She is
currently working on her dissertation which examines the evolution and reclamation
of queer monstrousness in American horror short story anthologies.

34 Game Studies
ABSTRACT:
Metafiction is a self-reflective narrative form that examines and critiques its own themes
and structure, serving as a mirror that reflects both its creator and its audience. Within
this context, metafiction in digital games breaks through the artifice of narrative to ad-
dress the players directly as the facilitators of the story and collaborators whose play pat-
terns, personal experiences, expectations, and habits shape game narratives. With the
application of both game theory and literary analysis, this paper will examine a selection
of metagames: Lovecraftian horror game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem displaying
meta-mechanics as a form of disempowerment, satirical walking simulators The Stanley
Parable and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe deconstructing the established game tropes,
self-aware characters of games Pony Island and Inscryption presenting the developer as
a metaphorical adversary, and fictional nonfiction The Beginner’s Guide dissecting the
parasocial relationship between developers and players, and the mentally taxing nature of
game development. This paper will showcase the meta mechanics and disruptions in such
games as wholly unique forms of metatextuality. Ultimately, this paper aims to establish a
metagame canon, suggest a typology, and acknowledge metafiction’s place as an essen-
tial and inseparable mirror for the storytelling medium of digital games.

KEY WORDS:
deconstruction, digital games, fourth wall, metafiction, metagame, self-reflection.

DOI:
10.34135/actaludologica.2024-7-SI.34-49

Introduction
All well-established traditions of storytelling eventually turn inward to exam-
ine their own machinations and engage in self-reflection. As experimental anti-
novels with such reflections gained traction in the world of literature in the 1970s,
Gass (1970) coined the term metafiction to refer to this new, introspective narra-
tive form, defining it as “the capacity of fiction to reflect on its own status as fiction”
(Neumann & Nünning, 2014, p. 204). These narratives “pose questions about the re-
lationship between fiction and reality … providing a critique of their own methods of
construction” (Waugh, 1984, p. 2), achieved through defamiliarization as “the laying
bare of literary devices in metafiction brings to the reader’s attention those formal el-
ements of which, through over-familiarization, he has become unaware” (Hutcheon,
2013, p. 24). This unmasking is facilitated through the deconstruction of not only narra-
tives, but also the specific language and building blocks of mediums, the tools through
which stories are told such as metafictional literature which pulls the focus “away from
the story told to the storytelling” (Hutcheon, 2013, p. 35), metatheatre which “break[s]
the imaginary fourth wall” (Bell, 2008, p. 38) to call attention to the fabricated divi-
sion between the performers on stage and the audience, and metacinema which uti-
lizes “the showing of the process and machinery of film production and presentation”
(Siska, 1979, p. 286). These metanarratives do not simply dissect the stories told, but
also how they are told.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 The medium of digital games has also engaged in similar forms of self-reflection to
create metagames which present “an increasing awareness of their own mediality, their
inner workings, and how they function” (Schubert, 2021, p. 212). It is important to note
that the term metagaming has been widely used as a verb to refer to “the consideration
of other players’ habits and previous play styles in the strategy decision making process”
(Carter et al., 2012, p. 3) in competitive games or the distinction between “what a player
and what a player’s character does or does not know” (p. 4) in role playing games. How-
ever, we will be interpreting the term as described by Waszkiewicz (2024) pertaining to
metareferentiality that utilizes the specific language of digital games to create unique
iterations of metatextuality. Similar to the specific machinations of metafictional litera-
ture, metatheatre, or metacinema, metagames also achieve metatextuality by not only
deconstructing their narrative but also their unique language of game mechanics, the very
structures and codes that make up the game itself, in order to “produce a self-reflexivity
specific to their medium, a metatextuality distinct from the achievements of postmodern
art” (Fest, 2016, p. 9). In order to achieve this, metagames also engage in defamiliariza-
tion, which Mitchell (2016) refers to as poetic gameplay:
that draws attention to the form of the game, and by doing so encourages the player
to reflect upon and see that structure in a new way [while] working both within and
against structural constraints, with the player engaged in a process of discovery and
interpretation. (Mitchell, 2016, pp. 2-3)
This method disorients players, dismantles expectations, and provokes visceral
emotionality and self-reflection through a unique breaking of the fourth wall by disman-
tling the magic circle that constitutes both the game playground and the shield that pro-
tects “the fantasy world from the outside world” (Castronova, 2005, p. 147).
These metagames utilize such disruptive and defamiliarizing mechanics to explore
certain themes specific to their medium. They examine not only narrative traditions,
tropes, and the culture surrounding games, but the players themselves as “thema-
tized parts of the narrative situation, acknowledged as having a co-producing function”
(Hutcheon, 2013, p. 35). Such games acknowledge players as collaborators, as essen-
tial parts of the narrative, as facilitators without whom the narrative literally would not
progress. In doing so, they dissect the play patterns, habits, and expectations of players
as fundamental parts of the emerging narrative. Lastly, metagames include creators and
developers, reflecting upon themselves, examining the creative process, the difficulties
of game development and the relationship between creators and players. They are the
players who absorb what gaming culture has to offer and transform it into a self-reflective
metanarrative.
These meta experimentations have borne fruit to countless metagames within the
gaming landscape. Early examples offered brief nods towards the players but did not
comprehensively interact with the game mechanics. For instance, Sonic impatiently
taps his foot while waiting for the player to move him in Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Team,
1991), Cranky Kong references the old single-screen games he used to play in Donkey
Kong Country (Rare, 1994), and Lara Croft shoots the screen to prevent the player from
seeing her in the shower in Tomb Raider II (Core Design, 1997). The metagame boom,
starting in the 2010s, brought along games that built their foundations on metatextual
gameplay, such as The Magic Circle (Question, 2015), Undertale (Fox, 2015), CALENDULA
(Blooming Buds Studio, 2016), IMSCARED (Ivan Zanotti’s MyMadnessWorks, 2016),
Doki Doki Literature Club! (Team Salvato, 2017), There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension
(Draw Me A Pixel, 2020), and Alan Wake 2 (Remedy Entertainment, 2023).
In this paper, we will analyse a specific selection of metagames within this mas-
sive and ever-growing genre; Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (Silicon Knights, 2002),

36 Game Studies
The Stanley Parable (Galactic Café, 2013), The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (Crows Crows
Crows, 2022), Pony Island (Daniel Mullins Games, 2016), Inscryption (Daniel Mullins
Games, 2021), and The Beginner’s Guide (Everything Unlimited, 2015), with each example
selected for its unique and specific take on metatextuality. We will be applying a three-
pronged approach that encompasses ludic analysis that situates gameplay mechanics as
the language of gaming, narratological analysis that explores the story elements, and a
form of formalist analysis that emphasizes the “aesthetic experience that emerges from
playing a game [that] allows the player to make a meaningful connection between the work
and their own lived experience” (Mitchell & Van Vught, 2023, p. 108). The paper aims to
establish a canon of metafictional digital games and showcase a wide range of metacriti-
cal instances. The primary examples include Eternal Darkness, which utilizes metagame
mechanics as a form of disempowerment within the horror genre, The Stanley Parable and
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, which deconstruct the established tropes and expecta-
tions of digital games, Pony Island and Inscryption both of which present the developer
as a metaphorical adversary within the narrative, and The Beginner’s Guide, which com-
ments on the potentially parasocial relationship between the players and developers. With
the examination of these games, we aim to create a thorough account of meta-reflective
games that demonstrates that this collective metagame canon has emerged from the
need to reflect upon digital games as an ever-growing medium of storytelling. This estab-
lished canon mirrors the evolution of the digital game landscape itself, thus becoming an
essential part of the medium.

Terror Beyond the Fourth

Wall
While metagames may utilize metatextuality for various effects such as humour, em-
powerment, or cynicism, one of the most striking effects that can be accomplished through
the use of meta-aspects is disempowerment. Games are often perceived by players and
constructed by developers as a medium of empowerment that grants players miraculous
abilities and places them in wish-fulfilling scenarios where they can use these abilities to
their fullest. As such, dismantling these game conventions by taking players’ powers away
in stressful moments and engaging in defamiliarizing poetic gameplay by “undermining
player expectations for control” (Mitchell, 2016, p. 1), directly questions the prevailing idea
that digital games serve as power fantasies. In fact, one of the first prominent games to
utilize metagame mechanics does so in order to disempower players. In Metal Gear Solid
(Konami, 1998), the mind-reading boss Psycho Mantis’ abilities are showcased with his
ability to read the player’s PlayStation Memory Card and list the players’ other Konami
games if they do have any save files on their card. He then proceed to utilize the rum-
ble on the controller to showcase his psychic abilities. Furthermore, the boss battle with
Psycho Mantis becomes impossible due to the establishment of this psychic link and the
only way to overcome this battle is to plug in a different controller to sever the link. This
early example of metatextuality in digital games not only emerges as a significant step to-
wards the incorporation of game mechanics into the metanarrative, but it perfectly displays
metagames’ potential to unsettle the player by interfering with their control of the game.
However, the example of Psycho Mantis is but a brief meta moment of disempow-
erment in an otherwise action focused game. As such, a genre that allows for raw vul-
nerability, such as the genre of horror, would prove more conducive to the creation of

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
a more comprehensively disempowering metagame experience. According to Krzywinska
(2015), horror is extremely compatible with the defamiliarization aspect of metafiction as
it “play[s] with, and against, game media’s normative expectations of mastery” (p. 293),
actively taking power and agency away from players in order to isolate and terrorize them,
“generat[ing] a strong and direct sense of loss and vulnerability” (p. 296). While meta
disruptions in digital games may be considered “a risky effect to use, because [they] will
either remove control or perception from the player” (Haahr, 2018, p. 201), this disorient-
ing and unexpected effect transforms them into powerful methods of disempowerment or
defamiliarization in horror, as they allow the game to assert its own autonomy and control.
They contest the conventional perception of a piece of software as “a docile and pliable
entity” and the assumption that “we are in control … that machine has no personality or
consciousness of its own” (Conway, 2010, p. 149). Breaking the fourth wall in a horror
context removes the final barrier that shields players against the terrors of the narrative
by creating the illusion that the source of horror can acknowledge and even affect real life.
This potential of metafiction is utilized deftly in the Lovecraftian horror game Eternal
Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. One of the many horror elements the game makes use of is
the Sanity Meter, which tracks the player character’s health and exposure to monsters
and causes hallucinations if the meter is too low. Many of these effects break the fourth
wall to directly distort not only the reality of the character, but also the reality of the player,
such as a message alerting the player that controller one is not connected, volume de-
creasing as the game mutes itself, the screen going black while the sounds of the game
continue, the game pretending to reset and displaying the starting screen, a blue error
screen imitating an operating system, the player character shooting the screen, the game
pretending to abruptly finish by displaying a screen that suggests the story will continue in
a non-existent sequel, and the most notorious effect, the game going to options, selecting
the player’s save file and pretending to delete it. These metamechanics create “a palpable
sense for players of helplessness, their hands no longer able to enact will through the
suddenly lifeless controlling device” (Krzywinska, 2015, p. 294). The fact that these ef-
fects are not solitary examples but repeatable patterns that are directly connected to the
player’s ability to manage their sanity makes them a fundamental and consistent part of
the game mechanics.
Furthermore, these meta mechanics are harmonious with the game’s narrative of
cosmic horror. Rooted in Lovecraft’s (1987) distinction between “literature of cosmic fear”
and “the literature of mere physical fear and the mundanely gruesome” (pp. 367-368),
cosmic horror is a grander spectacle that examines the inconsequential and irrelevant na-
ture of humans in the face of unknowable entities. These tales often feature a protagonist
who, upon seeing horrors beyond comprehension, is driven mad by the realities their mind
cannot contain. This particular strain of horror is rife with the potential of meta referenti-
ality with characters teetering at the edge of forbidden knowledge which may lead to the
realization of the artifice of the fictional world. Within this context, Eternal Darkness’ nar-
rative emphasizes “the loss of a controlling grasp on the nature of reality (nothing is what
it seems) and the concomitant ‘reality’ of occulted forces” (Krzywinska, 2015, p. 295).
As such, meta disruptions of game mechanics become a vital part of both the story and
the disempowering atmosphere of the game. The incomprehensible awareness of abso-
lute reality leads to the metatextual awareness of constructed reality to reveal the terror
beyond the fourth wall, and the consequent state of insanity reveals the border cross-
ing, jarring nature of metatextual realization. While Eternal Darkness emerges as an early
example of this type of reach through the screen via consistent meta mechanics, many
later games followed in its footsteps and utilized the foundation established in this game
to build further transgressions of the game mechanics. Meta disruptions of the game

38 Game Studies
mechanics can be found in many later entries into the horror genre such as IMSCARED,
Doki Doki Literature Club!, Inscryption, and Alan Wake 2. Furthermore, the through line
of peering into the unknown and discovering absolute reality has continued to be a ma-
jor part of later Lovecraftian digital games such as Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the
Earth (Headfirst Productions, 2005), The Sinking City (Frogwares, 2019), and Dagon: by
H. P. Lovecraft (Bit Golem, 2021). All of these elements of disempowerment, which have
become a popular method of horror not simply in metagames but in the larger genre of
survival horror, owe their development to the revelations derived from the internal reflec-
tions of metafictional digital games that were able to acknowledge their conventions and
carve a path for their deconstruction.

A Game That Plays You

In her examination of metanarratives, Waugh (1984) posits the question: “Why
do metafictional [narratives] so frequently concern themselves with the problem of hu-
man freedom?” (p. 119). At the base of the concept of metafiction lies the desire to break
the rules, free oneself from the entrapment of the narrative and see behind the curtain,
stemming from “a concern with the idea of being trapped within someone else’s order”
(Waugh, 1984, p. 120). While all forms of metafiction may concern themselves with such
ponderings, metagames in particular have a vested interest in a possible examination of
this entrapment as a play medium featuring platforms and adventures with specific, pre-
determined designs hidden under the illusion of choice. Although Eternal Darkness cer-
tainly invoked the feeling of such entrapment to horrify players, its metatextuality was
more of an examination of fictional cosmic forces. As more and more self-reflections accu-
mulated, the landscape of gaming was gearing up for a more comprehensive examination
of common gaming conventions, possibly examining multiple genres and determining the
larger expectations of players and developers alike.
The Stanley Parable, created by Davey Wreden and William Pugh, and featuring a
character named Stanley, who finds himself in an empty office only accompanied by a
narrator guiding him with his instructive narration, hinges on Waugh’s (1984) idea of being
entrapped under the watchful eye of an overlord. The game’s branching, massive narra-
tive “draws attention to the digital, procedural materiality of digital games … a complex,
historically self-aware metafiction that dwells critically on the generic, formal, and cul-
tural conventions of digital games” (Fest, 2016, pp. 1-2). This overt examination of player
patterns is distinctly separate from the meta elements of Eternal Darkness which simply
acknowledged the fact that it is a game while The Stanley Parable starts the trend of ac-
knowledging gaming culture, from the expectations of players, to game mechanic models.
The existence of a narrator in an interactive medium is already a problematic framework
as “it would subvert or hinder the player’s decision-making process in the game world,
as well as their individualised emergent experiences” (Ensslin, 2015, p. 60). As such, it
is crucial that The Stanley Parable creates a narrative voice which is engaged in an ever-
present conflict with the player. Thus, the friction between the narrator’s instructions and
the player’s decisions “exposes the problematic combination of coherent narration with a
player’s freedom of choice” (Herte, 2016, p. 30), allowing the game to explore the concept
of predetermined paths, linear narratives, and intended play that make up traditional digi-
tal game narratives and the player’s urge to break these rules.
Under this friction and disobedience lies the illusion of choice. If the player was truly
rebelling against an oppressive, rigid set of rules, these decisions would result in errors

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
or game crashes. However, while the Narrator berates the player for not obeying him, the
game does account for these decisions as it reveals new paths, dialogues, and narrative
beats after each supposed divergence from the suggested path. Critic Dan Olson calls this
contradiction intentional disobedience, stating: “If there is crafted content on the other
side of your misbehavior, then it’s not actually misbehavior” (Folding Ideas, 2017). This
disobedience lays bare the dissonance between predetermined and necessarily limited
options offered by digital games and the increasingly ambitious expectations of account-
ing for players’ every whim, good or bad faith decision, or habit. As these claims of endless
play and content increase, players may become more judgmental and suspicious, eager to
poke holes in such narratives. The Stanley Parable emerges as a probable culmination of
this culture of abundance. While it is initially presented as a game with seemingly endless
paths, as the narrative collapses in on itself, it becomes apparent that such promises are
either impossible or incredibly draining on the developers. This friction allows a complex
relationship to emerge between the narrator and Stanley which becomes the crux of the
narrative. This is a type of relationship that will eventually become a familiar pattern in fur-
ther metagames; the specific ways developers connect to and are influenced by players.
The game demonstrates “an experimental battle between would-be omniscient narrator
and player-character” (Ensslin, 2015, p. 61) as the narrator’s overwhelming directions in-
form Stanley’s erratic behaviour and his erratic behaviour informs the creative decisions
of the narrator in return. The narrator is presented as the creator of the story who is agi-
tated by Stanley’s specific methods of navigating his story, asking, “Was it worth ruining
the entire story I had written out specifically for you?”, and constantly trying to decipher
“these strange and unknowable desires of yours” (Galactic Café, 2013), what the player
may want out of his game. There are also instances where the narrator abandons the role
of the anxious storyteller desperate for approval to assert his authority: “You’re only still
playing instead of watching a cutscene because I want to watch you for every moment
that you’re powerless, to see you made humble. This is not a challenge. It’s a tragedy”
(Galactic Café, 2013). He mocks the player’s completionist efforts in chasing all endings
such as spending a significant amount of time in a broom closet, jumping to their death in
the hopes that something different might happen or staying in rooms with nothing to do
in search of more dialogue. The narrator sees these efforts as futile attempts at creating
a meaningful narrative, ultimately stating: “[Stanley] needs me. Someone who will wrap
everything up at the end, to make sense out of the chaos, and the fear, and the confusion”
(Galactic Café, 2013). However, the game also demonstrates the mutual nature of this
relationship, stating: “How they wish to destroy one another. How they wish to control one
another… Can you see how much they need one another?” (Galactic Café, 2013). The no-
tion that a narrator needs an audience to receive his stories, and a story needs a witness
to experience it in order to be complete becomes especially crucial in digital games which
need players to progress their narratives. Thus, players in The Stanley Parable become
“inevitably part of the game world” (Ensslin, 2015, p. 63) as collaborators and essential,
non-negotiable parts of the story. No matter how much the narrator bemoans the player’s
unpredictability, and the players might bemoan the frustrating presence of the narrator,
they are locked in an inevitable bond.
This complex relationship returns in full force in the DLC continuation of the game,
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. While the original game weaves a narrative that cri-
tiques larger trends and patterns in the world of gaming, it also inevitably becomes a part
of these larger trends and as it gains fame, its metanarrative is reworked into the larger
gaming world. Ultra Deluxe explores this legacy, as the original game’s immense popular-
ity and acclaim place the expansion in a unique position to reflect on itself as an important
and groundbreaking part of gaming history. In this new narrative, the narrator takes the

40 Game Studies
player on a nostalgic journey through the development process of the original game, fol-
lowed by positive reviews by high profile digital game critics, only to be confronted by
negative player reviews on Steam. Disheartened by these critiques, the narrator proceeds
to change the game, trying to add what the players found lacking in the original game in
order to appease them, such as a jumping mechanic, a skip button that skips his own
narration, and even an object called the Reassurance Bucket which becomes an object of
affection through the narrator’s intense personification as a direct reference to the similar
use of the Companion Cube in the game Portal (Valve, 2007). Trapped between praise and
criticism, the narrator slowly transforms the game to fit all possible game genres to the
point that it barely resembles The Stanley Parable, dismantling his own narration in the
process in a critique of modern game development trends that favour maximizing content
and playtime instead of distilling the narrative into perfected mechanics. The expansion
takes on nine years of discourse and critique of the original game and the growing gaming
culture as a whole, self-reflecting from every imaginable angle and ultimately creating,
as the Narrator exclaims while repeating praising reviews, a game that embodies “Every
game ever created!” (Crows Crows Crows, 2022). While the mechanics of The Stanley
Parable do not reflect the vast variety of existing gameplay options, the way it reflects on
the pitfalls of gaming conventions and player expectations creates an all-encompassing,
layered, and evergreen metacritique that successfully simulates the feeling of playing
every game ever created.

The Developer
as the Adversary
While The Stanley Parable’s self-aware character was a well-meaning but rigid guide
through the narrative, developer Daniel Mullins’ self-aware characters in his games Pony
Island and Inscryption are direct adversaries, transforming the gaming space into a ter-
rifying prison from which player characters are desperately trying to escape. While Pony
Island starts off as a simple platformer with a cheery disposition, it soon becomes ap-
parent that the game itself is designed by Satan himself, toying with the player charac-
ter who is a trapped soul with dreams of freedom. The core mechanic of the game is the
way various game settings refuse to work as they are supposed to, forcing the player to
dig around the code and make changes to progress. As Mullins states in an interview:
“A big part of what Pony Island was, was about taking the expectations you have about
games…and flipping them upside down” (Muncy, 2016, para. 17). Such deconstruction
of the game’s interactive language “empower[s] the player to move through ‘cracks’ in
the façade of the fictional world by acting as a metaphorical programmer, manipulating
game files” (Edrei, 2018, p. 112). This unravelling of the game’s inner workings is accom-
panied by the game becoming more and more corrupted and unstable, raising suspi-
cions regarding possible damage to the game’s code or even the player’s hardware. This
mechanic “alienate[s] the player from the cybernetic system that makes up gameplay”
(Barkman, 2021, p. 2), disrupting the players’ conventional perceptions to put the player
in a constant state of uncertainty, but also invoke a sense of mischief and rebellious pro-
gression. The truly unsettling metafictional elements of the game take inspiration from
Eternal Darkness but adapted to a modern setting such as the game sending a fake friend
message on Steam or displaying a fake crash screen, blurring the line between “what
takes place inside and outside the game’s diegesis” (Barkman, 2021, p. 10). The game also

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
establishes itself as a game within a game, with ever-present visual elements such as the
screen presented as a monitor and the player character’s hand shown. However, these
elements are gradually rendered near-invisible by their constant presence as the players
are drawn into a false sense of security.
Pony Island utilizes the player instinct to dismantle game codes as an essential
part of the mechanics. Paired with the presentation of the developer as Satan intent on
trapping souls, the game creates a dynamic that is much more contentious than the re-
lationship between Stanley and the Narrator, casting the developer of the game as the
ultimate adversary and asking: “What’s the role of the creator in his own creation?”
(Muncy, 2016, para. 8). At the same time, the game utilizes the same intentional disobedi-
ence The Stanley Parable uses as Lucifer constantly orders the player to cease their ef-
forts while the game needs to guide the player towards disobedience, creating “the feeling
of playing something that feels like I wasn’t supposed to play it” (Couture, 2016, para. 4).
Ultimately, through the use of metafictional narrative and mechanics, the game perfectly
achieves that sense of forbidden peeking behind the curtain.
With these reflections in mind, it is easy to recognize that Mullins’ next game,
Inscryption, is a culmination of these themes, taken to higher extremes and woven into a
metagame experience that is mechanically and aesthetically much more complex. On the
surface, Inscryption is a roguelike deck-building game where the player competes against
a mysterious rival. In reality, the game exists on multiple layers: 1.) the card game, 2.) the
mysterious cabin the player character is trapped in where they are playing the card game,
3.) the character of Luke Carder, a streamer who finds the game on a buried floppy disk
and starts playing and recording the footage we are watching as players, and lastly, 4.) the
players themselves in the real world. Interweaving all of these layers is the true crux of the
story, self-aware characters in the game toying with the player and trying to escape the
confines of the game, creating games within games and layered realities within the game
universe. Similar to Pony Island, the opening title screen establishes the meta elements
right away, with the new game selection greyed out and the player only being able to ac-
cess “Continue Game” as a sign of the game’s second-hand status. Upon continuing, the
player will find themselves in a cabin where they will be playing the card game with the
option to occasionally get up and explore. Despite this limited interactivity that might give
the initial impression of freedom, the player character is indeed trapped here at the mer-
cy and amusement of their opponent in the shadows which “turns the ‘magic circle’ into
a ‘magic prison’, whereby the notion of voluntary, rule-bound, separated play becomes
threatening” (Ford & Thorkildsen, 2023, p. 2). Players will need to free themselves from
the cabin to physically find the New Game option, restore it to the main menu, and pro-
gress in the hopes of eventual freedom.
The exploration of the cabin and the revealing of further, distinct games establish
the games-within-a-game dynamic while the existence of Inscryption as a game in this
universe is established through live-action sequences that tell the story of Luke Carder
acquiring the game. It is eventually revealed, through certain interruptions in the game-
play such as camera effects or Luke’s voice reacting to certain thresholds and victories,
that the player’s playthrough is in fact Luke’s recording of his own playthrough which posi-
tions the player as Luke. His entanglement with this powerful piece of software leads to
initial intrigue, further obsession, and eventual death in his efforts to uncover the truth.
The game also utilizes meta-malfunctions that directly interact with the player’s reality
as one boss utilizes the player’s Steam friend list to name cards, while another accesses
the player’s actual hard drive, listing their real files, asking the player to choose personal
files, even threatening to delete them if the player fails in a boss battle. Here, instead of a
meta effect that happens on the screen without the player’s control, Inscryption forces the

42 Game Studies
player to become an accomplice in their own terrorization. The uncertainty over whether
the size of the file would be a benefit or a detriment to the player or if the game would actually
be able to delete the file further enhances the effect. These meta game mechanics which
“directly comment on the idea of how a game interacts with the lives of those who play it”
(Howard, 2024, pp. 37-38) paired with the eventual murder of the player stand-in char-
acter of Luke serve as the ultimate culmination of the ever-present threat of a self-aware
digital game reaching through the screen and affecting real life.
Narratively, the use of a competitive card game between two players in an intimate
and isolated space invokes the trope of “playing chess with Death” (Caldwell, 2021, para.
14). Much like Lucifer in Pony Island, Inscryption also presents the player with characters
who both construct the game and play it against the player. However, while these charac-
ters put the player through a harrowing gauntlet, the game also creates a complex dynam-
ic between the player and the adversary they spend hours trying to beat. The opponent
in Act 1, Leshy, starts as a terrifying captor and slowly turns into a more nuanced en-
tity. The very last card game with Leshy has a nostalgic and bittersweet atmosphere with
the game acknowledging the strange kinship that develops between him and the player
during their hours of play as Leshy laments and begs: “Shall we play one more game? …
For so long I thought I would never play again” (Daniel Mullins Games, 2021). Compared
to the strictly adversarial dynamic between the player and the developer in Pony Island,
Inscryption takes a more nuanced approach, finding a balance between the necessary
antagonism of a fight and the bonding experience of a common goal; the player and the
developer trapped in the universe of the game together, but this time allowed to occupy
the same space, sit at the same table, and see eye to eye.

The Developer as the False

Ideal
While the metanarrative may cast the creator of the narrative as the ultimate
gatekeeper that withholds the truth underneath, it may also take the opposite stance
and present the creator as a seeming friend and confidant with whom the player as-
sumes a connection. Developed by Davey Wreden, the creator of The Stanley Parable,
The Beginner’s Guide utilizes a games-within-a-game approach to examine this false and
potentially dangerous narrative through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. The story fea-
tures creator Davey Wreden as himself, guiding the player with his narration through a
series of mini-games made by a developer named Coda. These experimental games vary
in genre, mechanics, and aesthetics with the emerging narrative showcasing Coda’s evo-
lution as a developer. The player navigates these games under Wreden’s guidance and
analysis as he constantly posits the question: “What was going through [Coda’s] head as
he was building this?” (Everything Unlimited, 2015). The game’s unconventional presenta-
tion and narrative have led to speculations regarding its nature, sparking various defini-
tions such as “a game-flavored monologue” (Moulthrop, 2020, p. 91) and a “ludographic
essay” (Fassone, 2018, p. 67). These interpretations emphasize the game’s nature as a
reflective, nonfictional narrative, established by Wreden’s open identification of the nar-
rator as himself. Naturally, this identification is a half-truth as developer Wreden creates
“a fictionalized author narrator, or autofictional narrator” (Backe & Thon, 2019, p. 14) by
interweaving his personal feelings with an embodiment of fandom culture. This hybrid fic-
tional nonfiction narrative “represents its own production and the idea of game designer

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
as ‘auteur’” (Jørgensen, 2017, p. 1), highlighting both the internal workings of the medium
in general and the internal workings of its creator and narrator in specific.
The only information about Coda and how their games came to be is provided by
Wreden himself. As Fejes (2021) argues: “while the implied player is interacting in some
way with Coda’s ‘persona’ and the works he made, this interaction is only illusory as the
implied player can only gather narrative information through the narrative acts of Davey”
(p. 255). Wreden’s sole, unchallenged voice as a constant presence, his authoritative in-
terpretations, and his assurance that he is personally acquainted with Coda all serve to
manipulate the player’s own impressions by encouraging them to absorb his assertions
as absolute truths. In his overbearing analyses, “fuelled by an urge to define a coherent,
stable identity of both Coda’s work and person” (Backe & Thon, 2019, p. 16), Wreden
takes certain themes too literally or tries to ascertain Coda’s life from the art they pro-
duce. He does so by constantly asserting assumptions about Coda’s artistic vision (“Coda
believes his games are connected somehow”), the presumed intentionality of bugs in the
games (“Coda identifies something about [the glitch]”), their thematic intentions (“weird
for weirdness sakes”) and most importantly, their inner psyche (“I think it’s awful to watch
this, to see a person basically unraveling through their work”) (Everything Unlimited,
2015). As the game’s narrative becomes increasingly overwhelmed by his interpretations,
it soon becomes apparent that Wreden is an unreliable narrator.
Wreden’s initial self-presentation as an aspiring developer and friend at the begin-
ning of the game grows ever more inconsistent, slowly revealing that he is not as close
to Coda as he initially claimed to be. He misinterprets not only Coda’s perspective as a
developer, but the true nature of their relationship and Coda’s mental state as his ever-
present commentary starts to evoke “an unpleasant feeling of emotional colonialism … as
though something owed has not quite been delivered” (Hudson, 2015, para. 7). In addition
to these interpretive transgressions, Wreden also begins to force his own interpretations
into the games’ codes, not content with simply speculating. He modifies a game about
slowly crawling up stairs so that the player can go up at a normal speed. He removes walls
from a puzzle game to show the assets on the other side. The most egregious example of
this is the lamp post seen at the end of every game, which Wreden initially claimed was
Coda’s signature, only for the story to reveal that it was Wreden himself who inserted this
asset into the games. In hindsight, his explanation of the lamp post that he himself put
into the game is very telling: “[Coda] wants something to hold onto. He wants a refer-
ence point, he wants the work to be leading to something. He wants a destination! Which
is what this lamppost is” (Everything Unlimited, 2015). As the false nature of Wreden’s
insistent interpretation is revealed, the game’s “initial assumption– that a work allows
the recipient to know the individual who created it – is exposed as a romantic hermeneu-
tic power fantasy tantamount to imprinting a work with one’s own projected meanings”
(Backe & Thon, 2019, pp. 18-19). Wreden’s interjections, clearly rooted in projection, cre-
ate conflicting feelings in players who have been relying on his commentary and identify-
ing with his perspective, leading to doubts regarding “not just what [the game] means,
but whether [they]’ve been looking for meaning in games in the wrong way altogether”
(Hudson, 2015, para. 3). Even the personal information Wreden shared about Coda be-
comes dubious. Coda may be a confidant or a stranger, a man as he claims or a different
gender altogether. While Coda and their artistic vision are seemingly the focus of this nar-
rative, the player has no means of truly getting to know Coda as Wreden is the true focus
and protagonist of the game.
All of this culminates in Coda’s final game, filled with impossible obstacles that can
only be overcome by changing the game’s code as Wreden has been doing. This final game
ends with a striking level, a simple room with walls covered in personal messages from

44 Game Studies
Coda: “Would you stop taking my games and showing them to people against my wishes?
Violating the one boundary that keeps me safe? Would you stop changing my games?”
(Everything Unlimited, 2015). This finale lays bare the true parasocial nature of Wreden’s
relationship with Coda. Defined as “the illusion of face-to-face relationship with the per-
former” (Horton & Wohl, 1956, p. 215), parasocial relationships are an ever-present part of
all mediums that tell intimate stories and invite spectators to engage with them, creating
the misconception that the creator has a close relationship with the audience. While this
connection is genuine to some degree and crucial for art, the phenomenon of parasocial
relationships specifically refers to overbearing and false perceptions which may reach
critically dangerous levels depending on the fame of the creator. The Beginner’s Guide
explores this concept within the context of gaming culture, with fans distorting the original
intent of their favourite digital games and projecting their own personal problems onto
creators who do not know them. Through Wreden’s interactions with Coda’s work, we can
see him engaging in what Camus (1992) calls “the inauthentic fictionalizing of others”
(p. 226) as he is trying to use Coda’s art as a way of accessing the person themselves,
stating: “I want us to see past the games themselves, I want to know who this human be-
ing really is” (Everything Unlimited, 2015). This approach is rooted in Wreden’s personal
interactions with fans of The Stanley Parable: “I had emails from people who told me I had
forever changed the way they saw the world [and] from people who wanted me to know I
was a spineless coward who should hate himself” (Wreden, 2022, para. 3). The Beginner’s
Guide weaves these anxieties into the narrative, projecting them onto Coda with Wreden
positioned as the enthusiastic fan who transforms his excitement into a codependent,
one-sided relationship. As the character of Coda is fictional and their games are indeed
created by Wreden, it is easy to recognize that the dynamic between the implicitly meta-
phorical entity of Coda and Wreden embodies a “psychomachia, the struggle between
halves of a divided self” (Moulthrop, 2020, p. 93). Wreden fictionalizes the artistic part
of himself as Coda while the character who shares his name becomes a conduit through
which he attempts to process the anxieties and ambitions of his fans.
In addition to this intimate character study, Coda’s final words also touch on larger
gaming trends such as “the relationship of videogame players and videogame authors”
(Backe & Thon, 2019, p. 18) through the examination of an intimate and contentious con-
nection between a developer and a fanatical player. Fans’ constant demands shape the
content of games as the open channel of communication facilitated by social media am-
plifies their voices. Horton and Wohl (1956) argue that “the more the performer seems
to adjust his performance to the supposed response of the audiences, the more the au-
dience tends to make the response anticipated” (p. 215). As such, just as the Narrator
reconstructed his games to please Stanley and critics, so did Coda alter their own games,
stating: “You’ve so infected my personal space that it’s possible I did begin to plant ‘solu-
tions’ in my work somewhere, hidden between games” (Everything Unlimited, 2015). This
amplification of parasocial interactions extends beyond demands for content changes to
include expectations of personal validation and emotional intimacy. As Coda states, “You
desperately need something and I cannot give it to you” (Everything Unlimited, 2015),
it becomes apparent that Wreden has used this camaraderie between him and Coda
not only as a professional connection, but a personal one, seeing Coda as a reflection
of and a solution to his personal struggles. As Coda leaves Wreden with a final message
that exudes both best wishes and a finality, Wreden’s fictionalized self-narrative crum-
bles, resulting in a passionate plea that is both poignantly introspective and toxically
presumptuous:
I’m the reason that you stopped making games, aren’t I? … when I took your work
and I was showing it to people…It felt as though I were responsible for something

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 important and valuable. … Please start making games again … Give me some of
whatever it is that makes you complete. (Everything Unlimited, 2015)
As Wreden takes his own anxieties to their worst conclusion possible, putting him-
self in the shoes of his parasocial fans, he also lays bare the contradictory nature of story-
telling, the freedom and burden it brings, and the power it has to draw others in for better
or worse.

Conclusion
As the medium of digital games has accumulated a substantial body of work, meta-
fictional games have emerged as a way of reflecting on decades of repeated patterns,
tropes, and conventions, creating a reflective voice that has become an inseparable and
permanent part of the gaming landscape. These metagames utilize both narrative reflec-
tions and meta disruptions of game mechanics to critique gaming conventions, player ex-
pectations, and the specific hardships of developing games. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s
Requiem’s defamiliarization effect directly challenges the notion that empowerment is the
ultimate aim of digital games. By utilizing meta disruptions of game mechanics, it disem-
powers players and invokes a deep sense of vulnerability and fear which is befitting of the
Lovecraftian cosmic horror of the unknown that the game’s narrative invokes.
After such early meta referential attempts, The Stanley Parable emerges as a more
comprehensive exploration of digital game conventions as the game is presented as an
experience with countless paths and endings under the guidance of an ever-present nar-
rator. The presence of narration in interactive medium lays bare the illusion of freedom
and the predetermined nature of even the most abstract and avant-garde gameplay deci-
sions. Within this context, the narrator and Stanley are positioned as figures in conflict
and harmony, collaborating on the creation of the story together. This complex relation-
ship between developer and player continues in Pony Island and Inscryption which estab-
lish the two figures as direct enemies. The self-aware developers of both games become
adversaries who manipulate players to escape the game world, their influence reaching
beyond the universe of the game and into real life. Pony Island’s fictional developer is a
direct villain with the visage of Satan while Inscryption’s Leshy occupies a more nuanced
position, with the common goal of an intimate card game being utilized to bring the two
figures to equal footing.
Lastly, The Beginner’s Guide engages in a further deconstruction of this dynamic
with its unreliable narrator putting the developer figure of Coda on a pedestal as the ide-
alized confidant and weaving a manipulative narrative for the players. The fictional non-
fiction character of Wreden utilizes this constructed self to comment on the parasocial
relationship between players and developers, putting himself in the shoes of his fans
whose reaction to his previous game The Stanley Parable was overwhelming and at times,
intimidating. Through a divided self, Wreden and Coda, the developer is able to present
a complex and nuanced metacritique that both acknowledges the dangerous nature of
such a dynamic and the intimate realities of storytelling. Ultimately, while this selection of
corpus provides commentary on specific aspects of digital games such as game design,
narrative, player interaction, and the relationship between players and developers, the
constant search for subversions signifies that the storytelling medium of digital games
and its growing canon require and generate an ever-present voice of self-reflection.

46 Game Studies
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game-of-the-year-cb4214f98c13

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 Acta Ludologica 2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue

Paws and Politics:

A Postcolonial Reading
of The Cat and the Coup
Mohammadreza Golshani

Mohammadreza Golshani, M.A.

University of Debrecen
Faculty of Humanities
Egyetem tér 1
4032 Debrecen
HUNGARY
[email protected]

Mohammadreza Golshani is a PhD student at the Department of British Studies at

the University of Debrecen. He received his B.A. and M.A. in English Language and
Literature in his home country, Iran, with a thesis on the branching narrative of digital
games. His research interests include digital games, interactive narrative, cinema,
and cultural studies. His previous works include studies on environmental narratives,
subversive narratives, and regional and post-colonial digital game studies. He is
currently in his second year of PhD work, focusing on games about Iran and Iranian
games with subversive narratives against their counterparts..

50 Game Studies
ABSTRACT:
The paper presents a close reading analysis of the digital game The Cat and the Coup, a
documentary digital game that explores the historical narrative surrounding the 1953 coup
in Iran. The game uses a unique perspective by placing the players in control of Mohammad
Mosaddegh’s cat to explore a pivotal moment in Iranian history: the nationalization of
the oil industry and subsequent foreign intervention. This independent game utilizes a
distinctive visual style inspired by Persian miniature drawings and creates a transcultural
experience, integrating traditional and contemporary symbolism of both East and West
embedded in the medium-specific features of digital games. The research combines the
insights of regional game studies and post-colonial studies to conduct an in-depth close
reading analysis of the game’s narrative structure, visuals, and artistic choices. It argues
that the game serves as a counter-narrative to dominant Western portrayals of Iran by
focusing on the cultural and historical significance of the events depicted. Furthermore,
the paper suggests analysing game design as a form of digital vernacular and scrutinizes
the potential of independent games to challenge hegemonic narratives.

KEY WORDS:
counter-history, coup, documentary digital game, Iran, miniature, Mohammad Mosaddegh,
Persia, postcolonial studies, regional game studies, tapestry, The Cat and the Coup.

DOI:
10.34135/actaludologica.2024-7-SI.50-66

Introduction
The 2011 Iranian documentary digital game The Cat and the Coup (Brinson
& ValaNejad, 2011) is a unique exploration of microhistory, which challenges the notion
of historical objectivity, especially when history has been written by Western powers dur-
ing their path of colonialism. Even the concept of documentary “has been fiercely con-
tested and … continuously expanded to refer to an ever more extensive corpus of works”
(Thon, p. 269, 2019). The game puts players in control of the cat of Mohammad Mosaddegh,
the famous Iranian prime minister who nationalized the country’s oil industry – consid-
ered to be one of the most important steps toward the country’s economic and political
independence. Through the eyes of the cat, the game lets players witness Mosaddegh’s
tormented life after his success in the 1950s, culminating in the 1953 coup d’état that
overthrew him. Although led by the Iranian military, the coup was later, in 2013, acknowl-
edged to have been instigated by American and British intelligence agencies under the
code names “Operation Ajax” and “Operation Boot”, respectively, significantly affecting
Iran’s international standing and the advancement of democratic values in the country.
The game’s 2011 release predates the official reveal by the U.S. and is based on local
Iranian sources and the general local consensus about the different factions, such as the
monarchy and the clergy, being involved in the coup.
The Iranian game development scene is not any less complicated than the histo-
riographical one, as it does not have a rich variety of vernacular games, but the grand

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
majority of locally developed games are funded by the country’s government, seeking
to promote Islamic values, and representing the state’s official take on history. That is
why it is relevant that The Cat and the Coup was made outside Iranian borders by Kurosh
ValaNejad, an expatriate Iranian game developer, and Peter Brinson, a British develop-
er, hence introducing a narrative perspective that transcends traditional historical ones
about Iran. Furthermore, it also goes against the Orientalist media stereotypes that are
dominant in games such as Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Ubisoft Toronto, 2013)
and The Prince of Persia (Broderbund et al., 1989-2024) franchise and moves toward a
subversive narrative that will be examined in detail in this research. By utilizing postco-
lonial, multicultural gaming, and regional game studies frameworks, the present paper
seeks to offer a close reading analysis of the digital game The Cat and the Coup, arguing
that it offers a personal, patriotic and independent approach to this sensitive historical
period through its game mechanics, two-dimensional Persian miniature backdrop, and
symbolism to ultimately explore how the game formulates meaning without any dialogue
lines or specific language in a decidedly intercultural context. In the following paragraphs,
we contend that the game uses an intercultural combination of symbolism and gameplay
elements to subvert both the Iranian and the US-informed version of history, to create a
more personal, unique and imaginative take on Iranian history.
Although Iran has never been officially colonized by Western powers, traces of co-
loniality can be witnessed through time, and have led to different aspects of postcolonial
thinking. As Mukherjee (2016) puts it, these approaches “tie into each other in framing
the perception, both external and self-reflexive, of the post-colonial subject” (p. 3) In the
context of postcolonial studies, the concept of the subaltern is significant in this study.
Coined by Gramsci (1992) to describe colonial populations who are socially, politically,
and geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony, and from
the metropolitan homeland of an empire, the concept was further elaborated on by Spivak
(1988). She argues that a core problem for the poorest and most marginalized in society
(the subalterns) is that they have no platform to express their concerns, and no voice to
affect policy debates or demand a fairer share of society’s goods. Mukherjee (2016) uses
Guha’s (2003) definition of the term subaltern as “history from below” (p. 2) and he con-
tinues with how the subaltern tries to find its voice to articulate its narrative. In order for
this to happen, one possibility is to use the empire’s own narrative devices against itself
(Mukherjee, 2016).
Due to the rapid growth and availability of computers, the game development scene
has become more of a democratic area for independent developers to create whatever
they imagine, and digital games as digital artifacts have become an expression tool for
the subaltern. As Swalwell (2021) writes, this trend started in the 1980s when “everyday
users first had the opportunity to create cultural products digitally” (p. 20). She also adds
that “the adoption and use of these first-generation home computers marks the begin-
ning of a vernacular digitality” (p. 20). The emergence of the digital vernacular gave rise to
independent games and small developers to give life to whatever they could imagine in the
form of games, and to publish them via different means. As Šisler (2013) writes, in accord-
ance with this trend, many independent producers present their own, often quite different
concept of identity. Unlike government games that adhere to the official communication
policy of the Islamic state, the concepts of identity constructed by independent designers
reflect their personal experiences, values, and beliefs. Subsequently, the subaltern finds
their chance to create a more subjective form of expression and in some cases to make
efforts to preserve their values while promoting their culture.
The Cat and the Coup can be considered as such an attempt. The game was initial-
ly made for American students with the aim of introducing them to an event in Iranian

52 Game Studies
history while representing Persian culture and art (Pormehr Yabandeh & Ghazizadeh,
2024). Having this target audience in mind, the game uses creative design choices such
as putting the players in the control of a cat which itself resembles the shape of modern
Iran, and through gameplay mechanics prompts the player to intercept the success of
Mosaddegh in his mission of nationalizing Iranian oil. This idea will be elaborated on later
thoroughly in the close analysis section of this paper.
In line with the game’s objectives, its visual style includes elements that mediate
between traditional Persian symbolism and images with a broader, international signifi-
cance. This can be seen through the backdrop, characters, anthropomorphism, and other
various design choices of the game. In this sense, it can be claimed that The Cat and the
Coup provides a transcultural gaming experience – the interaction and blending of differ-
ent cultural elements within the context of digital games. This concept emphasizes how
games can serve as a medium for cultural exchange and understanding across diverse
backgrounds. Pandey et al. (2007) state that “we observe the role gaming plays in devel-
oping literacies and in accessing the codes of cross-cultural citizenship in the mediated
world” (p. 38). The quote describes how transcultural gaming “can be an important venue
to acquire and immerse in cultural literacy” (p. 47), and it serves as a platform for players
to engage with and learn from diverse cultural experiences, improving their overall literacy
and understanding of different cultural contexts.
Regional game studies are another key approach that formulates a basis for our
inquiries. For Liboriussen and Martin (2016) this includes inquiries “that have been de-
veloped in non-western epistemologies and social formations” (para. 20). Through this
approach, scholars “investigate games and gaming cultures at a range of scales and iden-
tify connections across and between these scales; [the method] highlights and addresses
unequal global relations within gaming culture and within the academic study of games”
(Abstract). This paper tries to situate The Cat and the Coup in a web of references pertain-
ing to the Iranian art style, symbolism, and cultural artifacts.

Methodology
In order to analyse the game in a transcultural context, a rigorous close reading meth-
odology will be applied, as it allows for a more intersectional approach that can attend to
the nuances of representation across identity markers, creating opportunities to exam-
ine internal contradictions, ironies, and polysemy generated through interpretive gaps
(Reay, 2021, p. 47). It also involves analysing the gameplay experience, focusing on
the interplay between player and game, which can reveal deeper meanings and cultur-
al critiques (Bizzocchi & Tanenbaum, 2011). We find this approach most suitable since
throughout the research we have tried to cast an analytical eye on the game elements,
visual or game mechanics, and how they may be interpreted as the player is experiencing
them.
Using the discussions about what role gaming has in people’s struggle to learn the
grammar of living, learning, and working in cross-cultural spaces by Pandey et al. (2007),
we have tried to reach a more robust understanding of gaming’s interrelationship with
learning in a broader sense. The study provides an in-depth analysis of intercultural sym-
bolism and tries to interpret the purpose they serve.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
The Cat and the Coup:
Visual Storytelling
in a Transnational Setting
As shown in Picture 1, after the launch of the game, the first thing that catches the
player’s attention is the background, consisting of detailed paintings with vivid colours.
The art style draws on Persian miniature painting, a traditional style that originated in
Iran during the 13th century. This form of art is highly detailed and intricate, characterized
by the use of bright colours, fine brushwork, and delicate patterns to create small-scale
paintings on paper, parchment, or silk (Binyon et al., 1971). These paintings typically de-
pict scenes from Persian literature, history, and mythology, as well as everyday life and
nature. The Persian miniature style, with its unique level of skill and craftsmanship, stands
as a highly refined and sophisticated art form that has been passed down through gen-
erations of Iranian artists and is recognized as one of the most important cultural Iranian
traditions (Binyon et al., 1971).

Picture 1: The backdrop and the implication of Persian miniature painting in the game The Cat and the Coup
Source: the author’s screenshot from the game The Cat and the Coup (Brinson & ValaNejad, 2011)

To Iranians, Persian miniature painting serves as a source of national pride and a

symbol of their rich cultural heritage. It is deeply ingrained in Iranian culture and has played
an important role in shaping the country’s artistic and intellectual traditions. Abdollah and
Bolkhari Ghehi (2014) explain how alongside the form, colours also play a significant role
in achieving the style’s prominent status. They argue that colours should be interpreted
according to the cultural and spiritual climate of the era, between the 14th to 17th centuries,
which involves a mystical symbolism mapping the cosmic journey of the soul.
The Cat and the Coup, defining itself as a documentary game and targeting a West-
ern audience, puts the players in control of the cat which is coaxing Mosaddegh to his

54 Game Studies
downfall. This can be interpreted as a representation of not only objective history but also
some form of commentary on how Western authorities played a role in undermining Iran’s
opportunity for independence. The game begins on the day of Mosaddegh’s death, when
the cat awakens his soul and leads him back in time to the moment when the events lead-
ing to his downfall and death began. The narrative’s progression along the backdrop, from
the top right corner to the bottom left, evokes yet another artistic style, that of tapestry
storytelling. Tapestries, these large, woven textiles often depict detailed scenes and serve
as a form of visual storytelling. Across different times and different regions, these tex-
tiles functioned as a means of communication, conveying stories through visual imagery
and sometimes featuring small woven inscriptions to explain or comment on the depicted
scenes (Mallory, 2014). Tapestries conveyed messages in three main formats: armorials
(depicting coats of arms), verdures and landscapes (scenes primarily comprising plants
or landscapes), and narrative scenes (featuring human and/or animal figures to tell a sto-
ry). Each of these formats served as a possible way to comment on the surrounding world
(Mallory, 2014).
The game employs animal figures in its first half to tell its story. The use of anthropo-
morphic animals sets the atmosphere, reflecting both the characters they represent and
the world around them, aligning well with the traditions of tapestry storytelling. The blend
of these two different visual art forms, namely, Persian miniature and tapestry, where
neither relies on verbal language but instead conveys meaning through visual elements,
make the narrative appealing to international audiences. This approach also creates what
might be considered as a postmodern pastiche. As Hoesterey (1995) states, “confronted
with the vast archive of the artistic tradition, the postmodern writer, visual artist, archi-
tect, composer consciously acknowledges this past by demonstratively borrowing from
it, particularly from the classical archive” (p. 496). Thus, by juxtaposing Persian minia-
ture tradition and ancient tapestry storytelling, the game synthesizes artistic elements,
paying homage to historical roots while simultaneously reinterpreting them in a contem-
porary digital medium. This intentional blend of these different artistic traditions serves
as a postmodern commentary on the fluidity of cultural narratives and the evolution of
storytelling across different ages. This way, the game becomes a visual and narrative pas-
tiche, blending Persian miniature heritage and tapestry storytelling into its own distinctive
visual backdrop. The game includes six different stages that we will analyse by the order
of presentation in the game.

The First Stage – Liminal

Time and Space
Previously we discussed how the cat serves as a symbol representing, on the one
hand, Iran due to the country’s shape, and on the other hand, Iranians working against
Mosaddegh, knowingly or unconsciously assisting Western powers in his downfall. The
game targets Western players and uses the ludic features of the medium to put the play-
er in control of the cat. Just as the Western powers used Iranians to execute the coup,
throughout the game, the (Western) player uses the avatar – the cat – to assist the West
in accomplishing their goals. The visuals of the game, utilizing elements from the afore-
mentioned forms of art and storytelling, Persian miniature and tapestry, are considered
to follow the ludic tradition of two-dimensional platformer games. The first scene shows
Mosaddegh on his deathbed with the cat curled at the foot of the bed. The bedroom is

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
depicted in a square shape. A square symbolizes “honesty; straightforwardness; integ-
rity; morality. It is the fixation of death as opposed to the dynamic circle of life and move-
ment” (Cooper, 1987, p. 157.) There are two angels at the top of the square in the clouds.
The opening scene is dominated by the ticking of a large mechanical grandfather’s
clock that shows 11:59. As Landes (1983) explains, the mechanical clock is “one of the
great inventions in the history of mankind – not in a class with fire and the wheel, but com-
parable to moveable type in its revolutionary implications for cultural values, technologi-
cal change, social and political organization, and personality” (p. 6). Midnight in literature
has diverse symbolism. For instance, in fairy tales, midnight marks the transition from
reality to fantasy and vice versa, if we take Cinderella’s tale for example. Rushdie’s (1981)
depicts it as a liminal temporality, where personal and national narratives intertwine (see
Sari & Adiguzel, 2023). Similarly, in The Cat and the Coup, midnight once again marks
a liminal area, which is aligned with what has happened to Mosaddegh and how we are
about to witness the steps that led to this frame. Using the square shape with angels at
the top, the anticlockwise movement of the clock’s hands, underscores the inevitability of
Mosaddegh’s fate, emphasizing what the player is about to witness – and the actions they
take – cannot change the course of history. As the cat touches the clock, it rings at mid-
night and then starts moving anticlockwise, signalling that we are going back in time.

The Second Stage – Patriotism

and Isolation
After the midnight hit, Mosaddegh’s soul rises from his body and starts following
the cat to the second stage of the game. The second stage is a rectangular room with
blue walls balancing on the tip of a fountain pen. Across the entire wall, a famous poem
attributed to Ferdowsi is repeatedly seen. The verse translates to: “If Iran is no longer, my
body is (I am) no longer either”. The quote is not directly in the Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh
[The book of kings] (see e.g. Ferdowsi, 2016) and how it became a well-known and cultural
remark from Persian literature is not traceable. But it signals the patriotic and nationalistic
beliefs that Mosaddegh had. He starts writing a text in the middle of the room. The cat
can change the room’s angular balance to left and right. There is a window to the left side
of the room and when the cat moves to the left, the shadow of an oil stand worker can be
seen:
The windows, as a material feature of the home, helps us grasp the lived reality of
class inequality and how such inequality shapes people’s day-to-day experience … [it
also] symbolically charged objects, existing at the border of the domestic and public
world. (Hirsch & Smith, 2018, p. 224)
This can symbolize Mosaddegh’s isolation from the public world and the class in-
equality in society. The cat’s mission is to spill the ink and stop Mosaddegh from writing
his thoughts, allegedly to silence him (Brinson & ValaNejad, 2012). The game uses its ludic
feature both in the form of the playfulness of a cat and as a puzzle. The player and their
cat avatar should spill the ink and then run to the side of the room to open the door and
let the inkpot roll out. Mosaddegh will follow the inkpot and fall off through the door to the
next stage.

56 Game Studies
The Third Stage – The Symbolic
Fall
From now until the point that the cat and Mosaddegh reach the bottom of the tap-
estry, all the transitions between stages are followed by Mosaddegh falling, which holds a
gameplay mechanic purpose along with the idea of Mosaddegh’s more general fall. Since
the game takes a turn and becomes chronological when the narrative reaches the bottom
of the tapestry, on the way down we see a foreshadowing of the events that are revealed
later in the game. All through the backdrop angels are visible, symbolizing the morality of
Mosaddegh’s actions. When the cat reaches the third stage, it is hidden behind a red thea-
tre curtain, an indication that what is about to be revealed is just a show, a performance.
Through an interaction, the curtains are pushed to the side and the stage is re-
vealed. The note below the stage reads “The Shah of Iran asks mercy for Mossadegh’s life”
(Brinson & ValaNejad, 2011). The stage shows a courtroom with Mosaddegh and a judge
with a ball as his head. There is also a window to the left side of the room through which
a humanoid peacock with a royal outfit symbolizing the Shah can be seen. The peacock,
originally an Indian symbol that symbolizes royalty in Western culture (see Hawkins, n.d.),
represents the entrance of the heavens, sun, and rulers in Iranian culture (Foroghi, 2015),
hence a telling representation of the Shah. The way the peacock is looking at the trial
through a window, not taking part in the court itself, indicates his manipulation of justice.
This idea is further suggested by the puzzle on this level. The cat has to play with the
judge’s head which, as previously stated, looks like a ball. The ball becomes a wrecking
ball and rolls on the ground until Mosaddegh, who is trying to find his defence notes from
the scattered pile of paper on the ground, trips over it. The moment that the judge’s head
is dropped, a balloon made of peacock feathers is inflated. This implicates the influence
of the Shah over the court’s decision and the player’s action signifies, as described by the
developers Brinson and ValaNejad (2011), ‘undermining justice’. After a few attempts to
trip Mosaddegh over the judge’s wrecking ball head, he finally falls towards the next stage.
On the path of falling, for the first time, we see foreign agents in their anthropomorphic
animal forms: A bulldog with a hat that has the Union Jack on it clearly suggests UK inter-
vention by Winston Churchill, a toad with a tie with the USA’s flag’s colours on it, and on
the other side of the screen a horse, in the animal’s real form, with an American flag as the
saddle. The American flag’s presence in itself may reinforce narratives of dominance over
indigenous populations and territories. Through the transitional portal to the next stage,
the cat reaches a street where a riot is in progress, and there are two tents at the top of
the image. The following analysis refers to Picture 2. The tent on the left shows a torture
scene which is a reminder of the Mongol conquest of Iran, since the characters are por-
trayed with traditional 13th century Mongolian appearances. The Mongol conquest of Iran,
occurring in three stages under different khans, significantly reshaped political dynamics,
leading to the decline of the Khwarazmian dynasty and establishing Mongol control, which
facilitated trade and cultural exchange across the vast empire (Manz, 2022). The second
tent shows the peacock (Shah) and the toad (Roosevelt Jr.) sitting together, plotting a
plan. And a third tent is being set up. Kermit Roosevelt led the CIA’s involvement in the
coup, claiming credit for mobilizing crowds and military forces to facilitate the overthrow
of Mosaddegh (Bayandor, 2012). Using a toad for the representation of Roosevelt Jr. offers
room for different interpretations. The first thing that might come to mind when think-
ing of an American character named Kermit as a toad is the resemblance to the famous
American Muppet, Kermit the Frog. In the series, Kermit is represented as wise and others

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
often turn to him for advice. In literary tradition, toads have been used to symbolize moral
decline or evil, as seen in Milton’s (1667) Paradise lost, where Satan’s transformation into
a toad reflects his degradation (Danielson, 1979). The symbolic representation of Kermit
Roosevelt Jr., an American CIA agent, as a toad is indicative of him being a stereotypical
American just like Kermit the Frog, and symbolizes the foreshadowing of his malicious
plan for Iran and the Iranian reservoir of oil.

Picture 2: The transitional phase between the third and the fourth stage of the game The Cat and the Coup
Source: the author’s screenshot from the game The Cat and the Coup (Brinson & ValaNejad, 2011)

Above the tent, a dark creature is leaning on the Shah’s side. This creature is called
Div, a malicious, monstrous being, a demon deeply rooted in Persian mythology. It trans-
lates to monster and as Leoni (2012) puts it,
divs were not casual pictorial hodge-podges, but reflected well-rooted cultural ideas
and preconceptions about what was deemed evil in the pre-modern Persian world.
This aspect greatly enhanced their anti-heroic role in the context of an epic such as
the Shahnama, permeated by the idea of the clash of Good and Evil. (Leoni, 2012,
p. 102)
The concept of Div can also be interpreted as whatever that decreases morals in
humans, for example, Div-e-tanbali, which translates to “The Monster of Laziness”, hin-
ders people’s efforts from being productive or successful. Therefore, it is not necessarily
understood as a literal monster, it can also be used to describe mental processes that
sabotage self-growth and personal improvement, a culturally coded embodiment of pro-
crastination and other maleficent ideas. Having a Div holding on to the tent on the Shah’s
side indicates that he is being possessed by the evil idea of selling out his country’s most
precious source of income to the Western powers to keep his throne. The way these three
tents are located in a line can be interpreted as various invasions of Iran in a timeline, and
all of them serve as a representation of different means by which external forces influ-
enced the country. The first tent, with imagery of the Mongol invasion of Iran, represents
war that brought brutal violence to the country and placed it under an occupation that was
maintained by means of cruelty by a foreign power, with Roosevelt and the Shah being in
the second, this tent symbolizes external influences achieved through soft war, and the
country’s leaders and figureheads acting with greed and according to foreign interests.

58 Game Studies
Meanwhile, the third tent is being set up as a pessimistic prophecy for future invasions of
Iran, which could be interpreted as the 1979 revolution, since its leader Ruhollah Khomeini’s
picture is shown later in the game, and many interpreters acknowledge the coup as the
first flames leading to the Islamic revolution.
In front of the tents, in the protest, the player can see different creatures on the
screen. On the left side, some people are portrayed as Divs, holding a sign which resem-
bles Islam’s holy book, the Quran. On the right side, another group of Divs can be observed
holding a sign of a silver vase. The former represents protestors under the heavy influ-
ence of the religious clergy and the latter shows the staunch supporters of the monarchy
since silver vessels often have inscriptions that indicate royal ownership and provenance,
linking them to Achaemenid customs of certifying precious metals (Zournatzi, 2000).
Mosaddegh faced numerous adversaries, notably the clergymen and the monarchy of
the Shah. The conservatives and religious clerics were allegedly influenced by Roosevelt
to employ religious sentiments to mobilize opposition against Mosaddegh. Conversely,
the Shah resisted the establishment of a democratic parliament to retain control over the
country and the military. Ayatollah Kashani and other clerics mobilized public sentiment
against foreign domination, aligning with various societal groups, including merchants
and the lower middle class. The armed forces, particularly loyal to the monarchy, also
played a pivotal role in the coup, reflecting a broader societal division between modernists
and traditionalists. Both parties were under the direct or indirect influence of Roosevelt Jr.
(Mokhtari, 2008).
Between the two parties in the game (religious and monarchist protestors) stands
a humanoid pig wearing the Shah’s military outfit, and from his hat a tank gun emerges,
pointed at the religious protesting party. Pigs are often associated with impurity, sin, and
gluttony, reflecting cultural and religious beliefs (Sillar & Meyler, 1961). A notable instance
of pig symbolism is found in Orwell’s (1945) Animal farm, where pigs represent political
leaders. Initially symbols of resistance, the pigs eventually give in to corruption, illustrat-
ing the potential for power to erode ethical principles. This theme is echoed in The Cat and
the Coup, where pigs represent Iranian generals controlled by Western powers. On the hat
the pig is wearing, there lies a bald eagle, and a bulldog, symbolizing the USA and Great
Britain respectively, showing within the game how they are occupying the thoughts of the
general. This mirrors the corruption depicted in Animal farm, where ordinary individuals
from the working class become corrupted by the power they gain and turn into new ty-
rants. In both cases, pigs serve as symbols to critique how power can lead to moral decay.
In the Iranian cultural tradition, being deeply rooted in Islamic customs, the pig is also
considered as a symbol of filth.

The Fourth Stage – Hidden

Agendas
After a significant fall, as part of the fourth stage, the player finds Mosaddegh sitting
desperately under a telephone. Above his head, there is a shelf with the two already elabo-
rated symbols of the Quran and the silver vase. The cat’s mission is to alter the balance
of the room and have each item on the shelf thrown to one side. Outside the room, there
are faceless people in the form of shadows, and the moment they receive one of the two
items, more faceless people fall from the sky and start pushing the room that Mosaddegh
is in from both sides, putting pressure on him. This act symbolizes the two parties he had

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
to fight with after he nationalized oil. The room gets smaller until he no longer fits in it, and
he starts falling again toward the next stage.
On the way down, a toad appears again in two distinct forms, one hidden beneath
an Islamic hijab in the middle of the frame, and the other posing as a superhero with the
American flag as a cape, tearing his shirt off on the right side, under which a red star sur-
faces. The former can be interpreted as Kermit Roosevelt Jr.’s sneaky strategy to disguise
himself as one of the Iranians and make them believe that foreign interests represent their
needs. The latter, as it conjures the image of the red star, a symbol of communism and the
Soviet Union in particular, unfolds the political motivations of the USA behind the coup,
namely the concern that the changes and reforms made by Mosaddegh might draw Iran
closer to the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. The U.S. perceived a significant threat
from communism, particularly after the Azerbaijan Crisis in 1946, which shaped its con-
tainment strategy in the Middle East (Chapman, 2023). American officials believed that
Mosaddeq’s policies could lead to economic instability, making Iran susceptible to a com-
munist takeover (Gasiorowski, 2019). Between the two images with the toad, there is a
bald eagle which is taking a hunted rabbit, foreshadowing the next stage.

The Fifth Stage – Unveiling

Manipulation and Obedience
The fifth stage shows Mosaddegh and Harry S. Truman meeting in the Blair House.
They are sitting opposite each other and having a conversation. Harry Truman avoided
being part of the coup and he is depicted as a rabbit. According to American symbol-
ism, rabbits represent innocence (Torosyan & Lowe, 2013). During the game’s events,
Truman was engaged in the Korean War and didn’t want to get involved in conflicts with
Iran and the UK. Therefore, his administration sought to support Mosaddeq in Iran to avoid
a coup, fearing that driving him out could empower Ayatollah Kashani and increase the
Tudeh (communist) Party influence. British stubbornness over compensation hindered
negotiations, leading to Mosaddeq’s eventual political weakening (Painter & Brew, 2023).
However, Dwight Eisenhower, who was in favour of the coup, took office and America of-
ficially became involved.
On the wall two pictures can be seen, one is Truman (in the form of a rabbit) on the
end wall, and on the main wall, a picture of Winston Churchill (depicted as a bulldog) is
hanging. Having the main wall occupied by the bulldog can be seen as the British will that
influenced Truman’s decision. On the shelf to the right, the famous Cyrus Cylinder can be
seen. The Cyrus Cylinder is an ancient artifact inscribed with a declaration by Cyrus the
Great, emphasizing his policies of tolerance and repatriation of displaced peoples. It is
considered a symbol of human rights in classical history (Waters, 2022). There’s a samo-
var on the shelf with hot tea inside but the colour of the tea is very dark, so much so that
it resembles that of oil. The key to the puzzle of this stage is to have the cat curl up on
Mosaddegh’s lap and scratch him. He loses balance and is about to fall on his back, but
the rabbit holds his hand and doesn’t let him fall. Then the player has to move the cat to
the shelf and make the hot tea in the samovar leak on Mosaddegh’s hands that are held by
those of the rabbit. When the hot tea drips on Mosaddegh’s hands he falls backward. The
cat has to repeat this action several times until Mosaddegh finally falls from the back door
to the final stage of the game and the cat follows him.

60 Game Studies
 In the transition between two stages, many different oil barrels with a specific de-
sign can be seen. After the advent of Islam, due to the prohibition of using animal and
especially human motifs in artworks, the designs of Eslimi gradually replaced them as the
fundamental and conventional patterns of Iranian decorative arts. According to the Moein
Dictionary, Eslimi designs are templates used in Iranian visual art and are a combination
of many curves and lines which all intended to imitate nature (Rajaei et al., 2023). These
patterns continued to be prevalent in subsequent periods, particularly during the Islamic
era, and received significant attention. The use of Eslimi designs in Persian miniature art
is very common, the design of oil barrels uses Eslimi motifs to embellish, beautify, and
emphasize their importance for Mossadegh and the Iranian people. The cat falls right
into the hands of the bulldog who holds it in its arms and starts petting it. Meanwhile,
Mosaddegh is opening a valve from an oil barrel. On the right side of the screen, there is
a black dragon. According to Middle Persian from the Sasanian Empire, if a dragon is not
killed, it will destroy the entire world of light (Gholizadeh, 2008). The dragon is depicted in
the corner of the frame in black, with fire spewing from its mouth towards the oil barrels.
In Iranian culture, black is a negative symbol associated with grief and mourning. Fur-
thermore, in Iranian art and culture, dragons are considered symbols of evil, of untamed
nature, and fighting them is seen as a quest for the life-giving fountain (Asgari & Eghbali,
2013; Kafshchian Moghadam & Yahaghi, 2012). Here, the black dragon, during the period
of oil nationalization, refers to an understanding of the movements and struggles, high-
lighting the negative aspect of this symbol, and its reference to foreign enemies such as
Britain and the USA. The leadership of the national movement by Mossaddegh and his
fight against colonialism is a powerful force in the game’s narrative.
After Mosaddegh opens the valve, he walks to the room. The toad appears next to
the bulldog and opens a sack, putting the cat into it. This action could be interpreted in
several ways. First, the cat, which resembles Iran, was treated well for a few moments
before they threw it in the sack where he would be blind. Second, it might be seen as con-
fining the cat to a cell and conditioning it to obey the commands of foreign powers. Third,
after this final stage, the timeline of the game becomes chronological, and the secrets are
revealed. This scene could also remind the player of the phrase in English: “The cat is out
of the bag” (Brinson & ValaNejad, 2011).

The Final Stage – Drowning

in Oil
In the final interactive stage of the game, Mosaddegh is walking around a room
while his famous speech after the nationalization of the oil industry is being played. In his
speech, he points out the fact that the decision made for nationalizing oil was based on
Iranians’ will, and how it will cut down the exploiting hands of Western powers. An ironic
act of the player/cat’s mission, which represents Iranians, is to swing on the chandelier,
jump down, and land on Mosaddegh’s head, causing him to lose his footing and fall, show-
casing the fact that Mosaddegh made the effort for Iranians to reach what they desired
and how they tried to put him down. Each time he falls, it results in cracks and holes in the
ground and his speech is interrupted until he stands up again. Oil erupts from the holes
made by him and it starts filling the screen to a point where Mosaddegh drowns in it.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
The Ascent
After the final stage, the player reaches a turning point in the game’s narrative
where the lens widens, and the player can see more of the intricate backdrop to the game.
Mosaddegh is dead, lying on the surface of oil which takes him to the top of the backdrop.
The cat is also curled up on him. By this point in the game, the player has seen the events
in reverse order while navigating to the bottom of the tapestry and now goes up, with the
player following the events chronologically. From this point on, the player has no more
chance for interactions, their agency is limited to observing the ascent, and instead of
the anthropomorphized animal forms, the politicians now resemble their ordinary selves.
The written texts are all new and they are descriptive of the symbols the player
has encountered. On the way to the top, three religious figures are presented, Ayatollah
Broujerdi, Ayatollah Kashani, and Ayatollah Khomeini. Broujerdi was a key figure in Iranian
Shia Islam, commanding significant respect and influence among the populace, which he
leveraged to oppose secular reforms proposed by Mosaddegh. He mobilized religious sen-
timents against the nationalization of the oil industry, aligning with conservative factions
that viewed Mosaddeq’s policies as a threat to traditional values (Šćepanović, 2018). The
initial alliance between Mossadegh and Ayatollah Kashani was rooted in a shared nation-
alist and anti-imperialist agenda, which later deteriorated due to political and economic
strains.
Kashani’s eventual betrayal of Mossadegh, aligning with U.S. and British interests,
was pivotal in the coup’s execution (Kressin, 1991). While Khomeini was not directly in-
volved in the 1953 coup, the ideological currents he represented and the actions of other
clerics significantly shaped the political landscape of Iran, ultimately leading to the 1979
revolution. This highlights the complex interplay between religious authority and political
power in Iran’s history. The game concludes by picturing Mosaddegh’s body afloat on the
surface of the oil, going toward the top of the tapestry and the real faces of the figures
keep being revealed, as seen in Picture 3. Almost at the top, there’s a scene of a protest
where it shows pro-Mosaddegh students protesting against his isolation. One of the pro-
testers has a book for a head and is wearing modern, Western-style clothes, jeans and a
shirt. Above the wall, other people are wearing traditional Iranian cloth, representing their
conservative stance, and they are holding books like hammers to hit people with. This
scene shows the struggle between Mosaddegh’s followers who were well-educated mod-
ern people, and the old traditional conservative scholars who were against modernity.
Finally, Mosaddegh’s soul reaches his body, the cat disappears and Mosaddegh ascends
into the clouds, symbolizing his demise. As the creators justify the order of the events in
the game, they mention: “Moving from a tragic day to a triumphant one – while provid-
ing the player with increasing violent influence – emulates the player’s realization that
they are not an incidental character in this story, but an essential catalyst of the tragedy”
(Brinson & ValaNejad, 2011). When players discover the United States’ direct involvement
in Mossadegh’s downfall, they realize that the cat’s actions are symbolic of a manipulative
America. The players, though they may feel secure in their magic circle, might find that
their connection to the subject is deeper than anticipated, even beyond the game. The Cat
and the Coup is not merely about Mohammed Mossadegh; it also explores the American
player’s relationship with him, revealing connections that may have been previously un-
recognized.

62 Game Studies
Picture 3: Mosaddegh is lying dead on the rising oil in the game The Cat and the Coup1
Source: the author’s screenshot from the game The Cat and the Coup (Brinson & ValaNejad, 2011)

Conclusion
In conclusion, the game The Cat and the Coup as a form of digital vernacular, pre-
sents a narrative that aligns with local Iranian consensus about the events leading to the
coup in the 1950s. By following Mohammad Mosaddegh through the game, players dis-
cover his national significance, particularly for the nationalization of the oil industry. The
game showcases unique design choices, such as using a cat as the main playable charac-
ter, to give voice to Iranians as subalterns, presenting a counternarrative of a major event
in Iranian history. As a piece that is distinctly and deliberately transcultural, the game
scarcely uses any specific language; all the visual elements mediate between traditional
Persian symbolism and those that are widely accepted internationally.
This paper, rooted in regional game studies and employing a close reading method-
ology, analysed the game’s visual and narrative elements, including its Persian miniature-
inspired aesthetic, incorporation of geometric shapes, symbolic objects like the mechani-
cal clock, and the use of anthropomorphic animals in storytelling. These choices not only
honour Iranian culture but also serve to create distinct visuals. The game manages to
establish an immediate connection with players, particularly international ones, and pro-
motes a better understanding of the cultural context surrounding the events.
By employing a postmodern pastiche, blending different artistic styles and narrative
techniques, the game also creates a unique form of storytelling. The narrative invites play-
ers to reflect on the implications of colonialism and the subaltern voice within the medium
specific features of video games.
The six stages of the game were scrutinized, with particular attention to the role of the
cat as the playable character in delivering a subversive narrative. Each stage of the game pre-
sents a different aspect of Mosaddegh’s life and the forces that conspired against him. The
cat’s missions are all symbolic, reminding Western players that they, as western powers, con-
trol the cat representing Iran, and that they are using the cat to weaken the nation’s future.
The game manages to portray a more accurate version of Iran and its culture due to
its artistic endeavour, and serves as a significant source of inspiration for aspiring game
developers with a similar vision.

1 Remark by the author: Real images of the figures are substituted.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
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ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 Acta Ludologica 2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue

A Wordless World:
The Circulation
of Affects in Journey
Imola Bülgözdi

Imola Bülgözdi, Ph.D.

University of Debrecen
Institute of English and American Studies
Egyetem tér 1
4032 Debrecen
HUNGARY
[email protected]

Imola Bülgözdi is an assistant professor teaching American Literature, Cultural

Studies and Popular Culture at the Institute of English and American Studies,
University of Debrecen. She specializes in the literature and culture of the American
South and her academic interests include novel-to-film adaptation, gender studies,
posthumanism, and fantasy and science fiction. Her publications on game studies
include “A quest for the ‘missing people’: Posthuman affect in Where the water tastes
like wine” in the Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (2023), “The
utopian impulse in the Post-Truth Era in the visual novel Orwell: Ignorance is strength”
in Utopian possibilities: Models, theories, critiques (2023), and “The dismantling of the
nature-culture binary and the construction of the relational subject in the digital game
Fe” (in press).

68 Game Studies
ABSTRACT:
This article explores the communicative possibilities in the third-person walker Journey
by Sony Computer Entertainment, which eschews verbal communication between player
and game, and does not offer a channel for metagame interactions between players, de-
spite the creators’ claim to provide entertainment that inspires human connection world-
wide. The game has been praised for its innovative use of the online multiplayer option
that only allows for chance meetings and a very limited repertoire of oral communication,
leaving room for experimentation in a world lacking human language but rich in ambient
sound beds. Although minimalist regarding player-initiated communication, Journey pro-
vides an exceptional atmospheric experience due to its Grammy-nominated and BAFTA
Games Awards winning musical score, which foregrounds the affective potential of digi-
tal games. The soundscape encourages players from all over the world to travel together
and share an adventure not only modelled on Campbell’s ‘the hero’s journey’ but also on
Everyman’s. The decade-long continued interest in the game allows the article to focus on
the circulation of affects involving the creators, the non-diegetic interpersonal commu-
nication between players, and the formation of a uniquely positive and supportive online
fandom, which remains, in turn, an inspiration for the creators.

KEY WORDS:
affect theory, digital games, game studies, immersion, Journey, third-person walker, Zen
games.

DOI:
10.34135/actaludologica.2024-7-SI.68-83

Introduction
Experience the wonder in this anonymous adventure where you travel on a life’s pas-
sage, with the chance to connect with companions along the way. (Journey, n.d.-b)

Upon release, Journey (thatgamecompany, 2012), from the independent developer

thatgamecompany, was hailed as an innovative art game, scoring over one hundred in-
dustry and media awards over the years, of which the five awards at the BAFTA Games
Awards1 and the first Grammy nomination for a digital game in the category Best Score
Soundtrack for Visual Media (“Austin Wintory”, n.d.) drew attention to it beyond the gam-
ing community. The Original Score and Audio Achievement BAFTAs, coupled with the
award for Best Game Design, stand witness to the impact that the lack of language and the
prominent role of music had on players, justifying a closer look at a more than a decade-
old game. Although removing language, the most versatile channel of human communica-
tion, may seem counterintuitive for a game that aims to foster human connection world-
wide, several interviews with game designer Jenova Chen attested to the fact that this

1 Remark by the author: Journey won in five categories at the BAFTA Games Awards 2013, namely Artistic
Achievement, Online – Multiplayer, Audio Achievement, Original Music, Game Design, and earned
nominations in Game Innovation and Best Game categories (“British Academy Games Awards”, 2013).

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
goal acts as the organizing principle of the whole game. Talking with Ohanessian (2012),
Chen clarified that he intentionally tried to avoid the usual feelings evoked by competition
and winning, on which many games and sports are based:
there is actually a whole spectrum of feeling that games are capable of creating,
but not a lot of them are on the market. And we wanted to … extend the depth and
the width of the emotional spectrum that games can communicate … I started to
realize there is an emotion missing in the modern society, and of course missing
in the online console games. It is the feeling of not knowing, a sense of wonder, a
sense of awe, at the fact that you don’t understand, at the fact that you are so small
and you are not empowered [emphasis added]. And so our focus for Journey was to
make the player feel small and to feel wonder, so when they run into each other in an
online environment, rather than thinking about how am I supposed to use my gun on
the other player, we wanted them to feel a connection to another player [emphasis
added]. (Ohanessian, 2012, paras. 2, 4)
In contrast with the ever-popular online first-person shooters (FPS), which, accord-
ing to Chen, focus on freedom and empowerment (Ohanessian, 2012), Journey achieves
a sense of awe and lack of empowerment partly by not providing instructions or a map of
the world for the player to orient themselves, there is no scoreboard, no loot to pick up,
and no options at all to personalize one’s avatar. The quote above also emphasises that
the game’s main aim is to evoke feelings, including some that are specific to the interactive
medium of digital games.
The past decade has brought far more variety to both the affects that digital games
set out to convey2 and research linking affect theory and game studies, which continues to
shed light on the complexity of the medium. Yet, the perception of the matter is very slow
to change: Hayot (2021) still declares that digital games in general are hampered by the
structural constraint of the need to win, making it “difficult for games to fully represent,
as can novels and films, the full emotional and social range of human life” (p. 184). These
views are contested by in-depth research, such as Anable’s (2018), which constitutes the
framework for the analysis of digital games as affective systems on which this paper relies.
The broadest definition of affect “as the capacity of bodies to affect and be affected by one
another” allows for the joining together of “bodies human and nonhuman, organic and
machine, material and conceptual” (Paasonen, 2018, p. 283) and led to the theorization of
networked affect in new media studies. This notion encompasses the medium-specific in-
terconnections that Paasonen (2018) sums up as “the circulation and oscillation of inten-
sity in the framework of online communication that involves a plethora of actors, … users,
more-or-less emergent collective bodies, human and non-human and thus also devices,
platforms, applications, interfaces, companies, files and threads” (p. 283). Anable (2018),
who posits digital games as affective systems, details in the following concise list the vari-
ous actors and ‘forms of relation’ that typically affect each other in digital games. When
opening a digital game program, the circulation of affect starts via the player’s relations
to the game’s aesthetic and narrative properties, the computational operations of
the software, the mechanical and material properties of the hardware on which we
play the game, ideas of leisure and play, ideas of labor, our bodies, other players, and
the whole host of fraught cultural meanings and implications that circulate around
video games. (Anable, 2018, p. xii)

2 Remark by the author: See some examples covering a variety of digital game genres: Brothers: A Tale of Two
Sons (Starbreeze Studios, 2013), Depression Quest (The Quinnspiracy & Lindsey, 2013), Orwell: Ignorance
is Strength (Osmotic Studios, 2018), Where the Water Tastes Like Wine (Dim Bulb Games & Serenity Forge,
2018), Neo Cab (Chance Agency, 2019), The Longing (Studio Seufz, 2020), The Life and Suffering of Sir
Brante (Sever, 2021), Twelve Minutes (António, 2021), Venba (Visai Games, 2023).

70 Game Studies
 In order to make sense of the emotions and feelings a game aims to evoke, the place
occupied by digital games in the cultural imaginary must be borne in mind, as they en-
gage and entangle players “in a circuit of feeling between their computational systems
and the broader systems with which they interface: ideology, narrative, aesthetics, and
flesh” (Anable, 2018, p. xii). Due to the human-technology assemblage created at such
times, Anable (2018) argues that digital games can be regarded as expressions of the new
affects called to life by the technosocial conditions of the 21st century, which Chen also
approached from the perspective of affects circulating while playing: “We really wanted
to have a real social experience. We talk about social games today, but most people think
social games are just games on Facebook. But really, social means emotional exchange
between people” (Ohanessian, 2012, para. 5), in this case made possible via an online
multiplayer game. The initially formed fan groups, forums, and the more recently estab-
lished communities on Discord and Steam attest to the game’s enduring social appeal
even twelve years after its release, and provide ample material for a case study that also
investigates less immediately observable affects of digital games: the types that may play
out over several years. The circulation of affects will be approached by means of shedding
light on the genre-specific emotional impact of Journey, the components of the in-game
affects of presence and connection experienced by the players and then will extend to
discussing how in-game affects transfer to the real world of both players and creators.

Genre, Atmosphere
and Affect
The fact that feelings evoked by and associated with digital games depend on the
genre to a considerable extent is hardly surprising, given that audiences partly extrapo-
late based on the familiar generic conventions of film and television, and many developers
rely on the very same conventions to reach audiences. The difference in affective impact
between old and interactive new media has been one of the most widely discussed issues
of the new millennium, usually fuelled by fears of addiction and social isolation, as well as
the ever-present allegation that digital games are responsible for aggressive behaviour. In
contrast, Chen set out to create a game
where people felt they are connected with each other, to show the positive side of
humanity in them. A lot of games today have a list of quests, places to go, items to
collect and rewards to receive... We just ignore each other. So in order to make play-
ers care about each other, we have to remove their power, and remove their tasks.
(Smith, 2012, para. 7)
The appearance of new digital game genres has definitely helped counter the one-
dimensional, more often than not negative public perception: as pointed out by Penabella
(2015), in the first half of the 2010s, walking simulators, for instance, were a direct response
to FPS games, mostly held guilty of the charges above. He recommends first-person
walker to avoid the condescension he feels is inherent in the term walking simulator, be-
cause it “misattributes the act of walking as a perfunctory, emotionless action to be simu-
lated rather than identify these games’ treatment of it as a complex and meaningful form
of expression” (para. 5). While Journey shares some characteristics with the category of
platform games, if played as one, it is neither challenging, nor very satisfying, as attested
by reviewers who rushed through in one and a half hours and subsequently complained
about the game being insubstantial. The avatar’s limited capabilities and the crossing of

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
vast expanses definitely remind one of Penabella’s (2015) description of the first-person
walker: “stripped down of complex gameplay mechanics in favor of decelerated move-
ment and the basic act of seeing” (para. 2), consequently “encouraging a contemplative,
participatory mindset over guided directness” (para. 5).
While the term walking simulator persists and has a secure place in common par-
lance – though it continued to be contested for several reasons (see Juul, 2018; Muscat,
2018) –Penabella’s (2015) claim that these games act as an “entrance towards sensations
and experiences often overlooked” (para. 10) is echoed by Juul (2018), who draws atten-
tion to the fact that they not only limit interaction with the game world but also reduce
the player’s feeling of responsibility for the outcome. A few years later, van Dam (2022)
already takes the genre’s existence for granted and focuses instead on the affective po-
tential of first-person walkers, underscoring the “particular kinds of pleasure that differ
from the addictive thrill that is often associated with videogames” (para. 9) and contends
that they foster player reflexivity both towards the game and the real-life world, hinting at
the transfer of in-game affects beyond the gameworld. This aspect is well documented by
Flanagan (2021), who demonstrates that digital games with specific narrative mechanics
have the potential to shift beliefs and biases.
Based on the continued academic interest in the player experience provided by walk-
ing simulators, Andiloro’s (2023) approach to the genre is a particularly appropriate lens
to scrutinize the affective experience of players of Journey. Andiloro proposes an experi-
ential perspective, “attentive to the embodied and affective lived-experience of players,”
which he captures with the term atmosphere, defined as “a wholistic [sic] affective and
embodied experience arising in-between player and videogame” (p. 560). The idea of gen-
res as meaning-making frameworks is not new, however, bringing their emotional impact
to the forefront is a result of the affective turn and “marks a shift in thought in critical
theory through an exploration of the complex interrelations of discursive practices, the
human body, social and cultural forces, and individually experienced but historically situ-
ated affects and emotions” (Zembylas, 2021, para. 1). Andiloro (2023) convincingly ar-
gues that “genre texts are, to an extent, designed to achieve a certain embodied emotion
… they afford specific types of embodied experiences” (p. 561), and points out that current
conceptualizations of atmosphere bring together effect and spatiality to denote the as-
semblage of people and things present in a space.
The above are the exact same components that Chen lists in layman’s terms in
the previously quoted interview, but his choice to make a multi-player walking simulator
expands the affective possibilities offered by the genre. It is also important to note that
Journey diverges from first-person walkers that “privilege the habitation of a singular con-
sciousness in a cerebral space, often filtering our experience of the world through sol-
ipsistic voiceover narration” (Penabella, 2015, para. 9). By eschewing verbal input, the
game removes the limitations that narration would pose on the player’s perception of their
surroundings, and the same stands for abandoning the POV perspective: in third-person
walkers the game world is experienced less passively, as detailed by Swain (2013), who
uses Journey and Bientôt l’été (Tale of Tales, 2012) to tease out the characteristics of the
then-new subgenre. The third-person perspective, in his view, shifts the focus from pas-
sively observing the world to the dynamics of traversing space and the significance of “the
avatar’s place in relation to the objects around them” (Swain, 2013, para. 5),3 which also
explains the platformer-like elements in Journey and is hardly surprising given the game’s
title.

3 Remark by the author: For an in-depth discussion of the affective potential of a narrative-adventure game
that is also a third-person walker, see Bülgözdi (2023).

72 Game Studies
 The other category Journey is often placed in is known as Zen games. As Navarro-
Remesal (2016) summarized, the genre is typified by “the pleasurable, individualistic
and relaxing experience, built around an almost complete absence of stress factors and
effort demand” (p. 1), pointing out that this conception does not have much to do with
the theory and practice of Zen but can be roughly equated to the Western trend of non-
religious mindfulness and focus on one’s well-being. Regardless of the misnomer, these
games are very much based on the experience of flow, the theory of which Chen’s (2007)
design has embodied since the very beginning, and virtually all of his games fit this label.
Navarro-Remesal (2018) cites Flower (thatgamecompany, 2009) as one of the first widely
advertised games that transformed Zen from the alternative, stress-free gameplay mode
available in some earlier games, where scores, time limits, and other obstacles were re-
moved, to become the centre of player experience. Characterized by “a combination of
mental flow states and pleasing sensorial inputs” (Navarro-Remesal, 2018, para. 23), the
Zen genre’s main aim is to affect the player’s state of mind by providing immersion with-
out the competitive element, but Journey also avoids the level of detachment inherent in
the minimalist gameplay of first-person walkers, altogether being more aligned to Zen as
a practice of “sensing the present and its constant change” (Navarro-Remesal, 2016, p. 5).
Thus Chen’s design unites components from two genres that enhance an atmosphere
geared towards novel affects leading to immersion, as well as the possibility for more than
one individual to be involved in this experience.

The Circulation of Affect

in Journey
Andiloro’s novel definition of genre is based on Cremin’s (2016) premise that players
actively “compose and liberate affects contained within the game design, actualizing a pre-
viously virtual assemblage” (Andiloro, 2023, p. 564). The brief comparison in the previous
section demonstrates that the game mechanics and affordances of even third-person walk-
ers are not identical with those of first-person ones, which results in a different foundation
for the construction of the atmosphere and the circulation of affect in Journey. This is all the
more apparent when the multiplayer option is available, though it must be noted that it is
not compulsory; Chen emphasizes that the environment does not force cooperation on the
players, but if they “choose to cooperate, then that is the real essence of connecting two
players” (Smith, 2012, para. 10). Besides the flow experience of Zen games, which Owen
(2017) posits as an integral part of immersion in general, he identifies two major medium-
specific aspects of how digital games affect players: on the one hand, through the presence
of compelling narratives to be discovered by the player through their actions, choices, and
exploration, and on the other hand, via an immersive environment that provides visual, au-
ral, and tactile feedback for the player’s actions to unfold. Immersion depends significantly
on experiencing the affect of presence, that is the feeling of being live in a space during the
gameplay, heightened by the co-presence of other players (Owen, 2017). Even though it is
the immersive environment that is mainly regarded as being responsible for a game’s at-
mosphere, due to the lack of language and the emphasis on the rest of the sonic experience,
the player’s narrative and sonic engagement take place via a similar process in Journey:
players are active participants, co-constituting both the narrative and the acoustic ecol-
ogy, comprised of the game’s soundscape, its acoustic environment, and player-generated
sound (Grimshaw-Aagaard, 2012), all the more reinforcing the affect of presence.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 The circulation of affect, however, is not restricted to presence, happening in the
period of active play. Collins (2013) clarifies that cognitive/psychological interactions are
constantly present “alongside all other types of interactions in games. These interactions
include the conscious or unconscious emotional and cognitive activities that take place
before, during, and after gameplay” (p. 9), which draws attention to the fact that digital
games affect players in a variety of ways when not actively playing. Collins (2013), in fact
posits psychological interactions as the prime mover for all others, which encompass a
variety of interactions between the player and the game, and the interpersonal and so-
ciocultural metagame interactions that actually extend beyond the game, thus justifying
the inclusion of gamer fan cultures into the charting of the circulation of affect. As the
most widely researched aspect of digital games, the narrative elements will be the start-
ing point for the analysis, since the title itself raises the first salient questions: what sort of
journey does the player embark on and where does it lead?
Journey contains both embedded and emergent narratives; while traversing the
gamespace, first of all, the fall of an ancient civilization takes shape, signalled by mys-
terious ancient ruins and also conveyed by murals and by white-caped ancestors in cut-
scenes that are not easy to interpret at first sight, given that they lack any form of verbal
information. The completion of the game reveals another layer: the player enacts the ar-
chetypal journey of birth, life, and death, followed by rebirth, an aspect that Chen (n.d.)
considered important enough to include in the very brief description of Journey on his own
website. With the cycle automatically restarting after the credits, the player is invited to
enter the gameworld again, but this simple narrative pattern is continually personalized
by the player’s in-game trajectory, exploration, and the chance meetings with other way-
farers, making for a different experience every playthrough.
Michelmore (2021) underscores that the composer’s task, beyond composing musi-
cal responses to highlight aspects of the gameplay, like the avatar’s success or failure,
the environment, or the plot, is to “predict and imagine how the player will engage with
the game, and create music to reinforce and amplify the emotional journeys they under-
take” (p. 69). The affective power of music is implicitly assumed here, but the musical
score of the game adds yet another layer: the composer, Austin Wintory consciously
aimed at using music as an active story-telling device. More specifically, he named as one
of his main inspirations the archetypal narrative widely referred to as the hero’s journey
(Wintory, 2012a, 2012b, 2018), originally espoused by Campbell (1949).4 Several song
titles on the soundtrack are identical to the stages specified by Campbell, while others
closely correspond in meaning as indicated by the titles (Table 1), but at the same time,
the score also outlines Everyman’s journey,5 which include birth, death, and rebirth be-
yond the elements related to the hero’s adventures. The double nature of the narrative
coded into the song titles is also supported by the fact that the avatars are not outstand-
ing heroes, but are all nameless and identical in appearance, except for the small pixel-art
style glowing symbol on their chest. The plain red cloak receives a line of new pattern after
completing the first three runs, then, when the player collects all the glowing symbols in
the game, they receive the option to wear a white cape. These visuals only reveal how
much experience a player has, there is no other differentiation between the wayfarers.

4 Remark by the author: It is a highly influential work of comparative mythology, whose inherent Eurocentric
bias was since recognized. A variety of shortened versions of Campbell’s (1949) elaborate, seventeen-stage
trajectory are in circulation and are often mentioned in analyses of well-known pop culture protagonists,
like Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars saga.
5 Remark by the author: The term Everyman, coming to denote all humans, derives from the eponymous 15th-
century English morality play on death and the fate of the human soul, in which the protagonist attempts to
justify his time on earth (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019).

74 Game Studies
Table 1: Journey original soundtrack song list

No. Song titles Campbell’s (1949) stages Everyman’s journey

1 Nascence Birth

2 The call The call to adventure, Refusal of the call

3 First confluence

4 Second confluence

5 Threshold The crossing of the first threshold

6 Third confluence

7 The road of trials The road of trials

8 Fourth confluence

9 Temptation Woman as the temptress

10 Descent The belly of the whale

11 Fifth confluence

12 Atonement Atonement with the father

13 Final confluence

14 The crossing The crossing of the return threshold

15 Reclamation

16 Nadir Death

17 Apotheosis Apotheosis

18 I was born for this Rebirth

Source: own processing based on Campbell (1949) and Wintory (2012a)

These seemingly contradictory aspects, the heroic and the everyday are also pre-
sent in the only song that has lyrics, titled “I was born for this” (No. 18), though virtually no
one would be able to understand it without doing some research, as illustrated by Table 2.
The song is performed in five languages, the first three of which are dead, with the quotes
harkening back to the heroes of old: Aeneas, the legendary forefather of the Roman peo-
ple, Beowulf, the monster-slayer, and the greatest Greek hero of the Trojan War, Achilles.
The French sentences are attributed to Joan of Arc, a peasant girl turned military leader
and uttered during her trial preceding her execution for heresy, whose fate demonstrates
that ordinary people are capable of heroic deeds. The Japanese haiku,6 however, stands
apart, since it describes the individual’s life journey, as explained by Asano (2017): it “re-
flects many key Buddhist elements with one of the most prominent being the feeling of
loneliness. We are all alone on this path through life which eventually leads to death (au-
tumn eve)” (para. 7). Even though Wintory’s (2019) text commentary accompanying the
soundtrack identifies the quotes as inspired by the hero’s journey, a closer look reveals
that they do not elevate feats of heroism above the drudgery of everyday life. In my view,
the quotes ensure the two perspectives intertwine in the score, implying the heroic as-
pects of accomplishing a life’s journey, as well as presenting heroes not as distant figures

6 Remark by the author: Several English translations are available. The rough translation in the Table 2 is a
close approximation of the one by R. H. Blyth: “Along this road / Goes no one, / This autumn eve” (Asano,
2017, para. 7).

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
of perfection, but as individuals who need to cope with life’s ordinary aspects and are ex-
posed to similar affects as all humans. This is also supported by Wintory’s (2012b) choice
to subtly alter the pitch of the two musical notes the avatar can emit as the game pro-
gresses. His decision to change them from an animal-like chirp to a lower, more human-
like sound7 brings to mind the universal learning process that forms the basis of every
individual’s socialization through interaction and communication.

Table 2: Lyrics of the final song of Journey, “I was born for this”, playing during the credits and parallel rebirth

Phonetic
Original text Translation Language Source
transcription

Stat Sua cuique dies To each his day is given The Aeneid (Book
Latin
Stat Sua cuique dies To each his day is given X, verse 467)

‘Tis time that I fare Old Beowulf (verse

Maél is mé tó féran
from you English 316)

Ὤλετο μέν μοι νόστος Oleto men mi nostos Lost is my homecoming Homeric The Iliad (Scroll
Ὤλετο μέν μοι νόστος Oleto men mi nostos Lost is my homecoming Greek IX, verse 415)

C’est pour cela que je Attributed

I was born for this French
suis née to Joan of Arc

此道や Kono michi ya On this road

行く人なしに Yuku hito nashi ni Goes no one
Japanese Matsuo Bashō
此道や Kono michi ya On this road
秋の暮 Aki no kure Autumn sunset

C’est pour cela que je

suis née I was born for this
Attributed
Ne me plaignez pas Do not pity me French
to Joan of Arc
C’est pour cela que je I was born for this
suis née

Source: own processing based on “I was born for this” (2018)

Although figuring out the embedded narratives based on the visual and musical
clues can lead to exciting revelations, neither these, nor the platformer aspect explain
why many players return to Journey again and again. Based on the countless reviews and
thank you posts, it is the music and the personal experiences with randomly paired-up
unknown wayfarers that keeps them hooked, consequently broadening the Encyclopedia
of video games’ placement of Journey, along with the rest of thatgamecompany’s output,
under the heading “spirituality” (Hayse, 2021), and demonstrating that Chen’s main ob-
jective to connect people has been successfully put into practice. These affective aspects,
which contribute immensely to the atmosphere, need to be analysed in detail to tease out
more about the circulation of affect in the game.

Affect and Communication

As noted earlier, the other major factor impacting players besides the narrative is
the immersive environment digital games create, but in Journey, player immersion based
on attachment to unique avatars is out of the question due to the completely identical and
nameless cloaked wayfarers. This aspect, too, is the exact opposite of the affective potential

7 Remark by the author: Timeframe 29:02–30:11.

76 Game Studies
of another highly popular genre: in MMORPGs, immersion is also facilitated by the appeal of
and the strong cognitive-affective bond between players and the highly customizable ava-
tars they may spend hundreds of hours with, as detailed by Wilde (2024). The lack of such an
avatar, however, allows wayfarers to focus on engagement with the rest of the game. Even
though this game has player interaction at its centre, Journey offers very limited means to
communicate compared to most online multiplayer games: no text or voice chat is available,
and every avatar can only emit the same two musical notes, whose volume and frequency
they can slightly modulate. In essence, it feels like trying to communicate with someone
whose language is absolutely unknown, and what is more, facial expressions and hand ges-
tures are also unavailable, given the avatars’ body structure. With the exception of the first
and last levels, two players can connect when sufficiently close to each other, then may use
chirps and infinite combinations of the simple actions available, like jumps, flying, sitting
down and standing up, or running away and returning to indicate which way they would like
to go, to get their companion to follow them. Staying close to one’s companion is encour-
aged by game mechanics until players find all the symbols and can equip the self-charging
white cloak, but benefitting more than occasionally from recharging each other’s energy in
very close proximity is easier said than done. For instance, flying long distances side-by-side
could be theoretically accomplished, but it would take a lot of coordination and practice.8
The connection, however, can be severed if players stray too far from their companions or
do not move on to the next level at the same time, underscoring the effort necessary to
maintain the relationship, yet again contrasting the game with more typical player versus
player scenarios of conflict. Relying on the affect of presence stemming from the experi-
ence of virtual liveness in multiplayer mode for immersion is not that straightforward, once
language, the most versatile means of communication is removed. Getting across to people
becomes a much more demanding task, therefore, players have to be really committed to
making the connection Chen wished to set the stage for. This may also be the reason why
only two players and not more can connect at the same time: the interpretation of a combi-
nation of sounds and the whole-body motion of an avatar is far from straightforward, and in
a group this would only lead to missed cues and ensuing frustration.
Interactivity in games ensures that music and sound in general have a far more
complex role than simply setting the mood or characterisation, both typical of cinema,
because, as Kamp (2014) points out, in games “what we hear and how we listen is deter-
mined by our goals and intentions, and our relation to our environment” (p. 235). While the
whole score was composed with utmost care to convey the mood and emotions Chen en-
visioned, as emphasized in the composer’s commentary (Wintory, 2019), it is also respon-
sible for providing the foundation for immersion, as claimed by Collins (2013). The diegetic
sounds emitted by the player are integral to their sense of immersion and telepresence,
owing to the fact that this process is analogous to real-life sonic interactions: they extend
one’s sense of self into the virtual world (Collins, 2013). This is clearly demonstrated by
the fact that players contribute to digital game soundscapes by interacting with the game
world, for instance, with sounds as simple as an avatar’s footsteps. Journey surpasses
this by rewarding travelling with a companion via altering the soundtrack to make the ef-
fort worthwhile: when wayfarers pair up, the score becomes fuller, with new instruments
added, the music swells and has more depth, turning the time spent together into an even
more outstanding sonic experience. Thus, immersion is reinforced on two levels: players
not only co-create their own narrative during their joint travels, but also literally enhance
the musical score, changing the whole soundscape.

8 Remark by the author: Beyond the basic actions described above players have discovered that a variety
of practice-intensive tricks, like sliding or fancy flying can be performed, as described under the “Expert
mode” entry in Journey Wiki at Fandom (see “Expert mode”, 2024).

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 This is only achievable if players do communicate despite the constraints placed on
them, but maintaining this connection takes patience and ingenuity. Metagame interac-
tions without a shared language are unable to convey much information, consequently,
the affective aspect of communication is foregrounded instead of meaning-making. Under
these circumstances players have to get creative: for instance, when reaching the moun-
tain, some used the snow as their canvas to write a few words or draw a heart with their
tracks, and a plethora of comments and fan artwork reflect the supportive attitude of
companions. To this day, the vast majority of reviewers praises the atmosphere and the
connection they felt to their companions,9 attesting that the game has accomplished its
goal and confirming Andiloro’s (2023) claim: many players, such as Jess (2024), whose
well-articulated review on Steam is reproduced below, describe their journey first and
foremost as an affective and embodied experience:
Somehow, without a single word, Journey provided the most profoundly emotional
gaming experience of my life. I went in about as blind as I could for a game that came
out over a decade ago, and that’s absolutely the way the first play through should be.
I found this to be a game where I often forgot I had a controller in my hands, multiple
times IRL distractions broke my concentration and made me realize I was just wit-
nessing the game with my jaw dropped, mouth open. As my final companion and I
pushed through the last act, I realized I was actually crying. Just weeping as I pushed
the joystick forward. There was a shocking level of catharsis for me, and I absolutely
never expected that from this experience. (Jess, 2024, para. 1)
Players are also impressed by how well the music is matched to the game world and
the narrative, the complexity of which is explained by music scholar Grasso (2020), who
investigates how music and narrative can enhance each other in digital games. She coined
the concept of ludomusical narrativity to denote “the potential for music to shape ludic ac-
tions of play to fit narrative affects of story”, creating affective zones, defined as “spaces
in which potentials for meaning and perception are shaped by these musical differences”
(p. 127). Her analysis of Journey also points to how the affects experienced in-game are
linked to the real world, because the affective zone, when paired up with a companion, may
expand to virtually “crossing continents to create a connection” (p. 96).
The only information about companions can be gleaned during the credits: for a brief
period, the PlayStation tag or the Steam profile name of the players one met shows up on
the “Companions met along the way” screen. The powerful affective responses elicited
by the in-game connection with random strangers are memorialized in thank-you threads
identifying the player either by the places visited together and joint activities, or the pro-
file name from the credits, the latter of which can entail real-life communication. It is the
emergent narratives blossoming from chance meetings that bring players back again
and again, and spark both diegetic and non-diegetic communication. The lack of verbal
communication in the game causes players to experiment with combinations of sound
and motion to invite companions to follow; more experienced players help newbies and
pass down knowledge of secret places and beautiful views, how to find glitches and how to
reach the vast out-of-bounds areas that were not supposed to be accessible to players.10
Another form of very popular metagame interaction is just hanging out with a companion:
many players report engaging in playing hide-and-seek and tag, flying together, playing

9 Remark by the author: Based on the summary of the Journey’s most helpful reviews in the past 30 days on
Steam as of August 24, 2024 (“Journey”, n.d.-a).
10 Remark by the author: Out-of-bounds are “bigger than the normal level and contain beautiful scenery,
unexpected dangers, weird objects, rendering glitches and other surprises. The game’s art style makes
[out-of-bound] exploration a dream-like experience which many players enjoy” (“Out of bounds”, 2022,
para. 1). See video by Tara’s Sky Journey (2019) for visuals of Journey’s out-of-bounds.

78 Game Studies
with cloth creatures, and enjoying the views. In fact, the ‘wordless’ game design goes be-
yond Western mindfulness and manages to approximate the purpose of Zen:
Philosopher Ueda Shizuteru warns that “we only consider real what can be under-
stood through words” (2004), whereas he defends an “infinite openness” that can-
not be expressed through language, where one lets go of the self without removing it,
a way of accessing reality and the others through a deep, non-personal knowledge.
And it is this kind of knowledge, and not calmness or relaxation, what makes Zen be
Zen. (Navarro-Remesal, 2016, p. 3)
The lack of verbal communication in the game turned the affective experiences re-
lated to flow and virtual liveness into the main means for immersion: the limited meta-
game communication ensures that the emergent narratives of paired wayfarers are expe-
rienced, that is they are seen, heard, and felt as they happen. Consequently, by eschewing
chat options, Chen managed to remove a major obstacle from connecting with players
from any cultural background, and the anonymity and the uniform appearance of the ava-
tars fosters an unbiased attitude. This is also backed by the multiple sources the archi-
tectural style drew upon: to achieve a space “that was exotic, yet familiar; an alien space,
with ancient civilization” (Leo, 2012, p. 7) the game operates with a new Eastern-Western
mixed structure, an amalgam of ancient Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, and Middle-Eastern
architecture.
Furthermore, Journey also fulfils another requirement Navarro-Remesal (2016)
identifies to be characteristic of games truly inspired by Zen philosophy: they “should af-
fect our relationship with reality, changing the way we see the world and ourselves after we
stop playing, illuminating the dependent nature of everything” (p. 11). The powerful affec-
tive response to in-game experiences of connection dominates fan art and is transferred
to real-life interactions within the fandom, demonstrating the workings of networked af-
fect. The thank-you threads are full of awe, gratefulness, and shared joy, often followed by
extra-diegetic communication to set up planned meetings in the game. This process is not
that straightforward either, as the cloaked avatars are anonymous, thus, the effort to con-
nect with people is yet again foregrounded, reminding players not to take human connec-
tion for granted. The uniquely positive and supportive community that grew around the
game is very well showcased by Salenius (2021), whose journey started in 2013. Although
disappearing in a world of beautiful visuals and music could be regarded as escapism at
first sight, the daily companionship experienced in the game and on the forums, followed
by real-life friendships that blossomed after chance meetings, gave Salenius a different
perspective on chasing goals largely imposed by society, taught her to focus on life’s jour-
ney instead of failures, and finally, the impetus to turn her life around while suffering from
depression:
I developed from an inexperienced pupil to a confident and trustworthy teacher. I be-
came a mentor and taught these new journeyers what I had been taught by the ones
before me. With that in-game confidence, daily companionship and the positivity of
the Journey community, I actually started feeling better about myself and about my
life outside the game. (Salenius, 2021, paras. 14-15)
In conclusion, the sonic experimentation and unconventional gameplay successfully
communicate the positive affective response of the majority of players and their willing-
ness to share the journey, turning the game into a safe haven instead of the often toxic
online spaces Chen explicitly had in mind when planning an online multiplayer game (Leo,
2012). It is these affects that spill over into real-world interpersonal and sociocultural inter-
actions, which, in turn are carried over to subsequent journeys, as explained by Salenius
(2021). It must be noted though that the circulation of affect in this case is not unidirec-
tional, from developer to game to players, partly owing to the fact that the soundtrack took

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
on a life of its own beyond the gaming community. Wintory (2015) received invitations to
perform the music all over the world with various orchestras and ensembles, which let him
experience the game’s enthusiastic reception at first hand. He credits his insight into how
Journey and its score affected individual people with a profound impact on the principle
he follows as a composer: since then his main objective is to make something that “people
take into their lives” because “it’s about them finding meaning through it as a vehicle and
enriching their own life in a genuine way” (Wintory, 2015).
Though Wintory seems to be the most vocal among the creators about his experi-
ences regarding the circulation of affects related to Journey, he is not the only one: in a
recent interview (thatgamecompany, 2024) Chen credits player feedback on his experi-
mental game back in graduate school with encouraging him to focus on instilling positive
emotions via games and changing people’s lives. He reveals that the over 1,600 emails
they received from Journey players who wanted to share their stories and insights helped
them improve the design of their next game, Sky: Children of the Light (thatgamecompany,
2019).11 Besides fond reminiscences, the volume The art of Journey by art director Nava
(2012) features more than his own concept art: it also includes a curated section of fan
art, which may have served as inspiration for Wintory to use fan art as background visuals
for his 2019 commentary on the soundtrack, but his homage to the community has mani-
fested itself on a far more grandiose scale on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the
game’s release. He rewrote the original score as a symphony for the London Symphony
Orchestra, recording and producing the album Traveler – a Journey symphony (Wintory,
2022), which he dedicated to the community: “I hope the people who hopefully find the
album recognize that it is for them and wouldn’t have been possible without them” (Kain,
2022, para. 9).

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 Acta Ludologica 2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue

Preparing a Tabletop
Role-Playing Game
Experiment: Methodological
Notes for Studying
the Immersion of Tabletop
Role-Playing Game
Participants
András Hlavacska

András Hlavacska, PhD.

University of Debrecen
Faculty of Humanities
Egyetem tér 1
4032 Debrecen
HUNGARY
[email protected]

András Hlavacska is senior lecturer at the Department of Communication and Media

Studies, University of Debrecen. He finished his PhD studies in 2020 at the Institute
for Hungarian Literature and Cultural Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.
His main areas of interest are late Victorian horror stories, ergodic media texts, and
TTRPGs. He has been publishing articles on these topics since 2012.

84 Game Studies
ABSTRACT:
The study aims to contribute to the research that seeks a better understanding of the
language of tabletop role-playing games through the analysis of video recordings of
game sessions. In the autumn of 2021, the Tabletop Role-playing Game Research Group
at the Department of Communication and Media Studies of the University of Debrecen
performed an experiment, the aim of which was to analyse the communication of role-
playing participants through video recordings. During the experiment, the research team
recorded 38 hours and 47 minutes of video footage of the games played by participants
with no previous role-playing experience; a text transcript was made of the recordings,
in which different types of utterances were marked with colour codes. In this study, we
present the preparation and execution of the experiment, paying special attention to pre-
liminary proposals for similar experiments in the future. The experiment served as a basis
of a subsequent quantitative and qualitative analysis, the purpose of which was to make
the role-play participants’ immersion the subject of a closer examination. It is important
to emphasise that this study does not discuss the results of the analysis due to the partial
processing of the video recordings. However, it scrutinises the methodological possibility
of examining the immersive experience of role-players through their communication.

KEY WORDS:
ergodic media text, focus group discussions, immersion, language, speech type catego-
ries, tabletop role-playing game, team psychological safety, video recording.

DOI:
10.34135/actaludologica.2024-7-SI.84-97

Introduction
The scientific study of tabletop role-playing games (hereinafter referred to as
TTRPGs) goes back four decades. As early as 1983, Fine’s (1983) pioneering work, the
Shared fantasy – Role-playing games as social worlds laid out the methods by which this
interactive media text can be subjected to social scientific investigation. Following Fine’s
(1983) research, three distinct paradigms for the analysis of TTRPGs have emerged over
the past decades: 1) examination of written documents related to TTRPG (rulebooks, fan-
zines, novels, etc.); 2) examination of TTRPGs through interviews with the participants of
the game; 3) examining TTRPGs as a participant observer (either as a player or as a game
master). Just as Fine combined these methods in his research, there are also studies to-
day that mix these approaches. A good example of this is the work of Dormans (2006),
focussing on the rules of TTRPGs:
In this article I will examine the gaming element of roleplaying; I will try to expose the
role played by dice in these games. In doing this I have drawn on the study of existing
texts on roleplaying, the rule-set and descriptions of published roleplaying games,
lengthy interviews I conducted with players from different groups and my own expe-
rience as a player of these games. (Dormans, 2006, para. 2)
However, it is more typical that authors choose one of these three methods during
their research. What these methods have in common is that they do not examine the TTRPG

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
as an ergodic media text (Aarseth, 1997), but instead they analyse the role-playing culture
through intermediary channels. A tabletop role-playing session, similar to a theatre perfor-
mance, is unrepeatable and not accessible to analysis like a film, book, or comic book. At the
same time, in recent years there have been studies that attempted to preserve the unfolding
games for later analysis by making video recordings. For example, de los Angeles (2016)
based his research on live action role-playing games documented with “point of view (POV)
and handheld cameras” (p. 22). This study presents an experiment using a similar method.
Its purpose is to present preliminary proposals for similar experiments in the future.
The Tabletop Role-playing Game Research Group at the Department of Communica-
tion and Media Studies of the University of Debrecen conducted an experiment in the au-
tumn of 2021. During the experiment, video footage of the university students participat-
ing in TTRPGs was recorded, and transcripts were made of these video recordings. From
the data collected, the research group set a number of speech type categories based on
the transcripts with the aim of analysing the immersion of the participants. In this paper,
we present a description of the preparation phase, of how the experiment was conducted
and the main methodological considerations of the experiment in addition to the speech
type categories that we found typical of the verbal communication of the participants. It is
important to emphasise that this paper – due to the partial processing of the experimental
material – does not yet discuss the insights gained during the research about the immer-
sion of new role-playing participants.
In the following, we will rely on the work of Zagal and Deterding (2018) to define
TTRPGs. In their review of various types of role-playing games, they define the prototypi-
cal TTRPG as follows:
• A group of players sits face-to-face around a table to play together (co-located and
synchronous);
• Players create, enact, and govern the actions of individual characters in a fictional
game world;
• A referee determines the game world, manages and communicates it to the play-
ers, and enacts all NPCs;
• Players and referee collaborate towards a shared enjoyable experience;
• The game world, including PCs and NPCs and their actions, are constituted by talk
between referee and players, often with supporting props, like character sheets,
miniatures, rule books, or maps;
• The game world is usually some form of genre fiction: fantasy, science fiction, hor-
ror, etc. or a mixture thereof;
• Attempted PC actions are limited by the imagination of players;
• The abilities of characters and the outcomes of their actions are usually determined
by a quantitative-probabilistic rule system, with extensive rules for combat resolution;
• The game is open-ended and can be played over multiple sessions;
• In-game events may be guided along a pre-planned plot through the design of the
game world and referee steering or emerge from player initiative;
• Player characters improve over time via systems for progression. (Zagal & Deterding,
2018, p. 31)
From the point of view of the research, the most important part of this detailed defini-
tion is the fifth criterion, which considers verbal communication as an essential element of
a TTRPG.1 This aspect of TTRPGs is highlighted by other definitions, Montola (2008), for
example, puts it this way: “In tabletop role-playing the game world is defined predominantly

1 Remark by the author: Although there are border areas of TTRPGs without verbal communication (card or
text message driven, silent or solo TTRPGs), the prototypical TTRPG is based on verbal communication.

86 Game Studies
in verbal communication” (p. 24). Although it is possible to imagine a TTRPG where the
participants rely exclusively on non-verbal communication, in the fifty-year history of
modern role-playing games, the game has been primarily organised around verbal com-
munication. Our research aimed at a better understanding of this special communication
situation, as well as whether players’ immersion into character can be examined through
their utterances.

TTRPG and Immersion

Although recipients of any media text, such as books, movies or comics, can expe-
rience immersion, the concept has a privileged position in understanding games – es-
pecially TTRPGs. Some researchers consider immersion to be the most essential part
and primary goal of role-playing games (Pohjola, 2003; Fine, 1983). While theorists on
the subject agree that immersion is a common experience of TTRPGs, the perception of
the concept has changed a lot in the last four decades. In the following, we summarise the
different approaches and the most controversial areas of the topic, also presenting the
model used during the research.
Game reviews (whether about board games, video games or TTRPGs) tend to refer
to the state of consciousness experienced during the game overall as immersive. How-
ever, it is important to emphasise – and we founded the experiment on this assumption
– that games can trigger several types and degrees of immersion depending on their sub-
ject matter, game mechanics, goals and components. In recent decades various models
have spread, on the one hand, about the extent of immersion, and on the other hand about
its quality. Regarding the extent, we find more general divisions, but also taxonomies de-
veloped specifically for each type of immersion. For example, Brown and Cairns (2004),
distinguish three levels of immersion: engagement (“the lowest level of involvement with a
game and must occur before any other level”), engrossment (“when game features com-
bine in such a way that the gamers’ emotions are directly affected by the game”) and total
immersion (“at this point in the scale of immersion the game is the only thing that impacts
the gamer’s thoughts and feelings”) (p. 1297-1300). Turkington (2006) illustrates immer-
sion into character by using a theatrical metaphor, and distinguishes four levels:
As a marionette, where the player does not inhabit the object, but dances it through
the fiction with a directed will … As a puppet, the player inhabits the object only par-
tially, all decisions are unmitigated by the puppet … As a mask, the player maintains a
distinct identity within the character object, but has established an emotional, often
empathic connection with the object … As a possessing force, the player abandons
a personal identity and surrenders to the character object as a goal of play in order
to directly, experience the full subjective reality of the character. (Turkington, 2006,
paras. 5-8)
Similar descriptions can be found when differentiating between various aspects of
immersion too. Therrien (2014), for example, follows Ermi and Mäyrä (2005) in distinguish-
ing three types of immersion: sensory, challenge-based and imaginative. The first type is
related to the number of attached sensory organs and the extent of their occupation;
the second can be related to the flow experience described by Csíkszentmihályi (1975):
its essence lies in optimised challenges; and the third represents the feeling that the re-
cipient experiences by ‘transporting‘ into an imagined world. Another popular theory by
Bowman (2018) adapted and applied Calleja’s (2011) immersion model to role-playing
games, distinguishing between six types of immersion: immersion into activity, immersion

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
into game, immersion into environment, immersion into narrative, immersion into char-
acter and immersion into community. This approach is characterised by a high degree
of media awareness, considering the specificities of the TTRPG medium; in addition to
the types of immersion, it also takes those factors into account that are responsible for
triggering it – therefore, we chose this model to study immersion during the experiment.
Bowman’s (2018) categories not only describe types of immersion, but also direct
attention to the game components responsible for triggering different kinds of immer-
sions. Although it may seem self-evident that a speech containing in-game events elabo-
rated in detail and effectively presented by the game master can help the participants im-
merse themselves into the narrative, or that printed and digital maps can be responsible
for immersion into environment, in fact – since the various immersions overlap during a
game session – a single game component can be suitable for triggering several types of
immersion.
During the experiment conducted in the autumn of 2021, we based the examination
of player immersion on the insight that the immersion of the participants into character
can be closely related to their verbal communication during the game. In order to experi-
ence immersion into character during TTRPGs, it is necessary for the players to identify
themselves as much as possible with the character played in the diegetic world. The iden-
tification is presumably manifested in the player’s verbal communication. Based on the
analysis of the text transcripts made from the recordings of the game occasions, we de-
termined eight types of speech of the participants, of which we identified in-character ut-
terances as signs of immersion into character. During the analysis, we focused on whether
there was a change in the participants’ speaking in character during one game, as well as
during successive games. We were also interested in which game components could help
the participants speak in character. In the focus group discussions that followed the ex-
periment, the participants reported that they had also experienced other types of immer-
sion during gaming sessions in addition to immersion into character (e.g. immersion into
narrative, into game or into community), however, we did not see their verbal communica-
tion as suitable for their identification, so we did not examine them. For similar reasons, we
rejected the examination of the degree of immersion among the participants.

Preparation of the Research

The primary goal of the research was to examine whether the players’ immersion
into character can be analysed through the verbal communication of participants with
no previous primary TTRPG experience during the game. We also paid special attention
to whether it is possible to identify game elements that are more suitable than others to
induce immersion into character.
The experiment conducted for the purpose of the research consisted of four stages:
1) selecting the students participating in the experiment, 2) preparing the selected stu-
dents for the experiment, 3) conducting TTRPG sessions, 4) and finally, a short discus-
sion of the players’ experiences in focus groups after the last experimental session. We
recorded audio and video footage of the second, third and fourth experimental stages for
subsequent analysis.
Before the game sessions, we considered the environmental factors that could make
immersion into character difficult and during the designing phase of the experiment, we tried
to reduce them. In TTRPGs, players can identify with an imagined character and, to a great-
er or lesser extent, shape the chosen character through their behaviour during the game.

88 Game Studies
 In some groups the players may actually stay “in character” during the whole ses-
sion: they act and speak like their characters the whole time, sometimes even chang-
ing their voices, adopting fake accents and wearing costumes. Most groups mix
“in-character” and “out-of-character” conversation, seamlessly switching from one
mode to the other, or staying “out of character” the whole time. (Dormans, 2006,
para. 12)
Shaping the character is a form of behaviour different from the everyday attitude of
the players – many environmental elements can help or hinder the realisation of this. One
of the biggest obstacles can certainly be the feeling of alienation. In order to reduce this,
when preparing the experiment, we strove to create an environment as homely as possible
for the participants. The goal was to achieve a state of team psychological safety, which –
according to Edmondson (1999) – “is defined as a shared belief that the team is safe for
interpersonal risk taking” (p. 354).
Although, prior to conducting the experiment, informal discussions with the stu-
dents of the Communication and Media Studies master program made it clear that an-
other experiment could also be implemented in which we would involve students with
more tabletop role-playing experience, ultimately we decided to design the experiment
for participants with no prior tabletop role-playing experience. We based our decision on
the assumption that, for routine players, a media environment different from the usual
one – mainly the constant presence of a camera, microphone and research assistant –
would have a stronger influence on their verbal and non-verbal communication than in
the case of new players. Routine players associate the experience of tabletop role-playing
primarily with a closed, private space, which – as Huizinga (1949) put it – functions as a
kind of “magic circle”, “the consciousness that it is ‘different’ from ‘ordinary life’” (p. 28).
The transformation of this private space can strongly influence their behaviour.
Role-playing language is different from everyday language, because the worlds cre-
ated in role-play are not merely a reflection or extension of everyday life; they are
fictional. The essence of role-playing lies in the endeavour to be someone else, and/
or at another place, and/or at another time, and quite often that necessitates a simu-
lation of a world very different from the everyday one. (Ilieva, 2013, p. 28)
We assume that the effect of the media environment created in the experiment for
new players is – although by no means negligible – smaller than in the case of regular play-
ers: for participants with no previous gaming experience, the environment of the experi-
ment becomes a familiar one. After the final game sessions, the majority of the partici-
pants in the focus group discussions reported that they could easily ignore the presence
of the technical apparatus. For example: “Several times I noticed that the camera was
almost facing me, but it was not disturbing at all” (ASZJK-12]);2 “I wasn’t really bothered
by the camera at all” (ASZJK-14); “I completely forgot about such technical devices, both
the microphone and the camera ceased to exist for me halfway through the first time. The
only thing that bothered me was … that sometimes you had to push them like that, and it
was a bit distracting” (ASZJK-15).
Also, in order to achieve a state of team psychological safety, we decided to select
participants for the experiment exclusively from a single department and a single year of
the Faculty of Arts of the University of Debrecen. Otherwise, by involving students from
several domestic universities, several majors or several cohorts, there would have been a
risk that the players would show more restrained behaviour towards strangers than if they
were playing with friends. For similar reasons, we decided to exclude first-year students

2 Remark by the author: In order to anonymize the participants of the experiment, we provided the players
with a unique identifier, which follows the ASZJK-‘number’ pattern.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
from the experiment: in the case of students who spent at least one year in the university
environment, there was a higher chance of forming groups of close friends and acquaint-
ances than among freshmen. When designing the research, it was considered that the
role of game master should be taken on by an instructor or a person not affiliated with
the university in any way. Being aware that both solutions can have an alienating effect,3
we finally decided to involve an instructor. We based this on the assumption that the stu-
dents selected for the experiment feel more comfortable participating in an adventure
performed by a person they already know (even if as an instructor) than in the story of a
complete stranger. During the small group discussions following the final game sessions,
the majority of the players did not mention the person of the storyteller as a hindering fac-
tor; the reactions were mostly about the game master’s expertise in the field of tabletop
role-playing rather than about them being instructors. For example: “It gave me reassur-
ance that the management of the game was in safe hands. … It was strange, but I got used
to it very quickly” (ASZJK-15); “It didn’t really bother me. … I felt like an equal party within
the game” (ASZJK-14); “I felt that I was in a safe environment. If I didn’t know something, I
felt free to ask” (ASZJK-07); “He [the game master] really got into it himself, and because
of that we were able to get into it as well” (ASZJK-03).
Despite all efforts, not all of the alienating circumstances could be eliminated.4 We
must mention the selection of the location. When planning the experiment, it was suggest-
ed that it should be carried out at an external location, independent of the university, thus
enhancing the impression that they are taking part in a distinctly extracurricular event.5
Eventually, the availability of the technical apparatus necessary to conduct the experi-
ment did not allow the change of location. During the focus group discussions, the major-
ity judged the experimental site as neutral. For example: “The location itself was neutral
for me, I can’t imagine what would have been a better location” (ASZJK-07); “In fact, the
location was neutral for me, … it neither added nor took anything away” (ASZJK-14); “We
weren’t … in a room where we’ve been before in classes … so it wasn’t like I was connecting
courses to it” (ASZJK-06).

Selection and Preparation

of Experiment Participants
Taking the above into account, we finally selected the students participating in the
second-year communication and media studies bachelor’s program in the autumn of

3 Remark by the author: The involvement of a storyteller not connected to the university can be alienating
due to the lack of personal acquaintance, and the involvement of an instructor due to the students meeting
a person they know in a different role than they are used to .
4 Remark by the author: We must mention the austerity measures due to the coronavirus pandemic. We did
not exclude from the experiment those who, for any reason, did not have a vaccination certificate in the
autumn of 2021, but in order to minimise the chance of infection, we made it mandatory for them to use
face shields during the experiment. Based on the analysis of the video recordings of the games, it can be
concluded that the verbal communication of the players was not significantly affected by wearing a face
shield (it did not impair the intelligibility of their speech). However, based on the feedback after the last
game, it can be said that wearing the face shield for several hours involved a certain degree of discomfort,
but this was evaluated by the participants as an acceptable solution (for example: “This face shield was
very good for me …. It is also a hundred times more comfortable than a mask.” [ASZJK-03]).
5 Remark by the author: The participants of the experiment completed an optional university course, which,
being an obligation, could make it difficult to immerse themselves in the game in any way, but it helped to
minimise the number of absences and prevent dropouts. This is proven by the fact that a participant was
only absent from the nine games a total of two times.

90 Game Studies
2021.6 First, we organised an information session for the groups, where, in addition to
sharing with them what they were undertaking by participating in the experiment, we also
assessed the ratio of routine tabletop role-players and those who had not yet had prior
tabletop role-playing experience. At the end of the information session, we registered the
applications for the experiment from students who had no prior experience in playing a
TTRPG. Of the seventeen students who applied in this way, fifteen were finally selected
for the experiment – afterwards they could register for the university course that accom-
panied the experiment. We considered that it is ideal for the experiment if the number of
groups is the same and the number of individual groups does not exceed five people, so
that individual players have sufficient opportunities to express themselves.
As a second step, on September 24, 2021, we held a four-hour training session for
the participants of the experiment. During the session, we informed the participants
about 1) the schedule of the experiment, 2) the scenario of each experimental session,
3) the specifics of the TTRPG, 4) the most important details of the TTRPG rule system
(Pathfinder Roleplaying Game) chosen for the experiment, 5) the world serving as the
location of the adventure module chosen for the experiment (Golarion / Osirion), 6) the
background of the adventure module which was the Mummy’s mask – The half-dead
city (Groves et al., 2014), 7) the characters that can be selected during the experiment,
and 8) the starting situation of the adventure. After a theoretical lecture, we tried to
deepen the introduction to the TTRPG genre with two short interactive exercises. During
the first, the research leader and the research assistants acted out a situation in order
to demonstrate how tabletop role-playing actually works. In the second exercise, the
participants in the experiment had the opportunity to try out the genre of the TTRPG
in three groups led by the research assistants as game masters. During the short test
games, the participants could get to know game mechanics such as the description
of actions, the narration of the game master, the use of the abilities of the characters,
dice rolls and the effect of their results on the adventure. At the same time, we did not
want the game with the research leader and the research assistants to serve as a strong
model later in the experiment, which is why we designed the time frames to be relatively
short (10 minutes).
As an administrative part of the training, we recorded the basic data of the partici-
pants and divided the participants into groups, who could then decide with which pre-
made character they would participate in the adventure. The participants were divided
into three adventure teams of five. The students were sorted into the groups based on who
had worked with the others in previous group projects (e.g. created a podcast together as
a course assignment). When forming the groups, we tried to create parties with approxi-
mately similar gender composition and prior knowledge of the tabletop role-playing genre.
Finally, the composition of the three groups was as follows:
• First group: 3 women, 2 men, number of people with prior knowledge of the tabletop
role-playing genre: 1.
• Second group: 3 women, 2 men, number of people with prior knowledge of the tab-
letop role-playing genre: 2.
• Third group: 4 women, 1 man, number of people with prior knowledge of the tabletop
role-playing genre: 1.

6 Remark by the author: Although, on a theoretical level, nothing in the composition of a university year
precludes the possibility of students of different ages attending the same year, only young people between
the ages of 18 and 20 took part in the experiment.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
Conducting
the Experiment
As will soon become clear from the following, some of the preparatory operations
described in this chapter preceded the selection and training of the participants. Never-
theless, it is still worth discussing them here, because these decisions are more closely
related to the implementation of the experiment.
The experimental sessions took place between October 8, 2021, and December 10,
2021, on eight Fridays and one Saturday. During the experiment, the three five-person
experimental groups played a TTRPG three times per team. We tried to schedule these
occasions in the experimental period in a proportionate fashion with three weeks passing
between two sessions of the same group. However, the pacing of the academic year and
the individual circumstances of the students did not allow this schedule, so changes were
made during the experiment compared to the ideal schedule (Games of the first group:
October 8, October 29, November 26.; Games of the second group: October 15, November
20, December 3; Games of the third group: October 22, November 19, December 10).
Bearing in mind that the implementation of a TTRPG is always unique and unrepeat-
able (the same adventure module cannot be played the same way twice), the experiment
was designed by incorporating constant and similar factors. Our goal was to observe pat-
terns regarding immersion into character, which could serve as starting points for a later
experiment with more participants. Therefore, the conditions of the three groups were the
same in many aspects during the experiment. The players could embody the same five
pre-made characters per group (human warrior, half-orc ranger, elf wizard, half-elf rogue,
dwarf priest): the ability scores, skills, feats, equipment, and alignment of the characters
were the same for each team; the gender, name and appearance of the characters could
be chosen by the players.
Players took part in the same pre-made adventure. The adventure had the same
background story and starting point (a group of friends visiting the city of Wati in hopes
of getting rich, where they participate in a lottery for exploration sites), and the adventure
also included milestones that were practically unavoidable for the players (for example:
meeting Remus, the mysterious treasure map seller; arrival at the Tomb of Akhentepi;
spirit summoning in the trap-equipped corridor). In addition to these, however, because
“in a tabletop RPG, there are many points at which the players need to make decisions that
affect what happens to their characters in the follow-up” (Weiner, 2018, p. 21), the game of
the three groups resulted in vastly different narratives and playthroughs.
During the adventures of the three groups, the research leader as game master nar-
rated the adventure each time. Apart from him and the players, only one research assis-
tant was present in the experimental room, who supervised the operation of the techni-
cal apparatus and ensured that the preliminary time frames were adhered to. During the
game, the same technical equipment was available every time, the recordings were al-
ways taken from the same angle, and the interactive surface of the adventure was always
projected onto the same wall surface.
When designing the research, specific attention was paid to choose the right TTRPG
rule system. On the one hand, we wanted to choose a system of rules that would ensure
a complex game experience for the participants, on the other hand, the time to learn the
rules was limited by the fact that the participants in the experiment were taking part in
an optional university course. Strongly positive effects of the latter factor can also be
discovered, but the motivation to learn the rules was not increased by the fact that the

92 Game Studies
participants had to utilise the acquired knowledge within a planned time interval.7 Ulti-
mately, we ended up using a simplified version of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rule
system published by Paizo Publishing in 2009, which turned out to be a less than ideal
choice afterwards: due to its complexity, several of the participants did not show sufficient
confidence in their rule expertise up until the final game session of the experiment, and
the explanation of the rules made up a significant part of the playing time. For example:
“There are so many abilities, modifiers, etc. that even the third time around it was always
hard to find them” (ASZJK-13); “The system of rules was quite complex … and it is not pos-
sible to fully understand everything in such a few sessions” (ASZJK-15).
The experimental sessions were based on the same scenario. The participants start-
ed the game at 10:00 a.m., took a 10-minute break every 50 minutes, a half-hour lunch
break took place from 1:00 p.m., and the game ended at 3:30 p.m. The only cases when
we deviated from the strict time schedule was when a break would have interrupted a
fight in the game world. We initially assumed that interrupting the fight in these cases
would negatively affect the immersion of the participants – a hypothesis which was later
confirmed by the players’ reflections. Undoubtedly, the time schedule used during the ex-
periment is not how regular TTRPGs are usually played – where, most often, during longer
games, the players divide the time they spend in-game and out-of-game – but for the sake
of participation rates, we found this solution to be the most suitable. However, it is im-
portant to note that breaks were mentioned by several participants as factor hindering
the immersive experience. For example: “of course, there was no immersion in the break”
(ASZJK-12); “and the break was there, too, that broke the illusion” (ASZJK-15).

Focus Group Discussions

In the week following the last game, focus group discussions took place with the
three experimental groups, moderated by two research assistants and the research lead-
er. The main topic of the conversation was the immersive experience of the participants:
the analysis of player feedback was not aimed at identifying game components suitable
for triggering different types of immersion, but the mapping of whether it is relevant to
investigate any kind of immersion in connection with the experiment. During the conver-
sations, we were also interested in whether the decisions made in order to achieve a state
of team psychological safety during the preparation of the experiment were effective.
The participants of the conversation reported different degrees of immersive expe-
rience, and several of them could also recall specific game episodes. They implied that
their experiences can be related to immersion into character. For example: “For me, I think
[the most immersive moment] was when I got scared … I wanted to pay attention and
concentrate so much that I completely forgot about it, and I was really scared, so I think
that was the moment when I really got into it” (ASZJK-14); “It was much more immersive
when we were in the city, so when there were speech-based situations and we talked … I
really forgot about everything there” (ASZJK-09). Mixed feedback was received regarding
whether the game components help or hinder immersion. The maps, character and mon-
ster representations visually displayed during the game serve as a good example for dif-
ferent judgments about the game components. While some participants attributed great
importance to these in creating an immersive experience, others reported the opposite.

7 Remark by the author: Although in theory nothing precluded the participants of the experiment from
engaging in tabletop role-playing even after the experiment, the feedback revealed that this activity was
not continued after the end of the trial period.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
For example: “It was easier to imagine, for example, the wooden puppets, battle, things
like that” (ASZJK-07); “Perhaps this was one of the things that made the immersion dif-
ficult, because I was watching this as a player, I mean from the outside” (ASZJK-12).

The Speech Type Categories

of TTRPGs
We created a text transcript from the 2,327 minutes of video recordings of the ex-
periment conducted in the autumn of 2021, in which we marked eight types of utterances
identified during the research with colour codes. Transcription and colour coding pre-
pared a subsequent quantitative and qualitative analysis. Quantifying the utterances of
the players can help assess the proportion of different types of utterances present in the
verbal communication of new TTRPG participants; and whether these ratios change as
participants’ experience with the game increases (for example, does the rate of discus-
sion of game rules decrease after several playing sessions).8 The focus of the qualitative
analysis was on in-character utterances that show a connection with immersion into char-
acter – analysing their context can help identify game components that trigger immer-
sion into character. During the research, we identified eight types of utterances that the
participants used:
1. In-character communication. Utterances by role-playing game participants that are
made by players clearly impersonating their character or by the game master clearly
impersonating a non-player character. A reference to the world of the adventure or
to the speech situation can help identify this type of utterance. For example: “GM:
[impersonating a city guard] ‘Good morning, you are the first. The early bird catch-
es the worm, right?’. ASZJK-15: ‘That’s right, my friend! … Then don’t run into any
ghouls’. ASZJK-15: ‘Into what?’”.
2. Describing actions. Utterances that describe an action or event that has been imple-
mented or is intended to be implemented. For example: “ASZJK-15: ‘I’ll shoot one in
the middle of the mirror’. GM: ‘Will you take out your longbow?’. ASZJK-15: ‘I’ll shoot
one’. GM: ‘You aim and shoot’”.
3. Describing conditions. Participants’ utterances that describe the condition of en-
vironmental elements (for example, buildings, streetspace, objects) or a physical
state. For example: “GM: ‘Imagine a dome-like building covered with all kinds of mar-
bles, greenish, whitish, a bit milky’”.
4. Technical communication. Utterances that refer to the rules of the game and the
abilities of the characters. For example: “ASZJK-12: ‘It’s just that I have perception’.
GM: ‘Yes, perception is a skill that everyone has, so that anyone can perceive’”.

8 Remark by the author: The quantitative analysis of the recordings will be detailed in a later study. Based
on their partial analysis, the following observations can be made: 1) the most dominant speech types of
the verbal communication of the players participating in the experiment (except for the game master) in
descending order are non-character player communication, ambiguous utterance between non-character
player communication and in-character communication, describing actions and technical communication.
The most dominant speech types of the verbal communication of the game master participating in the
experiment in descending order are non-character player communication, technical communication,
describing actions and describing conditions. Based on a partial analysis of the recordings, it can be
concluded that the verbal communication of participants with no previous tabletop role-playing experience
is more strongly influenced by the genre of the adventure being played (e.g. a socially interactive adventure,
exploring and fighting in a dungeon, creating an action plan), rather than the routine gained game-to-game
in the field of tabletop role-playing.

94 Game Studies
 5. Non-character player communication. The utterances of the participants in which
they are clearly not impersonating a character, do not describe an in-game action
or event, and do not refer to the game technique. Its purest form is the exchange of
information between two players or one player and the game master. We also list
here statements that refer to the possibility and planning of an action or event – but
not to its realisation or execution. For example: “ASZJK-14: ‘I also thought that they
are such rich people, maybe they are interested in something about such eternal life’.
GM: ‘So the assumption is that they might be interested in something like ancient se-
crets or occult science. You don’t know, you don’t know that much about the family’s
history’”.
6. Out-of-the-game communication. The statements of the participants that clearly re-
fer to events and information outside the game situation. For example: “GM: ‘Sorry
[ASZJK-15], I have to ask you to put your mobile away’”.
7. Ambiguous utterance between non-character player communication and in-character
communication. In cases when it is not possible to clearly decide whether they be-
long to the category of non-character player communication or in-character com-
munication. It most often occurs when players are talking to each other, but do not
make clear references to either the adventure or the players’ world. For example:
“ASZJK-07: ‘Maybe we’ll come back there later, but I think we’re halfway to our goal
now’. ASZJK-15: ‘I think so too. We discussed that…’. ASZJK-07: ‘Straight there’”.
8. Ambiguous utterance between describing actions and in-character communication.
The utterances of the participants in which it cannot be clearly decided whether they
describe the actions of the characters or make a statement by shaping a character.
For example: “ASZJK-12: ‘Okay, come on then!’. ASZJK-07: ‘I’ll go then’”. The answer
of ASZJK-07 falls into the ambiguous category because it is not clear whether she is
answering her partner or describing her actions.

Conclusion
In table role-playing games, the immersion of the participants requires a state of
team psychological safety. In the tabletop role-playing experiment conducted at the
University of Debrecen in the autumn of 2021, several solutions were aimed at creating
an environment that supports the immersive experience of the players. Without control
groups, we cannot draw conclusions about whether one solution is more effective than
an emerging alternative. Nevertheless, several preliminary proposals for similar experi-
ments in the future can be identified based on the focus group discussions following the
experiment:
1. The experiment was designed for participants who had no prior experience with
TTRPGs. Our hypothesis was that the media environment of the experiment quickly
becomes comfortable for them, since – unlike routine players – they have no previ-
ous experience of the activity. During the focus group discussions, the participants
reported that they got used to the presence of the technical apparatus in a short
time.
2. Due to the accessibility of the technical equipment, the experiment took place at the
university. It can be argued that a location independent of the university results in a
more relaxed atmosphere, but based on the feedback, the university office was also
an acceptable choice, the majority of the participants considered it neutral.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 3. The role of the dungeon master was played for the participants by a university in-
structor . It is possible that with a storyteller, a complete stranger to the players,
they would have immersed themselves into character more efficiently than with an
instructor. However, based on the feedback, it was not the person of the storytellers
but their experience and expertise that was important to the participants – this was
uniformly judged positively.
4. Second-year university students were selected for the experiment. The experi-
ment groups were made up of students who had already worked together in their
previous university courses. It is possible that the experiment could have been car-
ried out with freshmen as well, but it was hypothesised that having worked together
before, the participants would adapt to the role-playing environment more effort-
lessly.

In retrospect, two solutions proved to be less effective: the chosen TTRPG system
and the choice of time frames. In the case of the former, the complexity, and in the case of
the latter, the frequency of breaks became a factor hindering immersion. Regarding the
ideal time frames, the participants of the experiment formulated a proposal in the focus
group discussions: “I would have rather played for two hours at a time, and then we take a
break of say half an hour” (ASZJK-09).
The video recordings made during the tabletop role-playing experiment and the
method developed for their processing paved the way for a quantitative and qualitative
analysis, which can lead to a better understanding of the language of role-playing games.
The analysis can help to understand which game components encourage players with no
previous primary TTRPG experience to immerse into character, and how this immersion
changes over several consecutive play sessions. By examining the context of the partici-
pants’ in-character utterances, game elements that increase immersion into character
can be identified. Although a significant amount of footage of game occasions were re-
corded during the experiment, due to the small number of participants, the results of the
analysis cannot be considered representative in any way, but they can help to describe
patterns, which can be verified by a later experiment with a larger number of participants.

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 Acta Ludologica 2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue

The Transmedial Connection

of Tabletop Role-Playing
Games and Cosplay
in The Wayward Wanderers
Campaign
Orsolya Nagy

Orsolya Nagy, M.A.

University of Debrecen
Faculty of Humanities
Egyetem tér 1
4032 Debrecen
HUNGARY
[email protected]

Orsolya Nagy is a PhD candidate at the Doctoral School of Literary and Cultural
Studies at the University of Debrecen and an assistant lecturer at the Department
of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Debrecen. She is also a
member of the Research Group of Tabletop Role-Playing Games operating in the same
department. Her primary fields of academic interest include fan studies, cosplay and
social media. She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation, studying the
evolution of creative fan content and fan texts, such as fanfictions, online text-based
role-playing games and cosplay content.

98 Game Studies
ABSTRACT:
The present paper focuses on the transmedial relationship between cosplay and table-
top role-playing games (TTRPGs) in a specific case study: the analysis of The Wayward
Wanderers campaign played online by an international tabletop role-playing team. The
purpose of the research is to point out the diversity of cosplay storytelling in social media
as well as to study its transmedial characteristics. To achieve this, it is first necessary to
clarify the concept and definition of cosplay, tabletop role-playing and transmedia story-
telling, and then to introduce the role-playing team as the subject of the analysis, which
was founded by cosplayers. The central question of the research is how the narrative of
The Wayward Wanderers campaign is retold or modified through the character portrayal
and cosplay storytelling content created and published by the players on their TikTok ac-
counts. For this research we use content and profile analysing methods: we examine in
detail how much cosplay content the cosplayers created with the characters they played
in the role-playing campaign, over what period the content was published, what different
methods were used to create content (individual or group videos, etc.) and how they relate
to the canon role-playing narrative.

KEY WORDS:
cosplay, cultural studies, fan studies, game studies, social media, tabletop role-playing
games, transmediality.

DOI:
10.34135/actaludologica.2024-7-SI.98-112

Introduction
Somewhere Bound is an international tabletop role-playing group of eleven people
(however in the chosen campaign there are only six players present). Our research fo-
cuses on the team’s very first campaign, The Wayward Wanderers (hereinafter referred
to as TWW), and within that the first episode of the campaign, titled “A sea of trouble”
(see Somewhere Bound, 2020a). The team plays by the rules of fifth edition of Dungeons
& Dragons (hereinafter referred to as D&D) in a fictional world created by the dungeon
master. The group plays online, and they use Twitch to live stream the game sessions,
recording them at the same time so that they can upload them later to their YouTube chan-
nel. It is important to note that the first live stream episode of the campaign was preceded
by a few private sessions (the contents of which we will refer to as the ‘prologue’), during
which members of the team who were new to tabletop role-playing games (hereinafter
referred to as TTRPGs) had the chance to learn the rules of D&D, creating their characters
and a basic storyline.
It is also worth mentioning that the members of the team playing this campaign also
happen to be cosplay content creators, who are actively cosplaying their characters of the
TWW campaign on TikTok.
In this analysis, we study the short video sharing application TikTok from the aspect of
transmedia expansion/modification of the TWW campaign. During the research, the main fo-
cus is on how the content created with the players’ characters relates to the canon narrative

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
of the campaign, and in what way the events of the prologue appear in them. By canon role-
playing narrative, we mean the plots and storylines that game participants have constructed
during play sessions. We consider this narrative to be the source text for TWW campaign,
which can undergo various changes in players’ cosplay storytelling content. We also examine
in detail how much cosplay content the players/cosplayers created on an individual level with
the characters they played in the campaign (for this task the TikTok playlists were especially
useful), over what time period the content was published, what different methods were used
to create content and how they relate to the canon role-playing narrative.
In the case of the TWW campaign, we examine the cosplay content related to the
role-playing narrative of the five players and the dungeon master, and grouped them ac-
cording to different categories. We will also partly discuss how the (visual) language used
in tabletop role-playing sessions and the language used on TikTok relate to each other.
Before proceeding to the actual analysis, it is essential to first clarify how this research
defines the terms TTRPGs, cosplaying and transmedia storytelling.

Defining Tabletop
Role-Playing Games
A role-playing game (hereinafter referred to as RPG) is a rather complex concept
that contains a lot of possibilities for association. Its definition has been continuously de-
veloped and shaped in the academic discourse of the last few decades, among others,
by sociologist Fine (1983) and ludologist Juul (2003). The umbrella term, as Zagal and
Deterding (2018) point out, includes “TRPGs, computer RPGs (CRPGs), (massively) mul-
tiplayer online RPGs (MMORPGs), live-action RPGs (LARPs), and more” (p. 19). Although
the authors capture the various versions of role-playing from the perspective of the media
that convey them, if role-playing is defined as a genre, the listed practices can even be cat-
egorized as subgenres. Although there are many types of role-playing through different
media, the phenomenon is based on the same principle: „any game which allows a number
of players to assume the roles of imaginary characters and operate with some degree of
freedom in an imaginary environment” (Lortz, 1979, p. 36). Since role-playing naturally
generates some kind of story in almost every case, it is clear from a narrative approach
that the player is not a passive recipient of the story but plays an active role in shaping it by
controlling a specific character, and even pretending to be them (Bokody, 2002).
TTRPG is a role-playing genre or medium in which, as the name suggests, the players
engage in a game while sitting around a table, similar to traditional board games. White et
al. (2018) consider TTRPGs to be the common ancestor of all RPG forms. The players cre-
ate a character that they individually control during the game in a specific (fictional) world,
the foundations and rules of which are provided either by a module created by the pro-
ducer or publisher of the game or designed by the dungeon master or game master. These
worlds are usually inspired by sources or genres originating from fiction, fantasy, medieval
history, or mythological stories from different cultures (Zagal & Deterding, 2018). TTRPGs
are also commonly referred to as pen-and-paper RPGs (see Kabát et al., 2022), as players
keep the most important information regarding their characters (such as health, special
abilities, equipment, etc.) on a character sheet. Since the abilities of the characters usu-
ally have a quantified value (e.g. damage, defence, magic level), and since different actions
that directly affect the adventure are carried out by rolling a die, serious calculations are
sometimes necessary during the game, for which the character sheet is essential.

100 Game Studies

 In the age of new media, the TTRPG has also been transformed: in many cases, it
is the online space that represents the ‘table’. It is important to consider the possibility
that instead of a transformation, we are actually witnessing the birth of a new role-playing
form, medium or subgenre, considering that Zagal and Deterding say that one of the main
characteristics of traditional TTRPGs is that „players sit face-to-face around a table to
play together (co-located and synchronous)” (Zagal & Deterding, 2018, p. 31). Today, there
are many online platforms (websites, applications)1 which, in terms of their function, are
responsible for the virtual extension, development and expansion of TTRPG tools. These
online platforms, in addition to instant image and sound transmission, can have dice-
rolling and map-making programs, virtual rulebooks and character sheets, with an offer
of background music and sound effects, so the complex system of the presence-based
RPG is adapted to the online space, thereby providing the opportunity for players who
live far away from each other to play together. The virtual space sometimes also fulfils the
function of recording or immediate sharing, so the game session can become available to
anyone in the form of a live stream or as a recording that can be played back, for example
on YouTube.
The members of the role-playing group Somewhere Bound discussed in the study
also use a similar technique during their gaming sessions: the group plays in the online
space, and instead of specific role-playing platforms, they use Twitch to live stream the
game, recording it at the same time so that they can upload it later to their YouTube chan-
nel.

Cosplay as a Form
of Participatory Culture
Cosplay is a practice where an individual dresses up as a fictional character using
a costume and other accessories (e.g. wigs, contact lenses, armour etc.) The character
is usually tied to popular culture: films, series, books, comics, and digital games can all
be sources of cosplay. However, it is not uncommon for the cosplayer to dress up as an
original character: a character they have created themselves, who is not officially included
in an already existing media text or canon (Winge, 2006). The subjects of the research
invariably cosplay such original characters, since their playing characters in TWW cam-
paign are not parts of any already existing D&D module.
In the international academic sphere, researchers have mostly studied cosplay in
relation to the issue of identity, i.e. how the personality of the cosplayer and the character
relate to each other (Lamerichs, 2011; Rahman et al., 2012; Bainbridge & Norris, 2013;
Scott, 2015). In this study, however, we interpret cosplay as an active component of par-
ticipatory culture, and as an important tool for content creation.
The concept of participatory culture is associated with Henry Jenkins, who intro-
duced and studied the phenomenon through case studies that were relevant and colour-
ful in the given era (see Jenkins, 1992, 2008; Jenkins et al., 2013). The basic assumption
is that the audience and specifically the fans of media texts, while consuming the text,
break away from the receptive standards towards which the media industry would direct
them, and interpret the texts in a specific and unique way. They also have the capabil-
ity to extend, correct or rewrite the narratives entirely, depending on their interpretation.

1 Remark by the author: For example, see roll20.net or trpgline.com.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
As interpreted by Jenkins (2008), the traditional, passive audience transforms into an ac-
tive, content-creating agent, and such content can include fanfiction, fanart and cosplay
as well.
Conroy (2015) describes the relationship of fans to the original media text by pre-
senting two different kinds of fan communities, called fandoms. One is the curative fan-
dom, which typically assumes fans and fan practices that are aimed at preserving the
original canon. Fans in this category are usually satisfied with the original narratives of
media texts, and their activities do not aim to change them, but rather reinforce them. In
contrast, the creative or transformative fandom assumes fans and fan practices that are
aimed at rewriting and changing the original canon (Conroy, 2015). Thus, the typical text-
rewriting practices of participatory culture, such as fanfiction or fanart, fall into the latter
category.
The practice of cosplay is special as it can be a tool for both the curative and the
transformative fandom. In the former case, cosplay could be interpreted as an extension
of canon media texts, since it primarily strives for fidelity and recognizability at the level
of appearance. Creative cosplay content production – photoshoots, skits, cosplay music
videos – however, does not always involve changing the canon, as in many cases it is pre-
cisely the means of replaying canonical narratives. Cosplay becomes a practice of trans-
formative fandom when the cosplayer introduces some kind of change compared to the
original media text or character, for example, changing their appearance or gender (e.g.
gender-bend cosplay), and the creative content makes some decisive change in the narra-
tive (e.g. introducing an alternative universe or a non-canonical love story, etc.).
It is important to note that in the present study, the cosplayers themselves are the
authors of the original narrative, as in the case of TTRPGs, the players create the story to-
gether through conversation. At the same time, their cosplay videos shared on TikTok on
the one hand confirm and expand the canon role-playing narrative into another medium,
on the other hand, they sometimes rewrite the original text. This type of content creation
shows a great resemblance to fan activities that are characteristic of both curative and
transformative fandoms. An important aspect of the research was whether the cosplay
content aimed to preserve or rewrite the canon role-playing narrative. As these types of
narrative extensions and modifications happen in another medium, it also follows the logic
of transmedia storytelling.

Transmedia Storytelling
According to Jenkins’ (2007) classic definition, “transmedia storytelling represents
a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multi-
ple delivery channels to create a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideal-
ly, each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story” (Jenkins,
2007, para. 2). Many 20th and 21st century franchises use this strategy, providing certain
information and details of a complex story or an expansive fictional world through various
mediums. As Ryan (2013) suggests, these franchises are based upon a hypernarrative
that cannot be covered by a single medium. It is also common that an extensive world or
universe has the potential to generate an infinite number of potential stories, which also
contribute to the production of newer (sub)narratives. For example, a minor character
of a story can turn out to be the main character of the next one; or a fictional geographi-
cal area, which was considered a peripheral region in the case of one story, can become
the centre of another one; but it is not uncommon for authors/producers to play with the

102 Game Studies

dimension of time either: prequels and sequels are born, empty time periods, that may
have been skipped during the creation of a previous story, are filled with new plots so the
new story can be based upon a (formal) lack of information.
In summary, the sub-narratives belonging to a larger narrative are told on different
channels, so the information is systematically distributed between media. That is why it
can be claimed that one of the most important effects of transmedia storytelling is that
it generates consumption (Jenkins, 2003). Since the information of the fictional world is
constructed in the form of an ordered network – or as an illusion of it – in various media,
as a result, being familiar with a single media text never answers all the questions, and in
fact, usually raises even more that can only be answered by analysing additional media
texts. As a result, a new type of audience has appeared, which finds pleasure in gathering
information about media products from various sources like a treasure hunter, and they
sometimes fill in the missing information in the form of independent works, for example,
fanfictions, or as in this case, cosplay content on TikTok.
Not entirely related to transmedia storytelling, but most definitely related to trans-
media logic is the question of transferring medium-specific language and user techniques
across multiple media platforms. During the episode “A sea of trouble”, it can be observed
that certain slang and poses typically used on TikTok and also references to popular
TikTok trends appear at the level of both the verbal and non-verbal communication of the
players. At the level of visual language, it is important to note that the players use lighting
techniques and colours similar to their cosplay videos published on TikTok. During the
live stream, the application of colourful backlighting or the transformation of the back-
ground using a screen or curtain are also characteristics of cosplay content creating on
TikTok (see Petrovic, 2023). The mixing of and transferring of medium-specific language
naturally affects how the audience receives and interprets the story. Although the vast
majority of TikTok-specific slang and poses are not used in-character, these expressions
still reflect on canon role-playing events: the players themselves use these techniques to
interpret and translate information regarding the narrative.
Since the players are cosplay content creators on TikTok, and have also met each
other on the app, the use of TikTok-specific language during game sessions does not cause
tension within the role-playing team. Likewise, in the case of members of the audience
who are familiar with TikTok and may follow the players on the app, transferring language
and medium-specific techniques should not interfere with the interpretation process, but
for those who are not familiar with TikTok-specific language and user techniques, properly
understanding story-related information may be more difficult.

The Research Subject:

Somewhere Bound
Somewhere Bound is an international tabletop role-playing group of eleven people,
most of whom happen to be cosplayers as well. They officially started live streaming their
game sessions on Twitch in November 2020, and later they also uploaded the content to
YouTube. In The Wayward Wanderers campaign, which is the first campaign of the team,
there are one game master and five players present. The campaign currently has twenty-
four episodes. While the adventure is not over yet, the team has not been live streaming
since June 2022, so the campaign is currently on hiatus. The game is set in a fictional
world created by the dungeon master (for its map, see Somewhere Bound, 2020b). Our

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
research focuses on the first episode of The Wayward Wanderers campaign, as well as the
cosplay content related to the episode and the prologue of the campaign. Since during the
episodes the players’ nicknames, their TikTok usernames and the names and classes of
the characters are all on display under the players’ camera screen, we identify the mem-
bers of the campaign based on these variables as well:
• Hulda (@ahobbitstale), dungeon master;
• Kai (@vampirethembo), Valakas, bard;
• Blue (@leftmybabyblue), Coraline, bard;
• Stevie (@stevie.bones), Cadaver, rouge;
• Rhi (@rhilentless), Gwendolyne, paladin;
• Vain (@vain.virgo), Saint, bloodhunter.

Since the first live stream episode of the campaign was preceded by a few private
sessions, the world and narrative built during the first game sessions remained hidden
from the audience. For this reason, during the live stream of the first episode, a solution
was needed, something that summarized the missing information so that the audience
could also interpret the plot of the actual game session and get to know the world and the
characters. In the end, the solution was a written prologue that summarizes the team’s
previous adventures at the beginning of the first episode. The prologue reveals that during
the early games, the team formed an alliance with a magic-using princess, Liliana, whom
they helped overthrow her father’s rule, which was necessary due to his anti-magic meas-
ures. Eventually, the team resorted to regicide, which forced them to flee the kingdom.
The first episode is set a few weeks after their runaway (see Somewhere Bound, 2020a).
Since the players are primarily cosplay content creators and not professional role-
players, it was obvious that the characters would also appear on their individual, cosplay-
focused social media platforms, like TikTok and Instagram. However, since the pilot epi-
sode of the campaign was preceded by many more private game sessions (which included
worldbuilding, character and cosplay creation), by the time “A sea of trouble” was aired,
the characters had already been introduced via cosplay music videos on the players’
TikTok accounts. That is why the focus of this analysis is on the cosplay content that ap-
peared on the players’ individual social media platforms, which also helps fill the narrative
void caused by the private sessions and expand the canon story of the campaign with
some kind of additional information.

Findings and Discussion

While the written prologue of the TWW campaign at the beginning of “A sea of trou-
ble” attempts to fill the narrative void and serve as an introduction to the campaign, it still
leaves many questions unanswered and possibilities unexplored. On the one hand, this
gives freedom to the audience as they can reconstruct the events of the prologue using
their own imagination, but on the other hand, it gives the option to the players – in this
context also the creators/producers – to use transmedia storytelling.
In this analysis, we studied the short video-sharing application TikTok from the as-
pect of transmedia expansion/modification of the TWW campaign. During the research,
the main focus was on how the content created with the players’ characters relate to the
canon narrative of the campaign, and in what way the events of the prologue appear in
them. We also examined in detail how much cosplay content the players/cosplayers creat-
ed on an individual level with the characters they played in the campaign (for this task the

104 Game Studies

TikTok playlists were especially useful), over what time period the content was published,
what different methods were used to create content (individual or group videos; fan art;
posts, etc.) and how they relate to the canon role-playing narrative.
In the case of the TWW campaign, we examined the cosplay content related to the
role-playing narrative of the five players and the dungeon master, and grouped them ac-
cording to different categories. It is important to note that the description (caption) of
the videos played a significant role in establishing certain categories, and in some cases
the comments section as well. Although there were still cases for which the classification
could not be clearly decided, the context-creating descriptions and comments proved to
be a great help. The categories created for the players’ and the dungeon master’s TikTok
profiles are as follows:

a) Cosplay showcase/transitions
In the case of the videos in this category (Table 1), the intention is clearly not to cre-
ate or initiate a story, as their main function is to present the costume and the character’s
appearance in detail, using different camera angles, lights and effects. The audio used
for these types of videos is usually some piece of music, the lyrics or style of which relate
to the character in some way, but there is not necessarily a narrative intent behind its
use. For instance, Stevie is presenting the complete outfit of their character, Cadaver (see
Stevie Bones, 2020d).

Table 1: Cosplay showcase/transitions

Rhi Blue Vain Kai Stevie Hulda

Cosplay showcase/transitions 13 1 0 1 9 3

All TWW content 45 31 3 26 100 22

Source: own processing

One of the most popular ways of introducing a newly created cosplay or character
is using the transition technique. The term ‘transition’ refers to the practice, when at one
moment of the recording, one can see the person out of cosplay and then dressed as the
character when the tempo changes. Due to the precise editing, the clips create the illusion
that the movement is continuous, and in fact the transformation takes place in one clip
(see rhilentless, 2022). The purpose of the transition videos is on the one hand to present
the costume in greater detail, and on the other hand, to indicate that the content uploaded
in the near future will revolve around the character in question.
Compared to Rhi, the fellow players uploaded only a few videos in this category, at
the time when they were finished with the costume. In their cases, once they introduced
their new character, the focus shifted from the detailed presentation of the costume to
the storytelling. Since Hulda has an anthropomorphic form as the dungeon master during
the live streams, and she has created some videos cosplaying as the dungeon master, her
videos were also included in this category.

b) Character-focused content
In this category, ranked videos provided additional information on the characters,
such as explaining their background story in greater detail. Although the audience learns
some information about the characters’ backstory during the episodes, so far, no arc or
quest has been built around the detailed past or family background of any of the characters,
so the players use TikTok as a tool to introduce their characters in more detail (Table 2).

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
Table 2: Character-focused content

Rhi Blue Vain Kai Stevie Hulda

Cosplay showcase/transitions 12 13 1 4 45 0

All TWW content 45 31 3 26 100 22

Source: own processing

Blue, Rhi and Stevie were especially eager to use this transmedia solution, sometimes
answering questions that may have been raised by the audience during certain scenes of
the episodes, but which were never explained or answered during the live stream. For in-
stance, Stevie teased the audience with Cadaver’s backstory (Stevie Bones, 2020c).
It also includes videos in which the cosplayers use a monologue or a dialogue, a re-
cording from an existing media product (movie, TV show, etc.) instead of a piece of music
to portray the character in this category. The videos created with this type of technique
are suitable for exploring how the character would behave in a fictional situation, with fic-
tional characters or NPCs (non-player characters), so with characters who are not part of
the canon narrative of the campaign. But there are times when the players – especially
Rhi – use their own voices for their characters in the cosplay videos, further deepening the
relationship between the character and the audience (see rhilentless, 2021).
Looking at the numbers, it can be said that the players are enthusiastic to create
content in this category. Above all, this can be traced back to the fact that in the medium
of TTRPGs, it is the players themselves who possess the most information about their
own characters, but sometimes it happens that it is not possible to transfer all information
into the gameplay. The player may have created a detailed backstory for their character,
but no quest during the campaign reflects more on the character’s past. Since the player
does not always have the opportunity to fulfil a character arc or reveal a complicated past
during the role-playing session, they choose another channel or medium for this purpose.
From the perspective of participatory culture and fan activities, character-focused
cosplay content both reinforces the canon and expands it with further information and
detail. The characters’ personalities and backstories remain unchanged, but the audience
has more opportunities to learn about their motivations, values and personalities. There-
fore, this kind of transmedia expansion helps to bring individual characters into the spot-
light, and shifts the narrative focus, but does not change the narrative itself.

c) Replaying (and telling) canon events

This category describes the videos in which the players are replaying, reenacting a
canon, finalised scene of the campaign with their characters in cosplay. It is important to
point out that this category includes content that adapted the canon events in their origi-
nal narrative style and atmosphere, as well as funny, meme-like creations, since the nar-
rative and information-transmitting properties are not impaired in case of a parody (see
Stevie Bones, 2020a). We also established a subcategory for duets, because, unlike in the
case of the previous two categories, replaying canon events can happen with the contribu-
tion of fellow players. It can be seen from Table 3 that the players uploaded content in this
category in quite different proportions: almost a third of Stevie and Vain’s TWW related
content deals with canon scenes, while only a quarter of Hulda and Kai’s content focuses
on replaying canon events.
One of the advantages of replaying canon scenes – beyond the fact that the audi-
ence can now consume the story on an audiovisual level – is the change of perspective: the
viewer experiences the scene from a specific character’s point of view.

106 Game Studies

 One of the most important questions of the research was that in the case of replay-
ing canon events, how much and what kind of content appeared on the players’ profiles,
which are adapting the events of the very first, private game sessions, i.e. the prologue at
the beginning of the first live stream episode.

Table 3: Replaying (and telling) canon events

Rhi Blue Vain Kai Stevie Hulda

Replaying canon events 6 6 1 8 31 6

Events of the prologue 1 6 1 8 26 2

Memes 3 3 1 6 13 1

Duets 0 3 0 0 1 0

All TWW content 45 31 3 26 100 22

Source: own processing

Replaying the prologue is particularly important for the analysis. It can be seen that
for all other players in the category, except for Rhi, most of the replayed canon scenes
present the events from the prologue. This result leaves room for several interpretations
and conclusions. On the one hand, it can be interpreted as a tension between the private
nature of the first gaming sessions and the enthusiasm of the players: although before
November 2020 the team was not able to broadcast the gaming sessions, the players
definitely wanted to share not only the appearance of their characters and their main char-
acteristics, but also the adventures they had encountered during the private games with
their TikTok followers. However, since after November 2020, one can only come across
content reflecting the time and narrative of the prologue in the form of flashbacks or
throwbacks, it is also clear that the players did not use the strategy of transmedia story-
telling consciously.
Since the events of the very first gaming sessions were only known to us at the level
of the prologue, in addition to comparing the plot of the prologue with the story of the vid-
eos, we also paid special attention to the time and date the videos were uploaded. Accord-
ing to our understanding, the content uploaded before November 2020 always relates to
the events and narrative of the private gaming sessions played before the first live stream.
In the case of the videos uploaded after November 2020, we compared the content with
the information learned from the live streams, and in addition, we also studied the descrip-
tion and the comment section, which also helped to distinguish the events of the prologue
and the later-on narrative.
During the analysis, the frequency of the TikTok duets in the case of replaying canon
scenes was also taken into account. It can be seen from Table 3 that there were only a
few examples when the players are replaying the given scenes together (either recorded
in the same physical space or by reacting to each other’s videos with their own footage);
this value is the most significant in the case of Blue. The main reason for this lies in the
fact that the players quite often used the solution of replaying the given scenes by includ-
ing characters that were not originally their own. For example, in one video, Blue clearly
wanted to play this dialogue with Kai’s character, Valakas. They indicated this intention
by using subtitles, highlighting Valakas’ name and using colour codes, but Kai did not re-
spond with their own visual material (see leftmybabyblue, 2020).
Finally, we also classified in this category videos of the game master, in which they
specifically thematise the construction of the narrative of the TWW campaign, as well as

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
those short clips that were cut from the live stream to promote the campaign by highlight-
ing some humorous scenes (see A Hobbits Tale, 2020).
The videos in the “Replaying (and telling) canon events” category – as the name sug-
gests – remain faithful to the original text, do not distort the plot, do not change it, modify-
ing at most their tone style in the case of parody videos. Cosplay videos that process canon
scenes outside of the prologue could also be interpreted as adaptations, since the narrative
migrates from one medium to another. In the case of the prologue, however, there is no
existing media text that is adapted on TikTok in cosplay form, since the first game sessions
were not recorded. Thus, cosplay content that processes the prologue serves as transme-
dia extensions that also function as the prequel to the TWW campaign. In this category,
cosplay content is therefore responsible for introducing and presenting the canon.

d) Alternative scenes
This category includes videos in which the characters of the players are placed in
some alternative situation compared to the canon narrative of the role-playing campaign
(Table 4). Within the category we also distinguished two subcategories according to the
various functions the videos may take. In the first subcategory, it is clear that the main
goal of the content was the implication of romance between the characters, and we la-
belled these as ‘ship-contents’. In fan studies,
‘shipping’, is a term in fandom that is derived from the word ‘relationship’. A ship re-
fers to a romantic relationship between two or more characters. An individual can ship
characters whose relationship is canon compliant, or in many cases the ship can be
not represented or only marginally represented within the canon. (Bothe, 2014, p. 5)

Table 4: Alternative scenes

Rhi Blue Vain Kai Stevie Hulda

Alternative scenes 1 6 1 6 5 0

Ship-contents 0 0 0 4 3 0

Death of characters 0 0 1 1 0 0

Duets 1 2 0 0 3 0

All TWW content 45 31 3 26 100 22

Source: own processing

Although in later episodes of the TWW campaign, certain characters do romantically

fall for each other and get together as a couple, in the canon narrative, at the beginning
of the campaign it is quite uncertain which characters are going to end up together. Ship-
contents were particularly common during this time period with Kai and Stevie. It can be
interpreted that the players were trying to live out their own fantasies, playing with the
idea of certain characters forming a couple. Still, it is also possible that these types of
videos provided a kind of fanservice for the audience of the role-playing campaign.
The other subcategory consists of videos that tell a specific alternative story, the
possible death of the given characters. It is important to emphasize that on the level of
the canon narrative of the campaign, each player’s character is alive and well even in the
twenty-fourth episode, which is the most recent, so these scenes are clearly not retell-
ings of an incident that actually happened during one of the game sessions. A total of two
videos were created in this category by Vain and Kai (see Vain Virgo, 2020; Trashmouth
King, 2020). Considering that both of them created such a video, moreover during the

108 Game Studies

same time period, at the end of 2020, and they also used the same audio for the video,
it can be assumed that they joined a heartbreaking trend that was popular at the time
among tabletop role-players and cosplayers on TikTok.
Another important aspect was how common duets were in this category. Similar to
the replaying canon events segment, this form of interactive cosplay storytelling was not
common here either. Although while in the former category this was due to the fact that the
players sometimes replayed scenes by including characters that were not originally their
own, in the latter category it is more about the fact that players mainly initiated duets, but
rarely responded to each other’s ‘invitations’ with actual duets. The videos were created
with the specific goal of the targeted player responding with their character, but this only
rarely happened later on, thus there are only potential duet videos left. For instance, in
one video, Stevie clearly wanted to act out this dialogue with Kai’s character, Valakas – the
player outlines the context of the dialogue between the characters in the video descrip-
tion – but Kai did not respond with their own visual material (see Stevie Bones, 2020b).
It is also important to highlight the phenomenon of self-duetting, the practice in
which the user duets their own previously published video. This technique was used by
Stevie, who in one of their videos envisioned a conversation between Cadaver and his
younger self, (cos)playing both characters (see Stevie Bones, 2020e).
The lack of duets and the appearance of self-duets indicates that while during the
tabletop role-playing sessions – due to its genre – it is evident that creating the story hap-
pens through collaboration, the players prefer to tell the story on TikTok mainly on their
own, cosplaying only their own player character. While the construction of the narrative
is done by a team, on TikTok, the originally shared storytelling is reduced to individual,
character-focused narratives, even when acting out alternative scenes.
The number of videos representing alternative scenes in all the players’ cases is low
compared to the total number of videos related to the campaign. This result suggests that
players are not particularly motivated in creating cosplay content that makes excessive
changes compared to the canonized role-playing narrative. However, they are motivated
in creating content that further introduces the character and shows in detail how they
would react in a fictional situation, to the approach of fictional characters (i.e. charac-
ters that are non-existent in the canonized role-playing narrative), as we established in
the category of “Character-focused content”. But these short, dialogue-oriented alterna-
tive scenes do not particularly disturb the flow of the canonized role-playing narrative.
All of this suggests that the players are basically satisfied with the stories created in the
medium of the TTRPG, and their goal is not to change the story in another medium, but to
further explain, supplement, and tell it from a different perspective.
Cosplay videos classified in this category make radical changes to the original narra-
tive through ships and character deaths, which clearly evokes the content production tech-
niques of creative or transformative fandoms. Although the subjects do play with alternative
possibilities, with monologues or actions that differ from their characters’ personalities, as
Table 4 shows, only a few such contents were created, and mostly without collaboration
as duets. Although cosplay videos could be efficient tools for rewriting the canon text, in
this case study the subjects used it more to reinforce and supplement the canon narrative.

e) Unidentified content
As mentioned earlier, it was not possible to decide to which category some videos
in the examined corpus belonged, even if the date of the upload, the description of the
video and the comments were taken into account. As can be seen in the table below, only
three of the two hundred and twenty-seven analysed videos fall into this category. Two of
these occurred with Blue: it was not clear whether it was a scene showing the character’s

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
backstory (character-focused content) or whether it adapted an event of the canonized
role-playing narrative (replaying canon events) since the content of the video in question
could be matched to both categories. In the case of Rhi, it was a live duet, during which
it was not clear whether the rogue character appearing together with Gwen belonged to
another role-playing campaign or personified an NPC from the TWW campaign.

Table 5: Unidentified content

Rhi Blue Vain Kai Stevie Hulda

Cosplay showcase/transitions 1 2 0 0 0 0

All TWW content 45 31 3 26 100 22

Source: own processing

Conclusion
The cosplay content shared on TikTok clearly supports the fact that players are par-
ticularly motivated to share narratives related to their characters outside of the RPG ses-
sions as well. They proved to be especially active in sharing the events of the prologue,
the very first private game sessions. However, during the research it also became clear
that the systematic distribution of information in different media was not necessarily con-
sciously applied.
Examining the phenomenon from the viewer’s side, the cosplay content shared on
TikTok perfectly fits the definition of transmedia storytelling/expansion: the viewer is in-
vited to look for and interpret additional content available on several different media plat-
forms to reconstruct and fully understand the entire narrative. Of course, the source text,
i.e. the narrative of the TWW campaign was understandable to begin with, but since the
events of the prologue are only represented via a written summary at the beginning of the
first episode of the campaign, it is clear that the cosplay content shared on TikTok telling
the story of the prologue can be seen as a prequel to the TWW campaign, or the prequel
to “A sea of trouble”.
At the same time, it is also clear that the primary function of the cosplay content is
not replaying or retelling canon role-playing narratives, but to present the characters in
more detail and depth, and to share more information about them and their relationships,
as was seen in the category of “Character-focused content”. Of course, this can also be
traced back to the technical aspects of TikTok and its offered options. While Twitch, which
is the main medium of role-playing sessions, allows players to appear in the same online
space at the same time, TikTok is not able to do this, only by the duet function, but in
this case, the production of the cosplay content does not take place at the same time. In
comparison, advancing the narrative of TTRPGs (execution of missions, inclusion of NPCs
that have a great impact on the story, etc.) requires the joint presence of the members. In
the absence of this, the cosplay content uploaded on TikTok mainly represents the easily
replayable narratives of the campaign: a dialogue between characters, a short scene pre-
sented from the point of view of a specific character, etc.
As the data suggests, although the subjects of the case study used content produc-
tion strategies typical of transformative fandoms (alternative storylines, ship-contents,
character death AUs), their cosplay videos mainly reinforce and complement the canon
role-playing narrative and communicate it in a medium outside of the recorded play

110 Game Studies

sessions. Therefore, their cosplay content in this case can be interpreted as an activity
typical of curative fandoms. However, it is also important to see that cosplay content up-
loaded on TikTok also provides an opportunity to transfer these characters into different
role-playing campaigns, to create alternative/parallel universes and crossovers (as when
interacting with characters present in other campaigns), thus not only enabling transme-
dia storytelling, but also expanding already existing narratives, creating crossovers, there-
fore, it is potentially suitable for content production typical of transformative fandoms.
All of this confirms the storytelling role of cosplay in social media and points out that
with sufficient planning and coordination, cosplay content can even function as part of an
extensive transmedia universe in the future.

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Bainbridge, J., & Norris, C. (2013). Posthuman drag: Understanding cosplay as social networking in a
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Jenkins, H. (2008). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York University.
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leftmybabyblue [@leftmybabyblue]. (2020, September 26). Val (@vampirethembo) and Coralines
😂
relationship in a nutshell #dnd #bard #TikTokCooks #fyp #captioned #foryoupage [Video].
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112 Game Studies

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 Acta Ludologica 2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue

Playful Learning Approach

in an English Class in a Rural
Normal School
Ana Arán Sánchez

Dr. Ana Arán Sánchez, PhD.

Escuela Normal Rural “Ricardo Flores Magón”
Carretera Saucillo-Las Varas km 2.5
33620 Chihuahua, Saucillo
MEXICO
[email protected]

Ana Arán Sánchez is a full-time teacher and researcher at a public university in the north
of Mexico. She has a masters’ degree in psychopedagogy and a PhD in educational
sciences. She has participated in international symposiums and is the author of book
chapters as well as journal articles. She is part of the National System of Researchers
(SNII) in Mexico and is a recipient of the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public
Communication scholarship for the project “Methods for the marginalized: Reaching
and researching vulnerable populations”. Her studies focus on teaching English as a
foreign language and on indigenous women in higher education.

114 Game Studies

ABSTRACT:
Using playful learning methodologies in foreign language learning among adults has gained
more attention in recent years, due to the advantages and benefits that students receive
from it. The results of an action research intervention with a mixed-method approach are
presented, which was conducted in a Rural Normal School, a public federal higher edu-
cation institution located in the state of Chihuahua, north of Mexico. This research was
implemented in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) course, involving 90 second-year
students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in elementary education and preschool education,
during the 2022-2023 school year. The purpose of the study was to design and implement
a program using a playful learning approach to develop the cognitive, affective, and socio-
cultural aspects of the students. The instruments used included participant observation,
a teacher’s diary, and a structured questionnaire to identify students’ experiences in the
English class. The results show strong development in the cognitive and affective aspects,
and a lesser degree of development in the sociocultural element.

KEY WORDS:
English teaching, higher education, learning process, normal rural schools, playful approach.

DOI:
10.34135/actaludologica.2024-7-SI.114-126

Introduction
When we play, we are engaged, relaxed and challenged – an optimal state of mind for
learning through play. We can explore social relationships and experiment with language
(Solis et al., 2017). Accordingly, there are numerous studies about the benefits and advan-
tages of using play-based pedagogies with young learners, as it is well established that
play during the early years is a central activity for children that is also beneficial in terms
of learning and development (McInnes, 2019). However, there has been little research into
playful learning in adulthood (Nørgård et al., 2017). Whitton (2018) states that this is an
emerging field in higher education, adding that “there is a dearth of research evidence
as to its applicability and effectiveness, and a lack of understanding of the underpinning
mechanisms that support the hypothesized links between play and learning, creativity,
and innovation” (p. 2). Nevertheless, according to Rice (2009) there are various benefits
to learning and teaching through play for adults.
In particular, the use of games in foreign language teaching has several advantages,
such as increased motivation and engagement in learning (Cruaud, 2018). Similarly, Lucena
Romero (2020) makes the case for using this approach as an important resource in for-
eign language teaching, where professors integrate learning components through educa-
tional games or activities that require students to solve tasks using specific language and
vocabulary. He states that it increases learners’ concentration levels, helps create a relaxing
and productive environment, and improves the use of cultural expressions, while decreas-
ing fear of making mistakes. In their study with Uzbek English learners, Jaxongir qizi and
Bo’tabayeva (2024) emphasize the critical role that playful methods play, specifically in
strengthening English vocabulary and increasing engagement and retention.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 In the Latin-American context there is a vast corpus of recent research dedicat-
ed to exploring the benefits of playful learning with children and young students. For
example, the study by Nury (2019) with elementary school children in Venezuela, or
Cevallos-Triguero and Palma-Villavicencio (2022), as well as Chimarro Reinoso (2023)
in Ecuador. However, in higher education the studies are less abundant. Nevertheless, it
is worth mentioning the research done by Cordero Badilla and Núñez et al. (2018) with
undergraduates in Costa Rica, Montoya Muñoz (2022) in Peru, Suárez Vera (2013) in
Colombia, Alcedo Salamanca (2020) in Venezuela and Narváez Sarango et al. (2023) in
Ecuador. To continue in this line of research and contribute to the area in the Mexican
context, the purpose of the following study is to design and implement a program us-
ing a playful teaching approach to develop cognitive, affective, and sociocultural aspects
among learners of an English course. They are 90 young women, students at a Rural
Normal School located in the north of Mexico, who during the 2022-2023 academic year
were studying to become preschool or elementary school teachers.

Theoretical Framework
According to Kangas et al. (2022), the term ‘play’ describes a level of engagement in
an activity that is enjoyable and is carried out for recreation, rather than having a practical
or serious purpose. Additionally, Rice (2009) highlights the four principles of play: it is an
experience, has intrinsic motives, focuses on the process rather than the outcome, and
involves being engaged. On the other hand, Mora Márquez and Camacho Torralbo (2019)
emphasize different characteristics of play, such as the qualities of being rule-governed,
fictitious, and non-productive, among others. Play has the potential to provide rich, in-
teractive experiences that can foster learning, as well as cognitive and skill development
(Haliuk, 2022). It helps individuals become acquainted with their environment and inter-
act with their surrounding reality, gradually integrating into it (Andrade Carrión, 2020).
Play is an activity that includes emotional, social, and cognitive features, which is
why it is a powerful medium to support learning (Mardell et al., 2021). Caon (2020) agrees
with this principle, stating that it is “the vital charge in which strong intrinsic motivational
inducements become integrated with affective-emotive, cognitive, and social aspects of
the learner” (p. 447). Similarly, Garay (2021) states that both children and adults derive
intellectual, psychological, and social benefits from play.
Caon (2020) maintains that this methodology is based on two concepts: game and
play. As stated by Lucena Romero (2020), when we play, we learn and develop skills. Plass
et al. (2014) explain that it is “an activity by the learner aimed at constructing a mental
model, designed to include one or more elements of games to enhance the learning pro-
cess” (p. 6). This teaching approach includes practices and routines that support chil-
dren’s play and learning in education (Kangas et al., 2022).
Accordingly, this methodology is characterized by key features of play, such as be-
ing self-rewarding and engaging the whole person (Heidari-Shahreza, 2024). Solis et al.
(2017), characterize this approach as joyful, meaningful, iterative, and socially interactive.
Playful learning occurs when individuals are active, involved and connecting with their
peers (Alsina Tarrés & Farrés Cullell, 2021). For Whitton (2018), examples of tools used in
this approach include games, toys, simulations, and puzzles, while the techniques involve
pedagogies that facilitate play, such as role-plays, performances, and problem-solving.
Plass et al. (2014) propose an integrated design framework of playful learning that in-
cludes three basic elements:

116 Game Studies

 • Cognitive engagement. Learning based on games is a cognitive activity that contrib-
utes to generating mental models by selecting information, organizing it as visual or
verbal representations, and integrating this with prior knowledge (Plass et al., 2014).
According to Helme and Clarke (2001), it is the thinking process that students en-
gage in while participating in academic learning tasks. On the other hand, Daher et
al. (2021) state that cognitive engagement reflects the level of students’ involvement
in a task in terms of how they approach it. Finally, Rotgans and Schmidt (2011) under-
stand cognitive engagement as a state in which students put a considerable amount
of effort and time into understanding a specific topic.
• Affective engagement. This aspect is related to students’ experiences with emo-
tions, attitudes, motivation, and interest. It is based on the premise that games cre-
ate higher affective engagement with the learner, leading to increased cognitive en-
gagement and thus facilitating effortless learning (Plass et al., 2014) or flow, where
an individual is deeply involved in an activity, experiencing enjoyment and cognitive
engagement (Helme & Clarke, 2001). Manzano-León et al. (2021) further delve into
this idea by connecting it with intrinsic motivation, arguing that when students en-
joy the mechanics of a certain game, learning becomes associated with a pleasant
situation. According to Daher et al. (2021), affective engagement pertains to stu-
dents’ emotions (positive or negative) towards the learning process, classmates,
and teachers. Additionally, Garay (2021) suggests that this term encompasses the
beliefs, feelings, moods, and attitudes that students experience, as well as how the
game environment impacts their engagement.
• Socio-cultural engagement. Given that learning is socially constructed, games can
foster social engagement by providing peers with interaction opportunities (Plass et
al., 2014). According to Garay (2021), this term focuses on finding ways for learner
participation within groups, utilizing collective knowledge to achieve goals, relating
learning to cultural standards and identities, and utilizing social and cultural influ-
ences as motivation for learning. Furthermore, Vartiainen et al. (2024) cite Alcock
(2013), stating that play is mediated by various socio-cultural elements, such as lan-
guage, gestures, signs, materials, and actions.

These cognitive, affective and socio-cultural engagement aspects, in turn, involve

other essential elements, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: The three pillars of playful learning

Cognitive Engagement Affective Engagement Socio-cultural Engagement

situated in context motivation and interest social context

transfer of learning emotional design: representation social aspects of agency

scaffolding and feedback emotional design: interactions observational learning

dynamic assessment goal orientation relatedness/self-perception

information representation self-efficacy

gestures and movement self-esteem

Source: own processing based on Plass et al. (2014)

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
Research Methodology
This study is based on the socio-critical paradigm, which aims to create social trans-
formations in the context where the intervention is carried out (Melero Aguilar, 2011). Ac-
cording to Corona Lisboa (2016), as cited by Loza Ticona et al. (2020), data collection
instruments of both an interpretative and positivist nature can be used in this paradigm.
Consequently, this research employs a mixed-methods approach, since it “gathers and
analyses quantitative and qualitative data in the same research” (Guelmes & Nieto, 2015,
p. 24). By using this approach, a significant amount of evidence was collected to better
comprehend the phenomena in question and to strengthen theoretical and practical
knowledge (Pereira Pérez, 2011).
The participatory action research method provides concrete answers to the is-
sues identified by both researchers and participants (Guevara Alban et al., 2020). It is
an innovative methodological alternative capable of creating profound social changes
(Melero Aguilar, 2011). The following research phases were implemented: planning, action,
observation, and reflection, as established by Sequera (2014). This author defines the first
stage as the decision-making process to establish the action plan according to the context
being analysed. The next step is to implement the plan, taking into consideration that it
must be flexible and can be adjusted according to the emerging needs of the context. Sub-
sequently, the researcher evaluates the action plan by systematically recording the obser-
vations. The reflection process follows, which is not considered the final phase but rather a
closure of the research cycle where advancements and areas for improvement are reviewed.
Table 2 presents examples of the activities that were implemented as part of the
English course with second-grade students. It is worth mentioning that all activities were
assessed by the teacher-researcher using the teacher’s diary format and participant ob-
servation technique.

Table 2: Action plan for an English course with second-grade students

Topic Content Activities Materials/Resources

possessive pronouns and pos- Go Fish card game with family cards, PPT, computer and
Family
sessive form, family vocabulary members, Family Feud projector

play different board games

games vocabulary, imperative
Games (Bingo, Jenga, memory, board games
form, words related to order
Parcheesi etc.) and make a tutorial

verbs related to cooking vo- memory cards, Go Fish

countable and uncountable nouns
cabulary, food vocabulary, cards, restaurant menus,
Food and memory game, Go Fish card game
countable and uncountable pretend plates, silverware
recipes with restaurant menu, waitress
nouns, adjectives to describe and food, plastic fruits and
and client role-play, 20 questions
fruits and vegetables vegetables

countries and nationalities pretend passports and visa

Rock Paper Scissors with nation-
Countries vocabulary, Wh- questions and stamps, board game, dice,
alities, tourist board game
answers tokens and question cards

Barbie fashion parade, paper dolls Barbie dolls and Barbie

numbers and colours vocabu-
Clothes dress-up, customer and shop as- clothes, paper dolls and
lary, Wh- questions
sistant role-play paper clothes

body parts dominoes, Guess Dominoes, Guess Who?,

Describing parts of the body vocabulary,
Who?, past and present memory board games, memory
myself verb to be
game cards

Source: own processing

118 Game Studies

 The instruments used in this research are the teacher’s diary, participant observa-
tion, and a questionnaire. The teacher’s diary promotes the expression of pedagogical
reflections and experiences regarding performance in their teaching practice. Further-
more, it is a tool that facilitates teachers’ understanding of their daily tasks and reflection
on how to handle conflicting situations in the classroom. It involves a systematic record of
incidents to promote positive change. The format used is shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Teacher’s diary format

Of the Teacher Of the Student Didactic Communication

activity individual behaviour organization and space distribution

sequence involvement/ participation organization and time distribution.

normative/regulatory behaviour behaviour with their classmates class work

emotional behaviour behaviour with the teacher class-related events

non-class related events

Source: own processing

Another technique used was participant observation, which enabled the research-
er to collect information by actively participating in the events under study and gaining
insights into the reality perceived by the study’s participants (Rodríguez-Gómez et al.,
1996). The format employed was based on the components of cognitive, affective, and
socio-cultural engagement proposed by Plass et al. (2014), as shown in Table 1.
Lastly, a structured questionnaire designed by the researcher, based on the proposal
of Plass et al. (2014), was administered to 23 key informants selected from the 90 second-
year bachelor students using a convenience sample. This instrument is considered the
primary method for collecting quantitative data in a standardized manner, which is coher-
ent for analysis (Roopa & Rani, 2012). The questionnaire was divided into four sections:
affective engagement (3 questions), cognitive engagement (6 questions), social/cultural
engagement (4 questions), and open-ended questions (2 questions). The methodology
used to analyse the information was divided into three phases: description, conceptual
organization, and theory. In the first stage, data from the three instruments were com-
bined and organized into different categories, which constitutes the second step. Finally,
the data obtained were linked to theory and background research to explain the results.
Ninety second-year undergraduates participated in this research, who were stu-
dents in the bachelor’s degree program in preschool or elementary education during the
2022-2023 school year. As part of their syllabus, they have English as a Foreign Language
(EFL) course during the first three years of their studies. The main purpose of this subject
is for students to develop their foreign language speaking skills in communicative acts,
as well as to enhance their awareness and knowledge of English culture, according to the
Mexican Ministry of Public Education (Revista Voces, 2018).
The participants of this study are from the Rural Normal School “Ricardo Flores
Magón” (ENRRFM), located in the municipality of Saucillo, state of Chihuahua, in north-
ern Mexico. This is a public higher education institution catering to low-income students,
founded in 1931, and it functions as a boarding school exclusively for women. It has an
enrolment of approximately 400 students and offers two bachelor’s degrees: preschool
education and elementary school education.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
Research Results
The three elements of the framework of Plass et al. (2014) were used to analyse and
present the results of this intervention, which are described in the next section:

a) Affective engagement
Due to the extensive amount of data that was collected, the analysis from the par-
ticipant observation and teacher’s diary will focus on the most relevant contents seen in
class that are related to each pillar of playful learning, as established by Plass et al. (2014).
For the topic of clothes, the learners were enthusiastic about the Barbie dolls. Besides
dressing them, they developed their creativity and exercised their fantasies by brushing
their hair, naming them, and inventing their background stories. Initially, they had to follow
specific instructions to dress the doll in a certain way. They displayed confidence, saying,
“this is too easy” and applauding when they got it right; thus showing positive emotions
toward the learning process.
The second part of the activity was more open-ended. They were free to dress the
dolls however they wanted and then describe what they were wearing. Some organized a
fashion parade, making the dolls walk, while others recorded them using their cell phones.
They later edited the video with music and shared it with their classmates on social media.
This is considered an example of effortless learning, or flow, as the learners were deeply
involved in the task, and showed signs of joy and cognitive engagement. During the activ-
ity, one of the students started to cry. When the teacher-researcher asked her if she was
okay, she answered: “You never know when is the last time you will be able to play”.
With the paper dolls task, the teacher-researcher was uncertain whether they knew
what they were, but it became clear that they did. They began reminiscing about how they
used to play with these types of dolls when they were young. They expressed excitement
about designing the dolls’ clothes however they pleased, but a couple of them complained
about colouring and designing clothes, because they found it boring and time-consuming.
In terms of the topic of family, students experienced a degree of frustration when
playing the card game Go Fish. This happened because the teacher-researcher used fa-
mous families from sitcoms and reality shows, and not all of the learners were familiar
with those characters. Nevertheless, some of them showed empathy by helping out their
classmates, and those who were confused tried to complete the game, even if it was clear
that they had lost some interest.
The Family Feud game was a more successful activity since the idea of competing
against each other motivated them, even though there were no prizes for the winners. Be-
cause there were only two teams and the groups consisted of approximately 25 students,
the teams were large, so some did not get involved in the activity and opted to use their cell
phones instead. Those who were interested showed a high level of engagement, discuss-
ing the best options for the answers. Several questions posed a challenge for them, and in
some cases, showed negative emotions such as anger for not guessing the most popular
answer. Even if the emotions that they experienced were not positive, it still shows affec-
tive engagement of the students with the activities involved in the learning process. After
one of them guessed an answer that gave her team many points, she exclaimed, “Now I
am ready for the final exam” as a joke, much to the delight of her classmates.
Additionally, Table 4 contains the questionnaire answers that the key informants gave
regarding their affective engagement during the English class activities. By analysing the re-
plies that the participants gave to this set of questions, it can be concluded that the program
was successful in fostering affective engagement in the learners towards the subject’s topics.

120 Game Studies

Table 4: Affective engagement

Answers Percentage
Statements
Yes No Yes No

The task is motivating for the learner because of the presentation,

23 0 100% 0
challenge, curiosity or fantasy development.

The task promotes positive emotions, which generate learning. 23 0 100% 0

The task favours a positive attitude towards the topic that is being taught. 23 0 100% 0

Source: own processing

b) Cognitive engagement
Regarding the topic of food, students engaged with visual data in the memory game,
auditory information with the role-play, and kinesthetic learning with pretend food. The
scaffolding began with the Go Fish card game and menu activities in teams. Then, they
practiced vocabulary words and grammar structures in a more complex waitress-client
role-play scenario, which required fluent communication and acting out of roles. The
transfer of learning was achieved through two different activities with the same purpose:
the restaurant card game and the role-play. The students integrated movement into their
learning process by identifying pairs in the memory game and acting out roles in the role-
play. This activity resembled a real-life scenario, thus situating it within context.
Concerning the unit of countries and nationalities and regarding situated learning, stu-
dents practiced grammar structures and wh-questions that are similar to real-life situations,
such as when traveling outside their country. They were able to transfer their learning because
they repeated the skill of asking and answering questions many times, each time the students
interacted and played with their classmates. Scaffolding was implemented by having them first
work in teams for the tourist game and then individually with the passport activity. They used
different gestures and movements in the game of Rock Paper Scissors. They interacted with au-
ral and kinaesthetic data with the passport activity, and visual information with the tourist game.
Table 5 contains the questionnaire answers that the key informants gave regarding
their cognitive engagement during the English class activities. By analysing the replies
that participants gave to this set of questions, it can be concluded that the program suc-
cessfully fostered cognitive engagement in the learners towards the subject’s topics.

Table 5: Cognitive engagement

Answers Percentage
Statements
Yes No Yes No

The information and problem of the activity resembles an everyday real

23 0 100% 0
situation, which facilitates transfer of learning.

The task favours automatic learning through repeated practice of one skill
23 0 100% 0
in different contexts.

The activity assesses the acquisition of skills that need to be learned. 23 0 100% 0

The activity is assessed in a precise and continuous way, and is centred

23 0 100% 0
on the students’ process.

The activity is presented using more than one mode (visual, aural, tactile
23 0 100% 0
or kinaesthetic)

The activity involves motor skills, movements and gestures. 23 0 100% 0

Source: own processing

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
 c) Social/cultural engagement
When the topic of games was taught, the students had to collaborate to follow the
rules and reach agreements. When one of them tried to cheat, her teammates would
reprimand her to stop that behaviour. The teacher-researcher brought some games that
the students were not familiar with, like Jacks. In this case, they employed observational
learning, since those who did not know how to play studied their classmates and tried
to follow their example. Also, they formed connections with other players to achieve a
common goal, such as not letting the tower fall in Jenga. During these activities, students
mediated their interactions using language, materials, and actions.
Additionally, regarding food, the role-play required students to collaborate and in-
teract socially within a shared, pretend context. A social aspect of agency was identified
when one of them decided to use a sweater as her apron, and others followed her example.
Students were also able to learn by studying their peers, since they played as clients and
observed their classmates acting as waitresses, learning new vocabulary words they had
asked for, and integrating them into their play. Afterward, they had to reverse roles, giving
some of them a model to follow. This role-play activity helped them learn and reinforce
cultural standards and identities.
They participated individually in the Go Fish card game. When it ended because one
of the team members had collected all the menu items she wanted, they expressed inter-
est in playing longer because they were enjoying the game and wanted to win. Due to the
available card sets, students had to work in large teams, which had a positive outcome in
terms of relatedness, as some of them were used to working with the same two or three
people and now had a chance to connect with other classmates.
Table 6 contains the responses to the questionnaire that the key informants pro-
vided regarding their socio-cultural engagement during the English class activities. The
answers reveal that this aspect needs to be strengthened further, as a small percentage
of students did not believe that they benefited from peer collaboration, social interaction,
or establishing a sense of connection with their classmates.

Table 6: Socio-cultural engagement

Answers Percentage
Statements
Yes No Yes No

The task produces a benefit for the student through peer collaboration
22 1 95.7% 4.3%
and social interaction.

The task involves individual and group work, favouring interaction

23 0 100% 0
amongst classmates.

The task helps develop observational learning, as well as the involvement

23 0 100% 0
of all participants.

The task favours a sense of connection with the other players, which
21 2 91.3% 8.7%
creates satisfaction, motivation and desire to continue playing.

Source: own processing

122 Game Studies

Discussion and Conclusions
The data collected through the students’ questionnaire as well as the teacher’s diary
and participant observation format reveal a high level of affective engagement with the
participants in this study. The learners considered that the class’s activities were moti-
vating, promoted positive emotions, and fostered a favourable attitude towards the con-
tent as well. The teacher-researcher observed students experiencing effortless learning
(Plass et al., 2014) or flow (Helme & Clarke, 2001) when they were deeply involved in the
topic of clothes, as well as a wide range of emotions (joy, anger, frustration, delight) during
the theme of family. In particular, they exhibited affective engagement and positive emo-
tions toward the learning process, as established by Daher et al. (2021).
Regarding cognitive engagement, both the students’ responses and the data obtained
from the teacher’s diary and observations were positive. The learners maintained that the
activities in the class resembled real-life situations, the content was practiced repeatedly in
different contexts, and the activities were centred on them. The teacher-researcher identi-
fied that students were able to select important information and organize it to represent
(Plass et al., 2014), as exemplified by the passports activity during the unit on countries.
Also, they clearly invested a considerable amount of time and effort in activities like the
waitress and client role-play during the unit on food, to understand the lexical and syntactic
content and to be able to apply them in a practical way (Rotgans & Schmidt, 2011).
Evidently, an area that needs improvement is socio-cultural engagement with the
students: some of them perceived that the activities did not promote a sense of connec-
tion with their peers and that social interaction was not adequately achieved. Neverthe-
less, the teacher-researcher observed that the learners were able to use language, materi-
als, and actions to mediate their social interaction (Alcock, 2013, as quoted by Vartiainen
et al., 2024), especially during the unit on games. Also, the students had the opportunity
to interact with their peers and develop social engagement (Plass et al., 2014). The social
and cultural aspect is an essential element not only of the playful learning approach but
also of learning a foreign language, as the Mexican Ministry of Public Education (Revista
Voces, 2018) states. As Tantaleán and Ascoy (2013) note, acquiring a foreign language
should include familiarising its cultural elements to promote tolerance of and respect for
individuals from different contexts. Thus, future research can explore how to integrate
this aspect into playful activities by using resources such as films, music and literature.
A limitation of the study is related to the number of key informants who answered the
questionnaire, since a larger sample could generate significant results that could be gen-
eralized to other educational contexts. However, the data collected and analysed during
the implementation of this study contributes, to a modest extent, to the existing literature
on the use of playful learning approaches in the Latin American context, specifically in
Mexican higher education. Similarly, implementing Plass et al.’s (2014) proposal for an
integrated design framework for playful learning in a different background helps test and
assess the authors’ program.
The playful learning methodology in foreign language learning in higher education
has, as previously stated by Cruaud (2018), Lucena Romero (2020), and Jaxongir qizi and
Bo’tabayeva (2024), numerous advantages and benefits for learners. The results obtained
by these researchers, as well as the evidence gathered in this study, may act as an incen-
tive for English teachers to try this approach in their classes and to explore their students’
opinions about it. As Manzano-León et al. (2021) highlight, the significance of identifying
students’ perceptions regarding the implementation of playful activities in the classroom
can help teachers improve students’ acquisition of curricular and social competencies.

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
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126 Game Studies

ACTA LUDOLOGICA
Editorial
Policy
Acta Ludologica is dedicated to provide a forum for the publication of theoretical and
research articles dealing with professional scientific reflections and academic discourses
in the field of digital games and games studies. The journal’s Editorial Board and Scientific
Committee dedicate their work to offer a high quality open access, double-blind peer-
reviewed interdisciplinary journal useful for the exchange of knowledge and experience
between domestic and foreign academics and researchers. The editors of Acta Ludologica
consistently respect the principles of securing content and formal relevance of the published
texts via set criteria. They actively participate in domestic and foreign academic cooperation
in the name of scientific-research progress and the expansion of existing sets of knowledge
in the fields of digital games and game studies and related topics and issues.
The authors and co-authors of the published texts are presumed to be skilled academics,
scholars and professionals who are able to work with various information sources and
technologies to apply corresponding theoretical-methodological approaches, originality
and innovation in relation to the elaborated themes and issues. The Editorial Board of the
journal expects from the authors that the final texts to be published become subject to
consistent spelling, stylistics and formalities in accordance with the citation rules of the
journal and the current content arrangement of the articles (see Guidelines for Authors).
The pre-set templates are available in electronic form at: http://actaludologica.com/
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Guidelines

Acta Ludologica accepts various kinds of academic writings – theoretical articles, theoretical arti-
cles combined with presentations of research results or research results including their implemen-
tation into practice as well as reviews of monographs or other publications, shorter news articles,
essays and interviews with renowned game theorists, scholars and professionals., which have not
been publicly published yet. Each received study will undergo a double-blind peer review process
and the editorial board will decide whether to accept or reject the text for publication on the ba-
sis of the elaborated reviews. The Editorial Board may accept the text conditionally and require
correction of the text by the author(s) according to the remarks or suggestions of the reviewers.
All manuscripts must be written in English. The journal consists of the following sections:
• Game Studies: theoretical articles in the extent of 21,600-54,000 characters (12-30
author pages); research results and their practical implementation in the extent
of 12,600-54,000 characters (7-30 author pages);
• Interview: interviews with people, whose contribution is important to the development
of game studies and the digital game sector (scholars and scientists of games studies
and related fields, game developers, professionals of the gaming sector, game events
organizers, etc.), to the extent of 5,400-18,000 characters (3-10 author pages);
• Reviews: reviews of monographs and textbooks from the fields of digital games and
game studies, which are not older than one year, in the extent of 5,400-9,000 charac-
ters (3-5 author pages); reviews of digital games based on specific context of theoretical
or research framework, in the extent of 5,400-9,000 characters (3-5 author pages);
• Add-ons: short-ranged scientific, philosophical and artistic reflections on phenomenona
of the comprehensive game world in the extent of 3,600 characters (1-2 author pages).

Text format (unless specified otherwise in brackets below):

• Microsoft Word text editor;
• Font type: Times New Roman;
• Font size: 12 pt;
• Alignment: justified;
• Spacing: 1;
• All margins: 2.5 cm;
• Do not divide words;
• Quotations and referenced passages: use numbered footnotes on the relevant page
(not at the end of the manuscript).

Content arrangement of the manuscript:

• Title of the text in English (16 pt, bold, align centre);
• Name(s) and surname(s) of the author(s) (14 pt, align centre);
• Abstract in English – from 150 to 200 words (10 pt);
• Key words in English (10 pt);
• Titles of individual chapters (14 pt, bold);
• For Bibliography format, see the citation rules on the journal’s web page;
• Contact data (name(s) and surname(s) of the author(s) with full academic degrees, full
address of the affiliated institution, e-mail, short bio and portrait photo of the author(s).

Submission: e-mail your article to: [email protected]

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ISSN 2585-8599
e-ISSN 2585-9218
EV 5620/18
EV 29/22/EPP

Acta Ludologica
Faculty of Mass Media Communication
University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava

2024, Vol. 7, Special Issue: Games and Language