Literary Gaming (MIT Press) by Astrid Ensslin

In this e-book, Astrid Ensslin examines literary videogames -- hybrid electronic artifacts that experience components of either video games and literature, combining the ludic and the literary. those works might be thought of verbal paintings within the broadest feel (in that language performs an important half of their aesthetic appeal); they draw on online game mechanics; and they're digital-born, depending on a electronic medium (unlike, for instance, traditional books learn on e-readers). They hire narrative, dramatic, and poetic innovations with a view to discover the affordances and boundaries of ludic buildings and approaches, and they're designed to make avid gamers think about traditional video game features. Ensslin methods those hybrid works as a brand new type of experimental literary paintings that calls for novel methods of enjoying and interpreting. She proposes a scientific approach for studying literary-ludic (L-L) texts that takes under consideration the analytic issues of either literary stylistics and ludology.After developing the theoretical underpinnings of her concept, Ensslin introduces the L-L spectrum as an analytical framework for literary video games. in response to the phenomenological contrast among deep and hyper realization, the L-L spectrum charts a work's relative emphases on interpreting and gameplay. Ensslin applies this analytical toolkit to shut readings of chosen works, relocating from the predominantly literary to the basically ludic, from on-line hypermedia fiction to Flash fiction to interactive fiction to poetry video games to a hugely designed literary "auteur" video game. ultimately, she considers her cutting edge analytical method within the context of up to date ludology, media stories, and literary discourse analysis.