Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Serious Storytelling

2010; IGI Global; Linguagem: Inglês

10.4018/978-1-61520-739-8.ch002

2327-9303

Rudy McDaniel, Stephen M. Fiore, Denise Nicholson,

Media, Gender, and Advertising

In this chapter, the authors explore the nature and function of storytelling in serious games. Drawing from the field of narratology, they explore research related to narrative expression and relate those ideas to serious game design and development. They also consider interactive storytelling and apply and adapt traditional ideas about story as a static and predetermined entity into this new setting, a setting which depends in part upon gamer participation to craft dramatic experiences. The authors conceptualize narrative as a combination of plot, character, and environment, and then use that conceptualization to devise a narrative taxonomy that is useful as a heuristic for developing stronger stories in serious games. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the hybrid FPS/RPG game Fallout 3, an analysis included to show that even highly regarded and award-winning games are lacking in the narrative coherence necessary to improve the level of dramatic immersion in virtual worlds.