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The Aesthetics of Early Adventure Games: A Reflection of Film History

2011; Volume: 6; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.18848/1833-1866/cgp/v06i02/35926

2473-5809

Veli‐Matti Karhulahti,

Cinema and Media Studies

This paper examines the artistic potential of videogames by concerning the early aesthetics of a genre generally referred to as adventure games. The main argument is that the development of adventure game aesthetics correlates with the aesthetic development of film. The argument will rest on two technical turning points that took place within the initial stages of videogame and film industries: the use of voice as a sonic and the use of color as a visual component. Whereas in the history of cinema those technical improvements represent the shift from silent film to film with sound and color, for adventure games they meant text-based interactive fiction stepping aside for graphic adventures with voice-acted characters. The paper will focus on examining the corresponding impacts that this technical development had on their methods of artistic expression.