The Composition of Video Games

Johansen Quijano has been studying games, gaming, and gamer culture for over a decade. Although his early work focused on gaming and language acquisition, he quickly turned his attention to game theory and the rhetoric of games. He has published in several anthologies and journals, participated in translation, adaptation, and creative videogame projects, and presented in local, national, and international conferences. He is currently an assistant professor of English at Tarrant County College where he lectures on writing, literature, and media.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Setting the Groundwork

The Lack of a Unified Framework 9 delete• deleteWhat Is a Game

Anyway? 13 delete• deleteRevisiting Play and Narrative 24 delete• delete

Redefining Types of Players 33 delete• deleteThe Role of the Player 41

Chapter 2: Narrative at Play: Game Composition and Story

The Question of Ergodicity 55 delete• deleteLinearity, the Story and

Narrative 67 delete• deleteThe Chronotope and Sideshadowing 73 delete• delete

Multiple Layers and ­Time-Looped Narrative 84 delete• deletePlay and

Space as Narrative 94

Chapter 3: The Rhetoric of Games

Design, Play, Remediation, Solvency and Space as a Rhetoric

of Games 109 delete• deleteA Rhetoric of Procedure 119 delete• deleteThe Visual

Rhetoric of Games 131

Chapter 4: Audiovisual Ludonarrativity

A Harmony of Dissonance 150 delete• deleteExpanding Ludonarrativity

Through Rhetoric 160 delete• deleteThe Aural Dimension 172

Chapter 5: Themes and Audiovisual Ludonarrativity

Alchemy at Dawn: Ayesha’s Time Management Dilemma 184 delete• delete

Hax0r Is the 1337: Watch_D0gs and the Failed Surveillance State 192

Conclusion: Game Over—Insert Coin to Continue

Works Cited

Index