An exploration of the potential for new narrative experiences in first person perspective gaming.

探索第一人称视角游戏中新叙事体验的潜力。

• 批准号: AH/E002226/1
• 负责人: Daniel Pinchbeck
• 金额: $ 7.04万
• 依托单位: University of Portsmouth
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FE002226%2F1
• 关键词: exploration; potential; new; narrative; experiences

First person perspective, or shooter, (FPS) games are mass-market virtual realities, whose cultural significance is increasingly clear. Millions of players use these games worldwide, yet their content is tends to be deeply simplistic and problematic. FPS games are generally highly violent; have very limited emotional depth or semantic complexity; and utilise a tiny number of narratives and archetypes. Although developers have made huge progress in the complexity of devices used to deliver narratives in such environments, the available actions presented to the player are still limited to point-and-click gunplay. Does the inherent nature of the FPS game and the demands that complex interaction places upon a system mean that it is impossible to create compelling, more complex cybertexts that utilise a greater spread of the creative tools offered by literature, narratology and performance theory? We believe it is possible to not only retain, but indeed to expand, the engaging playability of FPS games whilst replacing current semantic content with more interesting and, quite literally, thought-provoking alternatives. This is not something that is likely ever to be explored by the games industry, given the economic and industrial pressure developers operate under. If the content of FPS games are to evolve, to encompass more complex ethical and emotional texts, researchers operating outside this short-term environment must play their part. This study will draw upon both models and theories from across the domains of narratology, performance studies, architecture and visual arts, and the latest psychological research into player behaviour and understanding to establish a series of alternate conceptualisations of FPS experience. These will be used as the basis for a number of bespoke game modifications.There already exists a worldwide, internet-based culture of FPS modification (or mods) and the industry takes advantage of this culture by allowing access to commercially released game engines. The majority of mods comprise of simple alterations to code, to enhance performance or alter the properties of items and avatars. Full conversion mods, which use the engine to create entirely new game experiences, are also created by amateur and semi-professional teams, often as a way into the highly competitive games job market. The vast majority of these mods share the normal, structural assumptions about FPS, which means they too are limited in terms of the kinds of experiences they deliver. We believe, however, that by questioning these assumptions we can break through the normal barriers of cyclical violence and limited interaction to offer new cybertextual experiencesFor example, a fundamental structural device of FPS play is the tendency of an environment to become less complex as a player moves through it, as they literally remove entities and complexities by destroying them. This is not simply a ludic structure, but has self-evident narrative associations and lends itself particularly well to the kinds of texts generated by FPS play: revenge, invasion, escape and genocide are all common themes, and the action within the game may perhaps be best summarised as liminal and transformative. What happens, however, if the ability to simplify the environment is removed from the player, by disallowing violent actions, replacing them with simply the ability to move agents around? The structure of play shifts - the environment does not simplify but actually becomes more complex and more difficult as play progresses. There are two immediate ramifications: a more cognitively engaged style of play is necessitated, and the narrative type is questioned. Put another way, a new way of playing is needed, alongside new types of stories to be told.Essentially, this research programme is an investigation of these two things. We want to expand the vocabulary of FPS games as content-systems, offering alternate worlds and alternate experiences.

第一人称视角或射击 (FPS) 游戏是大众市场的虚拟现实，其文化意义日益清晰。全球有数以百万计的玩家使用这些游戏，但它们的内容往往非常简单且存在问题。 FPS游戏一般都比较暴力；情感深度或语义复杂性非常有限；并利用少量的叙述和原型。尽管开发人员在用于在此类环境中提供叙事的设备的复杂性方面取得了巨大进步，但呈现给玩家的可用动作仍然仅限于点击式枪战。 FPS 游戏的固有性质以及复杂交互对系统的要求是否意味着不可能利用文学、叙事学和表演理论提供的更广泛的创意工具来创建引人注目的、更复杂的网络文本？我们相信，不仅可以保留，而且确实可以扩展 FPS 游戏的引人入胜的可玩性，同时用更有趣、更发人深省的替代方案取代当前的语义内容。考虑到开发商面临的经济和工业压力，游戏行业不太可能探索这一点。如果 FPS 游戏的内容要不断发展，包含更复杂的道德和情感文本，那么在短期环境之外开展工作的研究人员就必须发挥自己的作用。这项研究将借鉴叙事学、表演研究、建筑和视觉艺术领域的模型和理论，以及对玩家行为和理解的最新心理学研究，以建立一系列 FPS 体验的替代概念。这些将被用作许多定制游戏修改的基础。世界范围内已经存在一种基于互联网的 FPS 修改（或模组）文化，并且该行业通过允许访问商业发布的游戏引擎来利用这种文化。大多数模组都包含对代码的简单更改，以增强性能或改变物品和头像的属性。完全转换模组，使用该引擎创造全新的游戏体验，也是由业余和半专业团队创建的，通常作为进入竞争激烈的游戏就业市场的一种方式。这些模组中的绝大多数都具有关于 FPS 的正常结构假设，这意味着它们在提供的体验类型方面也受到限制。然而，我们相信，通过质疑这些假设，我们可以突破周期性暴力和有限互动的正常障碍，提供新的网络文本体验。例如，FPS 游戏的一个基本结构装置是，当玩家在其中移动时，环境会变得不那么复杂，因为他们通过摧毁实体和复杂性来真正删除实体和复杂性。这不仅仅是一个游戏结构，而且具有不言而喻的叙事关联，并且特别适合 FPS 游戏生成的文本类型：复仇、入侵、逃跑和种族灭绝都是常见的主题，而游戏中的动作也许可以最好地概括为阈限和变革。然而，如果通过禁止暴力行为而从玩家身上移除简化环境的能力，并用简单地移动代理的能力来取代它们，会发生什么？游戏的结构发生了变化——随着游戏的进行，环境并没有变得简单，反而变得更加复杂和困难。这有两个直接后果：需要一种更具认知性的游戏风格，并且叙事类型受到质疑。换句话说，需要一种新的游戏方式，以及要讲述的新类型的故事。本质上，这个研究计划是对这两件事的调查。我们希望将 FPS 游戏的词汇扩展为内容系统，提供替代世界和替代体验。