Literary Gaming

by Astrid Ensslin

A new analytical framework for understanding literary videogames, the literary-ludic spectrum, illustrated by close readings of selected works. In this book, Astrid Ensslin examines literary videogames—hybrid digital artifacts that have elements of both games and literature, combining the ludic and the literary. These works can be considered verbal art in the broadest sense (in that language plays a significant part in their aesthetic appeal); they draw on game mechanics; and they are digital-born, dependent on a digital medium (unlike, for example, conventional books read on e-readers). They employ narrative, dramatic, and poetic techniques in order to explore the affordances and limitations of ludic structures and processes, and they are designed to make players reflect on conventional game characteristics. Ensslin approaches these hybrid works as a new form of experimental literary art that requires novel ways of playing and reading. She proposes a systematic method for analyzing literary-ludic (L-L) texts that takes into account the analytic concerns of both literary stylistics and ludology. After establishing the theoretical underpinnings of her proposal, Ensslin introduces the L-L spectrum as an analytical framework for literary games. Based on the phenomenological distinction between deep and hyper attention, the L-L spectrum charts a work's relative emphases on reading and gameplay. Ensslin applies this analytical toolkit to close readings of selected works, moving from the predominantly literary to the primarily ludic, from online hypermedia fiction to Flash fiction to interactive fiction to poetry games to a highly designed literary “auteur” game. Finally, she considers her innovative analytical methodology in the context of contemporary ludology, media studies, and literary discourse analysis.

Genres: Games, Nonfiction, Research, Video Games

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Ebony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literary Gaming was eye opening. I had no idea that any of these literary games existed. Reading the book makes me want to design things. There’s so much creativity in so many nooks and crannies of the tech world. So many of us are getting caught in a start up craze that we’re missing the trees from the forest. And oh, there are so many trees. If you’re just looking for a resource, the number of games analyzed/discussed here is immense despite her apology in the conclusion that she failed to consider enough. Her theory of ludostylistics is impressive but so many of the texts, per her admission, crossed over, that I didn’t find the theory personally helpful. I understand the import of developing it to situate a burgeoning field, it just didn’t apply as much to my reasons for picking up the text. If you’re curious about the distinctions between gaming and play, hypertext and cybertext, or interactive fiction and poetry games, Ensslin is going to clear it up for you. She offers a really helpful continuum from digital ludic literature to literary computer games moving from the deep attention necessary for reading and the hyper attention necessary for playing that I found most helpful for distinguishing one text from another. Her descriptions are excellent; the pictures are helpful, but at some point I just needed to play the games to really understand. Unfortunately, so many of the modalities or platforms were outdated or wouldn’t work on my tablet. I was (appropriately) reading an ebook but I’m really ready for ebooks to be more than paper behind glass. A book like this needs to be hypertexted to the hilt so that one can click and read and see what’s going on side by side with the analysis. Overall, I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the ludic or the literary and especially to everyone interested in the connection between the two.

[Marina · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and worthwhile examination of so-called "literary games" which combine both ludic and literary elements to create a game of higher-than-normal intelligence.

Ensslin travels through a variety of different subgenres beneath Literary Gaming, attempting to chart them on a scale at the end of each chapter in a rough measure of both ludic and literary. The main problem with the book is that a lot of the games are now extremely hard to access because of the death of Flash. Still, it's a very useful resource and a highly academic look at video games that defends the potential of video games while championing its position as a powerful new medium. It is up to us as both game players and game designers to create games that challenge the player in ways that don't come from the expected, tired tropes of game design.

Well worth a read for anyone with an interest in exploring video games academically, but it is a very tough read at times in terms of the artistic and academic terminology you are expected to take on.

[André Bernhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting topic - but quite challenging read. If you are not familiar with concepts like Dérive, Détournment, Paida, Ludus, etc. you always have to stay alert and check the glossary. It can also happen that you just get adrift while reading and forgot everything about the last sentences you just read.
Anyway - not an easy read. Also sad that a lot of the examples analysed within the book soon will be more and more difficult to play as they are simply not available anymore or platforms will be outdated.

[Jonathan Cassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sophisticated analysis of the relationship between literatures and games across a varieties of types. Written by a scholar, so its language is theory-centered (and sometimes dense), but I was inspired to look at a lot of the games in the work and found it enlightening.

[Jack Lawton · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting book. I quibbled with the author's conception of "art" games and general approach to "auteurship" but their methodology for analysing "literary games" is comprehensive.

[xenia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the theoretical framing of this book: Astrid's differentiation between cognitive and ergodic play, abstraction and embodiment, reflection and procedure. The literary as that which plays with your mind, with syntax and meaning (like in modernist fiction); and the gamic as that which requires social interactions (whether simulated or real), multiple actors who play within a certain logic (like in sports). Both are forms of play, yet they stress different capacities; and, in either case, they produce games of alea (chance), ilinx (vertigo), mimicry (fantasy) or agon (competition); along a spectrum between paidia (free play) and ludus (rule-based play).

Chapter 2, which explores theories of play from Kant and Heidegger to Callois and Piaget (with many more thinkers in-between), is genuinely great.

But at the same time, I'm not sure who this is written for.

If you play games, you intuitively understand everything this book is saying. You live and breathe the ludic, and the naming of its components is categorisation without revelation.

If you don't play games, you'll be bored by the profound mundanity of learning how an role-playing game's inventory works. You'd be better off playing a game yourself.

Nice place to find experimental games and e-literature, though.