Ever hear of the above terms before?
I sure as heck didn’t until one day I walked naively into my Games Writing Analysis class and then BOOM! two new words for the science and study of gaming.
So, what do they mean?
From my understanding a Ludologist is someone who thinks that the key to a successful game is in the mechanics and the game play. Whereas a Narratologist is someone who believes that the success of a game lies in the game’s ability to tell us a story.
From these definitions I can easily say I am on “Team Narratology”.
I believe a lot of people would fall into the narratology category. People enjoy a good story! It’s the reason why so many of us binge watch sereis’ on tv, go to the movies or in this case play games. Games can be a fantastic medium of telling us a good story, which gives them the ability to immerse the player, sometimes without them even knowing.
Story lines can be very powerful in games. One of the first games I played where I really was entranced by it’s story was “Final Fantasy X”. Final Fantasy games are turn based rpgs, which I thoroughly enjoy but found could be mundane at times. But what made me keep coming back to play FFX was, the story line.
I wanted, no, I needed, to find out how all the characters turned out. I needed to know if they lived or died, or if they ever did up beating the antagonist Sin. (He’s a bad egg). I felt that I was part of the rag tag team and was responsible for them when I played, so when I lost a battle I would truly feel sad.
The story truly immersed me in the game and that love for playing games has stuck with me every since.
On the other hand, a game doesn’t always have to have an explicit story line to be enjoyable for someone who identifies as a narratologist.
Let’s take Geometry Dash for example. In this game you play as a square who must jump to avoid obstacles. Sounds simple right?! It was easy to grasp but challenging to complete. I found that the more I played I became attached to my wee square. As you progressed, you could customize it by giving it different features which made it more life like. My wee square was no longer a shape on screen, HE was now a being trying to get home by running through all these adversities in his life.
I gave him a story that I wanted to play through.
So it’s clear to me and hopefully you why I am a narratologist at heart.
However in my opinion, one cannot survive without the other. A game with a great story line, no matter how good, won’t be played that much by people if the mechanics are shoddy. Mechanics in a game are important but ultimately, I believe it’s the story that brings the gamers back.
In the end it’s down to personal preference and your own opinion. One particular side isn’t the right one. It’s simply what YOU love about games!
So this is me and my good friend Cactuar signing off.
Stay Sassy Subscribers! 🙂
Diary Of A Programmer 