A workshop in videogame design with We Are Müesli
We Are Muesli's event here at Festivaletteratura investigates the existence of a genre of videogames that doesn’t exactly match the stereotypical image found in the popular imagination, but one that almost seems to have been specifically created with the idea of being discussed at a literary festival in mind.
In the past few years, narrative videogames have developed a strong presence on the general market, and perhaps even represents the ultimate compromise and coexistence between gaming and literature. The two designers and screenwriters, when offering a definition of the genre, explained that they “pursue a type of game design that looks a lot like a book, without the win-or-lose perspective, where the story and the semantics are the main purpose”.
These are not educational games, nor they do not seek to compete with other types of games, they just believe the videogame medium, when used for telling cultural, artistic and historical stories, is an extremely effective one. Echoing a sentiment we have heard in previous events in the History of Videogames series, the authors are thrilled by the possibility of a first person narration on such significant topics, the identification factor and highly communicative traits.
The starting points were Visual Novels, text-based stories that could be played on early systems, but the speedy growth of technologies has changed the panorama dramatically. The people working in this field often have different backgrounds to the average game designer, they mostly come from the narrating, screenwriting and journalism fields on the story part and illustrators, visual and communication designers on the graphic side. They then glue the whole work together using simple freeware coding, to actually create a playable game, something playable.
Their key point soon becomes clear, when a game features a good story, one which creates empathy and keeps a reader engaged, there is no longer any need for the customary win/lose paradox. The creation process is also schematic: the storyboard and graphics give the player the chance to create their own endings. Their most recent games deal with war, resistance, social issues and other issues, not typically found in gaming. The player is not a soldier in a historical construction, having to fight, but rather a farmer, who gets caught in the social events, joins a resistance and interacts with their community.
The evolution of videogames has progressed from simple entertainment, to becoming fully realised stories, and now, this new area, takes and combines all of this with the addition of social and cultural value to it. Where could the next step take us?