Literary Gaming - 9780262027151

In this book, Astrid Ensslin examines literary videogames -- hybrid digital artifactsthat have elements of both games and literature, combining the ludic and the literary. These workscan be considered verbal art in the broadest sense (in that language plays a significant part intheir aesthetic appeal); they draw on game mechanics; and they are digital-born, dependent on adigital 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 ludicstructures and processes, and they are designed to make players reflect on conventional gamecharacteristics. Ensslin approaches these hybrid works as a new form of experimental literary artthat requires novel ways of playing and reading. She proposes a systematic method for analyzingliterary-ludic (L-L) texts that takes into account the analytic concerns of both literary stylisticsand ludology.

After establishing the theoretical underpinnings of her proposal,Ensslin introduces the L-L spectrum as an analytical framework for literary games. Based on thephenomenological distinction between deep and hyper attention, the L-L spectrum charts a work'srelative emphases on reading and gameplay. Ensslin applies this analytical toolkit to close readingsof selected works, moving from the predominantly literary to the primarily ludic, from onlinehypermedia fiction to Flash fiction to interactive fiction to poetry games to a highly designedliterary "auteur" game. Finally, she considers her innovative analytical methodology inthe context of contemporary ludology, media studies, and literary discourse analysis.