GAME DESIGN AND DRAMATURGY

TRANSMEDIA ARTS

SPEAKERS: Clara Fernández-Vara, New York University

Playing videogames is a performance activity, alongside theatre, dance, sports, and rituals among others. Like those other art forms, it is an activity grounded on pre-existing behavioral scripts, akin to the text of a play, a choreography, or the steps to take in order to fulfill a ritual. The creation of those behavioural scripts on the part of game designers is a type of digital dramaturgy, which requires its own craft in order to transmit them to players, who can then follow them, adapt them or transform them as they play. The digital dramaturgy of videogames often involves the references to other media -- through transmedia properties, genre conventions, or knowledge of previous stories, to name but a few -- which create the space of possibility of the game by helping configure the expectations of the player. Regarding videogames as a type of performance activity also allows us to understand how it integrates spectatorship, both of other people watching and the player watching themself as a character in the world of the game. The goal of this talk is to introduce game design in relation to performance activities. 

About the Speakers

Clara Fernández-Vara is a media scholar, game designer and writer. Her main research interest is the study of narrative games, both through textual analysis and comparisons across media as well as through artistic practice. She has presented her work at international academic and industry conferences, including keynote presentations at the first International Conference on Games and Narrative, Replaying Japan, Central and European Game Studies Conference, and DiGRA Spain. She has worked on experimental narrative games as part of diverse research projects, as well as commercial games for organizations such as Warner Bros., the Spanish National Ballet, and Die Gute Fabrik. Her book Introduction to Game Analysis has been published by Routledge and is now on its third edition.

How To Join

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If you have any questions, please contact Magda Romanska at magda[at]metalab.harvard.edu

This event is co-sponsored with metaLAB (at) Harvard.