KSA Second Year Blog

Exhibition Review: Pop-up Isle of Dogs Wes Anderson Exhibition

 As a pop up exhibition of the sets of a film by Wes Anderson, a producer of great cult classic films, my first experience of it was my dismay at the que snaking it’s way around the side of Studio X, where the event was held over the period of a week or so up until the 9th of April, and down to the end of the street adjacent at around 2pm in the afternoon on a Saturday. Nevertheless, we returned the next morning just before opening time prepared with snacks and prior warning of the busyness and queued an hour and a half before making it into the exhibition hall, where we waited another 10 minutes before actually making it to the exhibition space itself. Luckily, I can say the wait was fully worth the effort. On entering the exhibition, you step into a noodle bar [Fig 2] created in the exact image of the once shown in the film, complete with servers dressed in the baseball getup of the Megasaki Dragons little league team bringing bowls of ramen to tables. At the end of the room the actual set of this seen is available to view, making the attention to detail which can be seen when comparing the set’s likeness to the pop-up noodle bar even more impressive.

[Fig 1 – Megasaki City model]

We then moved into the main hall where the majority of the sets on exhibition could be viewed. The room was darkened and so as you enter the most striking visual is dead centre, where the huge model of Megasaki city [Fig.1] is available to view, with lights blinking and complete with tiny food caravans and trees in the scenery of the foreground.  One of the best aspects of how the exhibition was set up is the amount of space around each set meant you could get around and see them from so many angles, allowing you to see all the intricate details, from posters to the details of what was in a pile of litter or high-tech computer models complete with blinking lights. This and the fact that although there was a line taped off a couple of feet around each model which you could not step across (for obvious reasons) you could still get impressively close to the models and really be able to see what was going on up close, as well as take brilliant pictures of the sets. It’s only drawback in this respect was that as it was a time limited pop-up exhibition, the popularity and thus busyness of the exhibition meant that viewers could not take as much time as they would like to truly take in the sets and it could often be difficult to get close due to the sheer amount of people surrounding some of the sets.

[Fig 2 – Isle of Dogs Exhibition Noodle Bar]

[Fig. 3  - Isle of Dogs Noodle bar set]

There didn’t seem to be any specific narrative order to how the sets were placed, they seemed to be more put into consideration as to where the larger sets would fit in, and then the rest was worked around that. In some respects, this made the exhibition slightly disjointed but the sets themselves made up for this as the visuals of each set were so individually striking that they easily remind the viewer of the scene that took place in them simply via visual cues of structures, colours and model placement. Instead of telling a direct linear narrative, I thing the curators were trying to create a sense of place with how they formed the exhibition. From the looming Koboyashi faces, often graffitied with ‘Atatri lives’ or Pro-Dog’ plastered to the walls of the venue that you gaze at as you wait, to the Japanese style murals on the walls where you que inside and of course to the construction of the noodle bar [Fig 2] itself, all these things give a sense of walking into Wes Anderson’s fantasy world of ‘Isle of Dogs’. The Curators bring us to Megasaki and Trash Island on our journey into the exhibition, but upon entering the main hall we are faced with nothing but the well-lit sets of the film to tell their story through the work itself. They give a set up to mimic the atmosphere and overall feeling of the film but then strip this all back when viewing the sets themselves, so they can be appreciated without interruption, and purely speak for themselves as art pieces. [fig 4]

Talking Heads, Publication outcome

Trouble in Paradise - Bee hive

Photo Essay brainstorming and notes

Animation analysis

[Fig.1 – still from Kubo and the two strings] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO1y6CEeV_8

Initial notes and ideas

Select one or two examples of narrative artwork that include elements of interactivity. Which of Marie Laure Ryan’s types of narrative immersion do these narratives aim to create and how do their interactive elements contribute to or work against immersion?

Both ‘The Stanley Parable’ and ‘The Sims 4’ are vastly popular games in their own right; which thousands of players have partaken in due to their potential for both narrative and play. Whilst ‘The Sims’ is an open, more traditionally sandbox or ‘ludic’ game in which the player can build and control the lives of their sims; creating their own narrative as they go, ‘The Stanley Parable’ is a seemingly more closed, ‘narrative’ game, which would traditionally follow a more linear structure; yet in many ways may be an exception to this format and ‘attempts to find a new form of storytelling’ (MacDonald, 2013) as the creators challenge our preconceptions of what a linear videogame should be. Through the different ways in which these games allow the player to interact and influence the narrative, they aim to create (to varying degrees) immersion, which we will identify via Marie-Laure Ryan’s four types outlined in ‘A Journal of Narrative Studies’ (2009), and then assess how effectively they are produced.

Spatial immersion, Ryan states, ‘Is the easiest to achieve’ (p.54, 2009), as almost all modern videogames, even those with more basic setups and cheaper production, can produce a believable, immersive world in which the player can move around if they can ‘convince… [them] that the space is authentic.’ (Stuart, 2010). In ‘The Sims’ this is achieved through the vast scope of the world and its content. A player can spend hours designing the home of their sims down to the smallest, most insignificant detail of a toilet roll holder, or the colour of the flowers in their window box. The interactivity of this worldbuilding further immerses the player  with a ‘sense of being able to make meaningful actions’ (Mateas, Stern, p.29, 2006) allowing the player to tailor the world to suite them and thus making them want to invest time in this creative process; creating ludic immersion, through ‘deep absorption in the performance of a task’ (Ryan, p.54, 2009).  In ‘The Stanley Parable’, the detail of the world is to a believable standard and ‘dealing in a familiar environment also allows players to comfortably make assumptions about… blank spaces without being pulled out of the world’ (Madigan, 2012.), the detail in world is less needed because there is so much less avatar interaction with it and it’s objects themselves compared to the Sims. Instead the world in ‘The Stanley Parable’ is more of a support to the narrative; creating further intrigue with a seemingly mundane office environment that contrasts to the increasing sense of unease driven by the game’s narration. Yet this environment still integral to the story, as it’s slow evolution into twisted versions of itself or the way in which it opens up into a different place entirely within this seemingly banal space echoes the sharp twists and turns of the narrative and gives depth to the game’s atmosphere which immerses the player into this strange, unpredictable world. It seems explorable and open at first glance, yet as you progress with the story you learn that it is merely a vehicle through which you may wile away your time, believing you, the player, are in charge, until eventually you discover yourself trapped in one of many narrative arcs, as the game ‘mocks the illusion of choice’ (MacDonald, 2013) that it initially provides you with. In fact, one of the many endings takes this one steps further, dropping you into an environment identical to ‘Minecraft’ a vastly popular exploratory sandbox game; in which virtually all of the immersion is spatial, before the narrator announces, ‘Oh no, no, no, this is far more open ended than I had in mind, I’m looking for something more narrow, something that makes you feel utterly irrelevant.’ (Wreden, 2013) and subsequently dropping you into portal, a popular linear structured game where the aim is to eventually escape the seemingly omniscient voice which narrates your journey and is keeping you trapped in the facility where the game takes place. ‘The Stanley Parable’ shows itself to be extremely self-aware utilising it’s more limited spatial immersion to further it’s narrative; making ‘a joke at the players expense, a commentary on choice and consequence’ (MacDonald, 2013) but only spatially immersive up to a certain point. The Sims on the other hand, with it’s vast interactivity with it’s world, relies much more on spatial immersion to engage the player, ‘it’s open, “sandbox” structure’ supports ‘a much wider range of make-believe’ (Murrey, 117, 1997), and immerses through play.

Epistemic immersion is far less prominent in ‘The Sims’ as it’s gameplay is much less reliant on narrative and thus the need for the effect of any past to create narrative is minimal. Its structure is based on how the ‘story emerges through gameplay’ (Games as Literature, 2015), the players actions and choices are what shape any potential stories, not pre-existing, embedded narrative; and ‘as the world passes from one state to another, a story is created’ (Ryan, p.52, 2009). The Stanley Parable however begins with the simple premise of Stanley’s co-workers all disappearing, and the very way in which gameplay is initiated is through the of this phenomenon; as Ryan describes ‘embedded in an interactive game world, in which the player enacts the narrative of investigator.’ (p.55, 2009). The use of this creates epistemic immersion as the player’s curiosity is piqued and we are driven to discover what caused this world state; giving a ‘feeling of being taken up into the narrative world’ (Matea, Stern, p.29, 2006). This combined with the visual of the environment we are given to explore spatially is what gives ‘The Stanley Parable’ that initial sense of freedom which mimics more open-world games, and at the same time melds with the game’s less immediately obvious narrative focus to give a sense of intrigue that immerses us further. ‘Not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing is the default state’ (Scharr, 2013), but this alone would not be able to hold the player’s interest indefinitely and so is perhaps not the key form of immersion which the designers were aiming to create with ‘The Stanley Parable’, and not at all with the much more present-focused ‘The Sims’.

Temporal immersion is much more significant to ‘The Stanley parable, but maybe less so to ‘The Sims’. As well as spatial immersion through exploring and interacting with the large, constructed world within ‘The Sims’, the nature of the game’s interactivity as much more play-based may lean slightly towards temporal immersion. The structure of the game itself encourages building and furtherment of the story through interaction, and part of the thrill is watching the relationships and lives of your sims develop. But this is still limited, as although there are a large array of interactions and combinations of choices that can lead to different life states for your sims, it is ‘the player that can determine their path through their choice of action’ but because of this structure, ‘the uncertainly is lost’ (Ryan, p.55, 2009) and thus, not very surprising or suspenseful. The game ‘sparks interest by occasionally taking control away from the player in order to stage pre-scripted scenarios that create unexpected turns of events’ (Ryan, p.53, 2009); for example,

[Fig 1, Sims alien baby(2012)]

 a male sim being abducts by aliens and returning pregnant, or even something as simple as a house fire spontaneously starting; with the potential to destroy everything that has been so lovingly created by the player. These pre-scripted events do create suspense then and so some limited temporal immersion in the game, and in a way very similar to how ‘The Stanley Parable’ is structured. However, in general the course of events in ‘The Sims’ is determined by the player rather than by divine intervention. Conversely, in ‘The Stanley Parable’ the player’s experience and likely investment in playing the game is largely driven by temporal immersion, as ‘curiosity, surprise and suspense’ (Ryan, p.55, 2009) are rife within the game’s elusive narrative. This is partially due to the fact that although the game technically falls under a more ‘linear’ structure, it is very unlike many of it’s peers. It is ‘told not through one linear story, but through many instead. Branching paths that twists the illusion of control the game tries so hard to give us’ (MacDonald, 2013)  it disobeys the structure of Klopp’s quest/story framework, as although the initial ‘heroic’ questline is there within the game if you follow the narrators instructions, you are also at perfect liberty not to: ‘whether or not you obey the narrator is entirely within the players control’ (Scharr, 2013) and every decision you make unveils yet more surprises. The game keeps the player within it’s grip because you cannot determine what is going to happen next. ‘Everything is a set path’ (MacDonald, 2013) and yet despite this seemingly linear structure, which Ryan would argue is for ‘single traversal, since the story does not renew itself’ (p.51, 2009) there is far more suspense and surprise than the seemingly endless, yet quickly repetitive actions and foreseeable consequences seen within ‘The Sims’. ‘The Stanley Parable’ takes a game format that could be criticised for being narrow and unimaginative and instead seems to evolve and change as you progress through the story; unlike what Ryan argues, no playthrough is the same. The game immerses ludically in how it provides ‘deep absorption’ in the task of navigating the world to reveal more story which brings ‘narrative immersion’ via ‘an engagement of the imagination in the construction and contemplation of a story world.’ (Ryan, p.54, 2009). However, this is still limited in that there are a finite number of scripted actions and endings, once they have all been discovered there is no more surprise or suspense held over the player and thus no temporal immersion. Once this state has been reached then the game becomes less replayable; whereas ‘The Sims’, although perhaps for the most part lacking in temporal immersion due to the nature of it’s interactivity, is immersive for longer due to it’s replayability with a none-linear, mostly spatial immersion.

The final type of immersion, emotional, is demonstrated by both games to a degree. Ryan states that ‘it is by mentally simulating the situation of others… that we feel joy, pity or sadness for them’ (p.56, 2009), and in ‘The Sims’ and ‘The Stanley Parable’ the way in which we interact with the games both narratively and through gameplay can give us some relatability to the characters that we are controlling or playing as.  ‘The Sims’ could be seen to be aiming to create emotional immersion by appealing with a ‘narrative of a standard borgeouise bildungsroman… in which material success and a happy family life are the reward for reliability’ (Murrey, 117, 1997) i.e: appealing to what many people strive for, stability, success and family; it could be argued that the immersion that ‘The Sims’ is trying to achieve is via the player living vicariously of sorts, through their sims – living out their dream life. However, this may not equate to the players relation to their character and rather, reflect the emotions more commonly seen felt when playing games; which ‘are overwhelmingly self-directed ones’ (Ryan, p.56. 2009). These are feelings of achievement of accomplishing something through the game, rather than empathising with a character. Similarly, ‘The Stanley Parable’ could be argued to invoke emotional immersion: through witnessing Stanley’s various unfortunate fates, the player could feel pity, yet many would still pursue a course of action that would mean a grisly or hopeless end for Stanley,

[Fig 2, Stanley Parable insanity ending(2013)]

 if it meant potentially furthering their progress or gaining achievement within the game. This showcases emotional involvement through ‘ludic interest’ which ‘regards [the character] as a means to an end’ rather than ’narrative interest’, which ‘regards characters as persons’ (Ryan, p.56, 2009). This is mirrored in how many players of the Sims would deliberately drown their sims in the pool, for entertainment: here arguably, there can be no emotional attachment to characters in either game. But on the other hand, as ‘The Stanley Parable’ progresses, and the game ventures into more philosophical topics via the monologue of the ever-present narrator, an emotional response is often felt to topics raised. In the confusion ending,

[Fig 3, Stanley Parable – Confusion Ending(2013)]

 where rounds of future playthrough and events are written on the wall of the room you are trapped in, your narrator queries disbelievingly ‘Is this how it really goes? It’s all determined?’ (Wenden, 2013) we feel pity for both the narrator and Stanley being stuck in this cycle, and are simultaneously left to question the ideas the narrator raises in a far greater, philosophical sense. This can definitely produce varied emotions for the player, but which are debatable as to whether they are immersive or not as arguably this thought-provoking nature of the content may pull a player out of the game story itself. ‘The Stanley Parable’ is an interesting mix of ludic and narrative elements that sometimes do and sometimes don’t evoke emotional immersion, depending on the situation. Likewise, in the Sims, one playthrough you may spend time and effort on the characters and the world they inhabit, and form an emotional attachment and another you may murder them by some nefarious means

[Fig 4, Sims - drowned in pool(2012)]

 just because you can; emotional attachment is down to the player themselves as well as the emotional immersion the game may attempt to draw them in with. Both Games are successful at creating emotional immersion to a degree, it just isn’t the main focal point for immersion in ‘The Stanley Parable’ and ‘The Sims’.

Both ‘The Sims’ and ‘The Stanley Parable’ display all of the four types of immersion to some degree, but each has one or two that have much more emphasis than the others as this would have been the type of immersion the game was specifically designed to create, or rather, was the type of immersion that fit best to that specific mode of gameplay. The Sims relies heavily on spatial immersion to draw in the player, utilising the breadth and depth of it’s world building to create a landscape that the player wants to explore and interact with, as ‘games that seek to deliver emergent experience allow us to make our own story from our own ideas and actions within this arena that the game’s creator has provided us’. In contrast ‘The Stanley Parable doesn’t us spatial as much as its primary source of immersion as it has more of a seemingly free yet in fact limiting world in which it exists, that pushes and pulls you towards different storylines by opening and closing different areas of the map seemingly on a whim. It could be argued ‘the focus on narrativity tends to minimise the role of gameplay’ (Bjork, Holpainen, p.422, 2006) and this is true to an extent with the Stanley Parable’ but spatial immersion still plays a role in advancing the gameplay through narrative via exploration, and thus still plays a fairly significant and effective role in this game. Epistemic immersion is not conducive to the format of the Sims as a game, and so is not really present, on the other hand in the ‘Stanley Parable’ epistemic immersion plays a large role in prompting the player into an investigation, alongside temporal immersion: the type which is most emphasised by the ‘Stanley Parable’s’ more narrative style as it successfully builds suspense with its unpredictable narrative which refuses to follow a linear structure. In the Sims temporal immersion is only there to a slight degree, as there is much less potential for surprise and suspense in ludic gameplay than there is in the more narratively driven ‘Stanley Parable’; in fact the only times in which ‘The Sims’s temporal immersion is effective is within it's rare, pre-scripted events that mirror the more narrative style of game. As for emotional immersion, both games undoubtedly have moments which could be seen as emotional, but whether they successfully engage the player is less certain as both these games don’t quite have the linear character-driven style in which this sort of immersion is most effective.

‘The Sims’ sole focus on mainly spatial immersion could be seen as negative and the absence of narrative giving the player a feeling of ‘lack of closure to their output’ (Ryan, p.52, 2009), but it works well with the game’s sandbox format; allowing the player to either have continuous, personally crafted narratives, or to simply play, as why should ‘they start from the assumption that play must serve something which is not play’ (Huizinga, p.2, 1949). ‘The Stanley Parable’s melding of all four forms of immersion; with particular focus on epistemic and temporal leans away from the emotionally driven systems of it’s peer “linear” games, who’s dialogue, Ryan describes as ‘selecting an item from a list of utterances’ (p.49, 2009). Instead it’s almost sandbox-like illusion gives a sense of exploration to the player, that accompanies the suspense driven narrative into a truly thrilling unpredictable compilation of events which fully immerses the player; even if it does leave us ‘questioning what the point of choice is at all in a system where every premutation is laid out for you’ (MacDonald, 2013).

      Bibliography

 Bjork, S., Holopainen, J. (2006) ‘Game and Design Patterns’, in Salen,K., Zimmerman,E. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, pp.422.

Fig 1: Unknown, Sims – alien baby,(2012) [online] available at http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/the-sims-2/answers/show/279396/what-happens-u-abducted-aliens-ur-sims-ever-come-back-how-can-u-abducted-aliens , Accessed 15/1/18

Fig 2: Unknown, Stanley Parable- insane ending,(2013) [online] available at: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/884127381004717892/AE322788BD0AC351A0EA822942A1578FBF8D418B/ Accessed 15/1/18

Fig 3: Unknown, Stanley Parable – confusion ending,(2013) [online] available at: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5W5WkQXENyQ/maxresdefault.jpg Accessed 15/1/18

Fig 4: LeJaque. Y, Sims – drowning,(2012) [online] available at: https://kotaku.com/it-only-took-me-an-hour-to-drown-my-sims-in-their-new-p-1654618761 Accessed: 15/1/18

Galactic Café., Wreden, D. (2013) The Stanley Parable. [Videogame]. Galactic Café.

Games as Literature. (2015) Games as Lit. 101 – Emergent Narrative. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tvvgRvxbWI&feature=youtu.be Accessed: 13/1/18

Huizinga, J. (1949) Homo Ludens. London: Routledge

MacDonald, K. (2013) IGN- The Stanley Parable Review. [Online] Available at: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/10/18/the-stanley-parable-review Accessed: 13/1/18

Madigan, J. (2012) Psychology Today – The Psychology of Videogame Immersion. [Online] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mind-games/201207/the-psychology-video-game-immersion Accessed: 14/1/18

Mateas, M., Stern, A. (2006) ‘Interaction and Narrative’, in Salen,K., Zimmerman,E. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, pp.648.

Maxis., The Sims Studio. (2014) The Sims 4. [Videogame]. Electronic Arts.

Murrey, J. (1997) Hamlet on the Holodeck. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press

Ryan, M-L. (2009) ‘From Narrative Games to Playable Stories: Towards a poetics of Interactive Narrative, In ( Herman, D.) Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, 1, pp.43-59. [Online] Available at: https://app.box.com/s/redplmsxphd3ekr56jrtlb1zx2ywv84k. Accessed: 13/1/18

Salen, K., Zimmerman, E. (2006) The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, pp.29.

Scharr, J. (2013) Tom’s Guide-Review ‘The Stanley Parable’-You Think You’re in Control? [Online] Available at: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/the-stanley-parable-review,review-1933.html Accessed: 13/1/18

Stuart, K. (2010) The Guardian – What do we Mean When we Call a Game Immersive? [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2010/aug/10/games-science-of-immersion Accessed: 14/1/18