Narrative, Game Play, and Alternative Time Structures for Virtual Environments

摘要

Computer games are the most popular and successful virtual environments. However, computer games are usually not simply either games or digital storytelling systems, but involve three primary types of formal semiotic system bearing upon time structure: games, models and narratives. Strong narrative structures depend upon an a priori time-structure, but there are less specific alternatives, including rhetorical, categorical and poetic structures blending into the general higher order time structures of games and simulations. Experience within a virtual environment may be based upon only one of these systems, but more commonly the systems are integrated using a variety of strategies to create rich and multi-layered temporal experiences.