BA4 Contextual Studies - Propp's Morphology of the Folktale

Vladimir Propp devised a system to analyze the narrative structure of folklore. He published Morphology of the Folktale in 1958, attempting to organize the functions of elements within folktales into a chronological sequence, revealing the sequential "syntagmatic" structure. This analyses the structure of the sequence as contrasted with the paradigmatic structure which relates to the wider cultural context of the tale or "text".

This form of analysis "should be useful in analyzing the structure of literary forms (such as novels and plays), comic strips, motion-picture and television plots, and the like." - Alan Dundes, Introduction to the Second Edition of Morphology of the Folktale, 1968.

Propp's Morphology of the Folktale should therefore be useful in analyzing the narrative structure of the modern video game, allowing us to reveal the core functions that underpin the structure of games and use these recurring elements to provide a foundation for our own games, giving an underlying meaning and purpose to characters and objects within our game worlds. 

Space Invaders was designed and programmed by Toshihiro Nishikado for Taito in Japan in 1978. It quickly became a world wide phenomenon, commanding the attention of children and adults alike. Every pub had one; and cabinets like these were soon covered with flicked fag ash and shandy pint glass rings all over the planet... 

COME WITH ME BACK TO 1978!

Dance along to John Travolta and Olivia Newton John on the jukebox, order another two pints of lager and a packet of crisps, dig out your small change and let's play Space Invaders: "Deconstructed in the light of Propp's Morphology of the Folktale"...

II. y 2 - The Inverted Interdiction

The "Sphere's of Action" are how the functions join together logically in the tale, or game world, and these spheres correspond to their respective performers. 

So, to continue with the "Space Invaders" analogy, the player ship would be given the function of the Victim Hero and the Villain would be the Alien Invaders raining down missiles. 

The game worlds Sphere's of Action could therefore be described as follows:

II. Inverted Interdiction y 2. Order given to the Hero; "Press Start". Begin your quest to Defend the Earth! Further to this we can clearly see that "the spectre of this misfortune already hovers invisibly above the happy family" - Propp, Morphology of the Folk Tale p.27.

This is also connected with IX. Dispatch B 2. The Hero is dispatched directly.

VIII. Villainy - A 19. The Villain declares War. The Space invaders begin to bomb the player, the players protective barriers and the "Earth".

XII. The first function of the Donor D 8 and D 9. A hostile creature attempts to destroy the Hero and a hostile creature engages the Hero in combat. The Invaders are Donors as well as Villains as they give the player Hero points when destroyed, increasing your status as Hero amongst your peers.

XXI. Pursuit, Chase. Pr 1. The pursuer flies after the Hero. The Space invaders literally fly from the skies, raining death and destruction down like the fire of a folktale dragon.

The Hero / Player's name is added to the roll of honour when all their three lives are extinguished, preserving their achievements to inspire the next Hero / Player. It is interesting to note that the player / Hero has 3 lives itself an especially significant number in folklore terms; 3 wishes, 3 hags, 3 sisters. The trilogy has enormous symbolic significance.

The Hero never returns home or gains a resolution to the conflict. This is a perpetual war as endless waves of hostile invaders continually attempt to annihilate the Hero. In this sense we can see that the Hero and Villain are "stuck" in an endless loop, forever doomed to war without end.

It's interesting to think of the game world as a "character" or "actor" in it's own right; directed by the "developer" or "author" to fulfill a particular sphere of action in relation to the player/actor/hero. That's a relationship I hadn't fully considered until now and also raises other interesting further avenues of speculation, especially in regard to the author/developer role in shaping the narrative and the gameplay experience in a directed fashion in order to elicit a particular emotional and possibly cathartic response with the player/actor. Indeed, could this cathartic response be heightened as a result of the player being the prime agent in their own transformation?

BA4 GDD - Initial exploration and analysis of "flOw" by That Game Company - Created by Jenova Chen and Nicolas Clark

BA4 Project 1 - Game Design Document

So, we are to re-imagine, re-interpret and re-design an existing game. Re-bootastic!

Here's a summary of the initial brief from our Course Leader Marie-Claire Issaman:

BA4 - Games for re -imaging/re-interpreting

Medal of Honor: Developed by DreamWorks interactive, published by Electronic Arts. Story created by Steven Spielberg. First released 1999.

First person/Multi player options

Genre - War (WW2), History, documentary elements.

The Portopia Serial Murder Case Designed by Yuji Horii and published by Enix. Sophisticated for its time as a interactive fiction - Influential title that defined the visual novel genre on games.

First released on June 1983

First person perspective/narrative

Genre - Investigation adventure,

FlOw That Game Company -Created by Jenova Chen and Nicolas Clark Debut game of That Game Company precursor to Flower, originally released as a flash game.

Genre - Art, Abstract, Innovative, Immersive, Casual game.

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly known in Japan as Zero:Akai Cho and in Europe as Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly

PS2 2003 and Directors cut 2004 Xbox 3rd Person/1st person

Genre - Horror/survival

Moshi Monsters 2007 - Mind Candy

Clear influences from Pokemon/Tamagotchi/Pet Society - 65 million registered users 150 territories worldwide, amalgamation

Genre - multiplayer online, social, intensive merchandising, transmedia 

The list is fairly varied although I imagine the lack of Science Fiction/Fantasy genre examples is deliberate! (Don't even get me started on the "Fantasy Trope Bottleneck Conundrum"!)

After some consideration of the games given in the initial brief I narrowed it down to 3 of the 5.

Medal of Honor, flOw and Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly.

I thought that "The Portopia Serial Murder Case" would be too hard to find background material for and now so rare to find that actually playing it through would be near to impossible. The "player as detective" game genre is certainly intriguing and it's a genre that has a rich literary history that could be trawled and adapted for reinterpretation. It might also be an idea to play with the narrative conventions of the detective pursuing the serial killer, especially in terms of time-line and the antagonist/protagonist dynamic. 

Moshi Monsters - My son Ethan loved Pokemon and I can certainly see the appeal of "Pocket Monsters" and how a collect-em-all franchise is certainly a commercially attractive prospect, especially when combined with a graphic aesthetic and associated media designed to appeal to children. It occurred to me that these cartoon monsters are almost always based upon the Japanese Anime graphic design and there may be other emerging cultures and markets that have rich mythologies around the world to adapt, perhaps Asian Indian or South American Myths? Maybe for another time... 

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly looked interesting. There are many examples of the Horror and survival genre that exist in cinema and novels that haven't yet made the transition into the media of the video game, and also vice-versa. I would like to try a post-apocalyptic post-rapture The Omen/Exorcist/Constantine hybrid at some point but now is not the time...it could very quickly become A) Epic B) Complex and C) Libelous.

So...Medal of Honor 2010 by Electronic Arts. 


Gritty modern day FPS are not my usual game of choice; by nature I'm drawn to more open and "speculative" narratives but in the name of Art and Design, full of "new student zeal", I rushed to Game to find a copy.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

                                               Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them."

Laurence Binyon, For The Fallen

Okay. That silent opening salvo set the tone right there. This game has gravitas. War is a solemn subject. This game respects the soldier and is not to be taken as light entertainment at all. It deals with the serious, almost sacred, duty of War and the heroes that emerge and fall, rise and die, in far off lands for our freedoms. Heroes that gain our national respect and enter immortality as they take their exit from that dark and fog bound theatre, stained by the bloody mud of countless booted feet marching forever into death and glory. Hmm...although this game is designed to respect the ordinary soldier and their sense of duty this seemed contrived and jingoistic to this old peace-loving pacifist...    

I was impressed by the craftmanship and the attention to detail. The opening cinematic sequence was a compelling blend of documentary Fox news-story and American drama serial, dropping in from the global view of communication satellites down into the combat zone of contemporary Afghanistan. 

There are elements of FPS that are undoubtably enjoyable; the tense atmosphere, the excitement and adrenaline of "battle", the well aimed headshot. However when the "enemy" looks realistic it feels too much like the actual experience of shooting people. Real people with Mothers, Fathers, children of their own. However much the face is covered with a headscarf or helmet the target is recognisably human and that makes me, as a player, uncomfortable. As much as I can become a carefree 8-year old back on the common playing army, building dens and tossing endless supplies of invisible grenades, the recognition that in real life injury and death are the painful consequence of real life conflict is always at the forefront of my mind. 

It is strange to think that the rating for the game is 18 when as an 8 year old I would have innocently relished the rat-ta-tat-tat of this war-game.

I began to re-imagine Medal of Honor from the point of view of a doctor or medic where the aim of the game is to prevent casualties, treat wounds and save lives in the midst of incredibly difficult and dangerous situations.

That was certainly an option. However the given task is to complete and present a Game Design Document in around 7 weeks. The amount of detail and research required to produce realistic and convincing assets for a triple A title of this kind would take much longer to produce.

After being introduced to Bradley and talking through our preferred options we decided to re-imagine a game based on the principles behind "flOw" by That Game Company.

flOw is described as "a game about piloting an aquatic organism through a surreal biosphere where players consume other organisms, evolve, and advance their organisms to the abyss."

The design features of flOw are summarised by the developer as:

• Minimal control opens the door for casual gamer and non-gamer

• Control the balance between speed and turning leaves space for hardcore player to master

• Wide range of gameplay from simply swimming around to strategical evolving and intensive fighting for survival

• Customize flow experience naturally through the core gameplay, swimming and eating

• Transparent and meaningful choices

• Small risk, small reward; Big risk, big reward

• Minimal penalty, no Flow breakers

"flOw" is freely available to play online at http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/flowing.htm 

Jenova Chen has also written a thesis called "Flow in Games a Jenova Chen MFA Thesis" which can be read at http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/thesis.htm

Based on the work of the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, his aim is to promote the feeling of "fun"; a joyous, almost ecstatic, feeling that is experienced as timelessness, exhilaration and energetic ease by the player.

"People associate many feelings with “fun”, the sense of timelessness, of being at one, of exhilaration, focus, immediacy. All of these are characteristic of "fun"....

At this point, fun can be defined as Flow, a balance of the relationship between challenge and ability." - Flow in Games a Jenova Chen MFA Thesis

Chen equates the subjective state of "fun" with the experience of "Flow". Flow is  attained when the subject is neither too anxious when challenged beyond their ability nor too bored because the given task is too easy. The Flow Zone lies between these states. In terms of Game Design, Chen aims to enable the player to attain Flow by embedding "active Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment" within the game. The Game Designer designs the game to be intuitively readable by the player who can then effectively set their own level of difficulty. By choosing to interact with elements in the game space or avoid challenging elements the player navigates and negotiates a path through the game that is attuned to their own Flow Zone.     

"...here are the three core elements a video game must have in order to evoke Flow experience. 

1. As a premise, the game is intrinsically rewarding, and the player is up to play the game.
2. The game offers right amount of challenges to match with the player’s ability, which allows him/her to delve deeply into the game.
3. The player needs to feel a sense of personal control over the game activity.

As a result, the game will make player lose track of time and self-consciousness." - Flow in Games a Jenova Chen MFA Thesis

In the next post I shall explain how we will use these core elements to design our own game and inform our iterative creative process. We will also take cues from the game world and aesthetic of "flOw" to create a unique and refreshed experience of fun for our players!

BA4 Re-Design, Re-Direction, Re-Flections

New beginnings and cycles of 7

Halo! My name is Craig A Rouse and I'm back at NUCA after 7 years of musical exploration in the realms of the acoustic.

Its good to be back as a Full Time student...I passed the Foundation Degree in Game Art and Design in 2006 and I've returned to complete my studies. Much has changed and some things, strangely, remain the same...I shall elucidate further in later posts I'm sure!

So...I'm working with Bradley Morgan Johnson on a redesign of "FlOw" by That Game Company - Created by Jenova Chen and Nicolas Clark.

Bradley has the wonderful ability to conceptualize with stunning clarity. For myself, the creative process is like catching ever-rising sparks from a tumultuous inferno just beneath the surface, or maybe slivers of fast moving fish surfing in the keen slice of a ship's keel.

So then, please excuse the slippery scrawlings and scorch marks that will shortly follow. To design is to catch embers and forge from them a torch to illuminate the path...