LaCosse1 PlayingVideoGames:History/Theory/Practice Spring2011

Regions on the Cinematic Plane

There's no doubt the sensory experience of any mainstream, digital medium is confined to three major axes the aural, the visual, and thetactual.Thenatureofthetactualaxisofthissensory trifecta is the primary focus of most digital game studies and experiences. Steven Swink once likened the tactual efficacy of a digital game to the "Principles of Animation 1 ", a visceral (and widely accepted) set of visual guidelines, universally applicable to any animator. Swinks work strived to realizeasimilarsetofprinciplesforthetactusofdigitalgames,attempting to projectthe aesthetic foundations of the visual axis onto the tactual one by working in parallel to previous theoreticalgroundwork. I mention this example because I feel it helps validate my claims to come. While the concept of 'feel' and the tactual nature of digital games have been well explored, the idea of the 'cutscene' has been left largely unattended. I can't help but mentally draw a connection between the disregard for 'cinema in games and the apathy for sound in film2 . Thesentimentisnotexact in both cases, but there seems to be symmetry to it, much like the transmedial symmetry Swink observedinhisstudiesonthe"PrinciplesofAnimation". Through these suspicions of symmetries along the sensory axes, I aim to regiment the narrative and cinematic aspects of games into quarters and assess the effects of each of these socalled "sceneclasses".LikeSwink,Ibegin by drawing fromthebasicprinciplesoftheparalleled media In film,sound isthoughtofin two stateseither'ofthestory'(diegetic)or'notofthestory' (nondiegetic). Diegetic sound is experienced by the characters in the film, while nondiegetic sound exists only to the audience's ears. The concept of diegesis dates all the way back to Aristotles Poetics, stemming fromAristotlescommentsregarding Homer'snarrativestyle3 .Poetics argues that the natures by which narratives (or "poems") differ derive from three factors the medium through which the work is presented, the subject matter of the work, and the notion of 'narrative style' or, the perspective from which astory istold.Thisnarrativestylelatercameto be attributed to diegesis. That being said, it seems appropriate we apply the term to cinematic
1 2

Inhis2006essay,PrinciplesofVirtualSensation (Boguszewski,2011 ),and latelyIvenoticedanapathyforsoundindigitalgamesaswell. 3 See(Halliwell,1986 )

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scenes in digital games. I'm not even the first to do so, Mark Wolf mentions diegesisin relation to gamecinemaseveraltimes4 . Theprimary differencebetween diegesisin soundfilmand gamefilmisthattheperspective in a digital game is in the hands of the player and exists in many ambiguous states forming a continuum between what youd call purely diegetic and nondiegetic perspectives. At the diegetic end of the perspective spectrum we have events that are observed from a viewpointthat's logically coherent within the framework of the narrative. HalfLife2 (2004 )isacanonicalexample ofthispurediegesisin thegame,itisunderstood thatyou continuously perceivetheworld through the eyes of Gordon Freeman while events occur around you in realtime. Its implicit that you are Gordon Freeman, having complete control over his movements and actions at every moment5 . At any point which his perspective and by extension, your perspectivewould beremoved from your complete control without proper story explanation, the total diegesis of your perspective would be lost. This is what differentiates a purely diegetic perspective from, say, a firstperson sequence in a film. Because the film lacks tactual elements,theviewercannotcompletely step into the shoes of the film'sactor.Thereisno magiccircle6 ,asyou areclearly notthatactor,and athus purediegesisisnotobtained. At the other end of things, a purely nondiegetic perspective is one thatcan'tbeaccredited to any particularsourcewithin thenarrativeframework.Theresultiswhatmostgamersreferto asa 'cutscene' a cinematic, edited sequence of shots. There's essentially a film crew behind the scenes, documenting the action from an omniscient point of view. The Metal Gear Solid series (1998present)isnotoriousforlargevolumesofthesenondiegeticcutscenes. Between pure diegetic and nondiegetic perspectives, the most archetypal is the thirdperson camera. While in thirdperson, the player's perspective hovers just above, to the side, or in the general vicinity of their avatar's perspective. The player experiences what the characterseesonlyinapproximation,neverexactly. Things get more complicated when different perspective types are layered on top of one another. Players could explore a marketplace where video advertisements play on billboards the advertisements, while appearing to be nondiegetic, are logicallycoherentwithin theframeworkof thenarrative.Bearin mind,weareto believethattheseadvertisementswerecreated by characters in and of the narrative at hand, and are therefore diegetic events. Indigo Prophecy (2005 ) will at

SeeTheMediumoftheVideoGame,2001 Well,onthemicroscopiclevel,anyway.Moreonthatlater. 6 Seehttp://vgc.zachwhalen.net/content/huizingasmagiccircle

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times split the screen into different panels of varying diegesis, where one panel features a completely nondiegetic perspective, and others feature different third or firstperson perspectives from the player's avatar. These strange instances all lie somewhere within our diegeticnondiegeticcontinuum. Theres an issuehere.Thediegeticnondiegeticspectrumonly indicatesthenatureof perspective inthemoment, failing to acknowledgethelargernarrativecontextofadigitalgame.In any situation whereinputisrequired by athird party,choiceiscorollary.7 Thevolumeofchoice,or the degree of player freedom, varies from game to game. This choice diversifiestheexperienceof play, allowing each playthrough to be dynamic and unique the greatest asset of games as a medium. We can say that the most choicedriven narrative frameworks are the most permutable permutability, in technical terms, is the amount that a set can be recombined into different sequences8 . Unlike the diegesis of perspective, there is no 'purely' permutable instance of a game. Permutability is a relative measurement we can only assess that one game has a greater permutability than another9 . There is, however, certainly a minimum to a narrative structures permutability, and thats when said structureiscompletelylinear.Thatis,when thereisno say over what narrative event will occur next, no matter what you do. In this instance, there is only one possiblepermutation 10 . It's important to note that, to asmallextent,diegesisand permutability ofperspectivearent mutually exclusive. This has to do with the fact that, by definition, diegetic perspectives arein the hands of the player. When confronted with a narrative event, the player ultimately positions themselves in the way they wish to viewit.Portal2 (2011 )and gamesofitscinematicilk minimize this slight relationship between diegesis and permutability by using a series of narrow corridors to guide the players otherwise diegetic perspective through a linear seriesofplotelements.In such a system, the player feels in control at the microscopic level while having little say in the game's ultimateoutcome.

Bramsblatantlystates'Atenetofnoncooperativegametheoryisthatplayersarefreetomakeanychoicesthey like':1995. 8 Inourcontext,this'set'pertainstothesetnumberofpotentialnarrativeeventsthatarecontainedwithinagiven digitalgame. 9 Youmightmakethecasethata'truly'permutablegameistheonethatallowstheplayertoperceiveitsnarrativein anysequenceandmannerdesirablehowever,ifsuchahypotheticalgameweretoexist,Icouldeasilypropose anotherhypotheticalgamethatfeaturesevenmoreeventswiththesamelevelofflexibility,andthus,more permutations. 10 Mathematically,that'sthefewestnumberofcombinationsasetcanhave.SeeAppendix.

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Before I ramble onward, I feel we must now devise a rudimentary graphicalrepresentation ofourcinematicplanetokeepusorganized

Fig.1:thecinematicplane

As we've discussed, the diegeticnondiegetic continuum has definite endpoints, whereas event permutability begins atabsolutelinearity and continuesinto indefinitepermutability.It'svalid to argue that the negative portion of the horizontal axis is improper, as linearity represents an absence of permutability rather than anegativenumberofpermutations,and in lightofthat,Ipress you to envision this not as a grid in the traditionally mathematical sense, but more so as a qualitative separation of the cinematic plane into four general regions. Thinking about the cinematic plane in this way will allow us to begin to notice trends among subdivisions differencesbetweeneachsceneclass. Now for a thought experiment. Consider the nature of film within thecontextofthisplane. A traditional film consists of only one predetermined event sequence it does not draw on the input of the viewer11 , and is therefore absolutely linear. As I've stated before, permutability is completely uniqueto thetactualaxis.Diegesisofperspective,however,isnottherearefilmswhich have, on severaloccasions,presented viewpointswhich can bepartially attributed to story elements
12

. These instances are rare, however, as, for the most part, camera placement within a film is not

narratively justified. Well assign, then, the lowerleft quadrant of our plane to the medium of the film, implying that as we walk toward that region on thecinematicplane,ourgamesbecomemore andmorefilmic. Thought experiment, part two. What happens when we turn around and walk in the other direction, away from this filmic quadrant? Wed find ourselves on course for a more permutable and diegetic land (perspectively speaking). I like to fantasize wed approach a sort of 'antifilm'13 .
11

Itmayinthecontextofyourpersonalinterpretationofthefilm,butI'mcurrentlyconcernedwiththephysical sequenceofimagesafilmhasinstoreforyou. 12 ThefirstpersonsequenceinKickAss(2010 ),forinstance,oranykindofsecuritycamerafootage. 13 Atleast,withintheenvironmentwe'vesetupherewhoknowswhatpropertiesthetrueinverseofamediummight havewithrespecttotheoriginalmedium.

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Such a name is hardly justified, but let's adopt it tentatively while we briefly museoverantifilms narrativepotential

Fig.2:Thefilmantifilmintercardinalaxis Antifilm suggests diegetic perspectives that an audience can navigate without restriction (high permutability). The juxtaposition of these properties suggest a large, free roaming space where narrative events occur in real time. Antifilm is a container that the audience must fill, unlike film (which is selfsufficient14 it does not require an audience to continue). In the antifilm, the audience becomes an actor, becomes a player. This player is expected to assume their assigned perspective and take action within a preconstructed environment its"aseparate occupation, carefully isolated fromtherestoflife,and generally isengaged in with preciselimitsof time and place15 ." Its a place for play,aludicspace.Aha !'Ludic'soundslikeouranswer,asplay in all senses, digital game and otherwise, is based on tactual choices fostered by permutability, experienced from the player's own (diegetic) perspective be it via their own eyesortheeyesof another. Two down, two to go. As I stated at the beginning of this endeavor, the tactual field has precedently been the focal point of game theorists because it's the field that's uniqueto theideaof dynamic narrative and game design. Traditional films arent permutable,so thereforeany presence of choice begins to blur the line between the media. The ludicity of a mediumsstructureisthusly proportional to its horizontal position on the cinematic plane, and as such, the lower right region therefore has more ludicity than the upper left region. You might say the lower right corner is primarily ludic with elementsoffilm,and conversely thattheupperleftisprimarily filmicwith elements of play. While this would ideally make sense, one other factor comes into play remember earlier how I stated that true diegesis and permutability weren't exactly mutually exclusive? I don't know if there can besuch athing asan absolutely linearand truly diegeticvideo game at least, I can't envision one. There are instances, such as the aforementioned Portal 2 , where a games scenetoscene structure is linear, but the ability for the player to look around

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15

Meaningthemediumdoesntrequireanaudiencetoprogress (Caillois,125 )

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preventsan absolutelinearity ofperspective.Gamesin thisupperleftregion arestillmarkedly ludic in that they are a playspace for a player to fill, but the containers within are meant to guide the player along a preordained path, much like how the shots in a film are. So, instead of having a sequenceofshots,youhaveasequenceofludiccontainers. Ithinkwerefinallyreadyforthecinematicplanev2.0

Fig.3:thecinematicplanev2.0 Awesome. I want to plot some examples in each quadrant. But first though, a word about the ergodicity of perspective in video games. Most gamestend to jump around thecinematicplane asgamemakersfeelnecessary "Videogames present highly structured and, importantly, highly segmented experiences. Play sequences, from where the idea of the interactivity or ergodicity of videogames derives, are framed and punctuated by moviesequences,map screens,scoreor laptimefeedbackscreensandsoon."(Newman,2002) Thisquote,whileseeming somewhatoutofplacein thiswork foritsmoreconservativeidea for what functions as a 'movie sequence', is still on point in the fact that it points outvideo games are, oddly enough, known to forgo their principle, tactual axioms at regular intervals, constantly jumping down to the filmic quadrant of the cinematic plane and elsewhere. Rarely in a film does the image cut out in order to provide a purely aural experience for the audience (exceptions withstanding of course, for example, Gyrgy Ligeti's Atmospheres at the beginning of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey). This factor is something to keep in mind as I now reveal my qualitative placements for various examples on thecinematicplanemy placementsarebased on the overall nature of perspective in these examples, as opposed to a playbyplay chart of each gamesperspectivenatureovertime,whichwouldquicklybecomeconfusing

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Fig.4examplesplottedonthecinematicplane I'm going to forgo explaining exactly why I decided to place whatvideo gamewhere,asit is a task that would needlessly fill up space.Theplacementsaresufficientenough forthepurposes ofpostulatingourpreeminentconclusionsregardingtheaestheticeffectsofeach"sceneclass". What exactly are the aesthetic advantages of filmic storytelling? This is an important question,ascinemaservesastheinspirationalrootforperspectivein games,diegeticorotherwise.I say that the stasis of linear, seemingly 'placed' (nondiegetic) perspectives give the story a more manufactured feel it highlights the fact that some third party was responsible for the creation of what you're experiencing. The filmic scene class is appealing due to its sense of'authorship'its auteurism (a term that, as defined by Wharton and Grant, applies directly if one replaces all instances of 'film' with 'game'). Final Fantasy XIII (2010) certainly has this sense of extreme authorship woven throughout it. Even the ludic aspects are streamlined participation of theplayer is stylistically kept to a minimum. The player takes a backseat as the characters, plot, and even game, plays itself out. This auteurism has its advantages (auteurism, for instance, allows things like Wolfs linear pacing to be possible, 2001) as linear nondiegetic gamemaking seems to allow the developers to concentrate their effort into structuring one potent and unique experience.Many of the wellknown auteurs in the game industry, like Tim Schafer and Hideo Kojima (Hawkins, 2011), have made their names on games that feature almost exclusively linear nondiegetic narrativestructures(likeGrimFandango (1998),Psychonauts(2005),BrutalLegend (2009)and the Metal Gear Solid franchise). Their work exemplifies this vague correlation between auteurism and thefilmicsceneclass16 . The ludic film scene class seems to be the most aware of itsrelationsto filmicnarrative,as the narrative structures ofthesegamesknowingly borrowfromfilmstructures,and can'thelp butto

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Noted:Imnotsayingyourgamemustbefilmicforyoutobeanauteur.Imsayingthefilmicclasshasa predispositionforauteurship.

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be cognizant of that fact. Both Mass Effect (2007) and Indigo Prophecy are wellregarded, choice driven and permutablevideo gamesthatalso takepridein theircinematicnature.Indigo Prophecy's main menu featuresthecommand 'newmovie'wheremostwould'vesimply read 'newgame'thisis a paradox in and of itself, as each rewatching of an already existing film wouldn't result in a different film every time, whereas each playthrough of Indigo Prophecy is unique it is clearly not a film. The games in this scene class tend to divide linear filmic elements into segments by a series of major player decisions that permute nondiegetic scenes, balancing the perceived authorship between both the player and the gamemakers. The player isrequired to fillthespaceof play, but not with themselves (you don't BECOME a singular character, as in HalfLife2).Rather, their identity becomes apparent in the plot, what with their decisions as to which direction theplot should progress. It is in thissceneclassthattheplayerbecomesauteur,asitisasifthey arewriting the story themselves through their decisions. Mass Effect features a plethora of conversations whose scenetoscene structures function similarly to those of Indigo Prophecy. (You can tell it prides itself on its filmic elements, as lens flares and film grain effects are prevalent in these nondiegetic scenes, further reinforcing the idea that your window into the Mass Effect world is mediated through this nondiegetic, cameraesque perspective). You choose what the external characters say, how they relate to one another, and, to an extent, what happens to them. Because the perspective isnotassigned to any onecharacter,theplayerseesthemselvesasoutsidethestory, yetintegraltotheeventsthattranspirewithinit.Hence,thereisultimatelyasenseof'playingGod. Thelinearludicsceneclass,ratherthan deferring asenseofauteurismto theplayeroverthe ultimate sequence of discrete choice, instead defers to themmorediegeticresponsibility.By taking on a perspective supported by the narrative, you fill the shellofacharacter,ratherthan thatofthe story. Due to that aspect of the linear ludic scene class, the nature of the shell you fill supersedes the nature of the narrative. The auteurism of the developers then, which is naturally supported by the linearity of the scene class (as was previously discussed in relation to thefilmicsceneclass),is usually focused on embellishing the nature of the environment the player inhabits, rather than the characters. At the beginning of HalfLife 2, a man on a monitor talks at length aboutthenatureof the city you've arrived in. Portal 2's environmentisconstantly shifting and changingthingsforthe player to look at occur in the players general vicinity ad nauseum, allowing for an enrichment of atmosphere. BioShock's main feature is arguably it's eerie, underwater city, ripe with atmosphereinducing realtime narrative events. It could be argued that its easiest to develop the environment'simportanceinthelinearludicsceneclass. A highly ludic scenetoscene structure is extremely difficult to achieve, and is currently

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almost hypothetical factoring the ludic elements of both choice and character of space together yields vastly exponentialresults.You mightguessthat,in contrastto theothersceneclasses,such a narrative structure would defer almost all the authorship to the player. In my experiencethisisnot entirely the case the vast amount of work required to supply all the freedoms the ludic structure attempts to promise inevitably feed back into the system as the player inevitably recognizes the large amount of effort that had to occur in order for the experiences to exist, mostly through the many instances in which the engine of the game fails. Observably ludic structures arethen,dueto their difficulty, spread thin and are less potent than the other more linear scene classes. I know of no ludic structure that's as consistently potent and unique as acclaimed video games which favor the other scene classes. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006), along with most of Bethesda Softworks' repertoire, attempts a more ludic structure, briefly employing alinearludictechniqueto initiate the main narrative, and then, in a display of grand showmanship, open the gatesto whatis essentially a huge playground. Completely ludic scene classes are difficult to talk about, as it is arguablethatonemaynotevenfullyexistasofyet. Soinsummary,basedonmyobservations,hereswhateachsceneclassseemstotend toward.Again,theseareonlytendencies,notrequirementsorexclusivities: FilmicDeveloperauteurism,oranindividualityofdeveloper LinearLudicEnvironmentalauteurism,oranindividualityofenvironment LudicFilmPlotbasedauteurism,oranindividualityofplot LudicIndividualityofcharacter?Totalindividuality? Well, it appears I'moutoftime,buthopefully theseeffortshavepaved theway foradeeper thinking about the narrative, scenic, and perspectual structures of games, as the properties I've observed obviously only scratch the surfaces of their respective aesthetic icebergs. Based on the content of and efficacy to which the examples I've thrown at you utilize their narrative structures, it's quiteapparentthatgamemakersexercisesomesenseofawarenesswhen selecting theirnarrative style, and I'm counting on these tools we've developed to help us understand the method to their narrative madness as consumers and critics, as well as further our understanding of the tactual axiom as a whole that is, how it is ultimately derived from, and relates back to, the nature and qualityoftheauralandvisualdimensionsofmainstreamdigitalmedia.

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Works Cited Boguszewski,Thomas.'''ADimensionofMind:Film'IntroductionandEquipment"OpenArtSchool. blogspot.com,06Mar2011.Web. Brams,Steven."ModelingFreeChoiceinGames."(1995):Print. Brown,Royal."SoundMusicintheFilmsofAlainRobbeGrillet." (1999):Print. Roger,Caillois."TheDefinition.ofPlay,TheClassificationofGames." ofPlayAnthology.Technology,2006.Print. Halliwell,Stephen.AristotlesPoetics.London:GeraldDuckworthCo.Ltd.,1986.Print. Hawkins,James."TheTopTenVideoGameAuteurs."JoystickDivision(2011):n.pag.Web.12May 2011. Newman,James."TheMythoftheErgodicVideogame."2.1(2002):1.Web. Steve,Swink."PrinciplesofVirtualSensation."07Ju12006.Web. Wharton,DavidandJeremyGrant.TeachingAuteurStudy.London:BritishFilmInstitute,2005. Wolf,Mark.TheMediumoftheVideoGame.1 sted.Austin,TX:UniversityofTexasPress,2001.Print.

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Appendix: A Brief Proof Forasetofsizen ,thenumberofpermutationsthatutilizekinstancesfromtheset

(formulaobtainedviawww.mathwords.com) Where0is>=n and0=>k=<n .So,todeterminethesmallestnumberofpermutationsforaset,wetakethesmallest setpossible(n =0).Becauseofthewaykisdefined,kmustnowbezeroaswell. Therefore: