Game Spaces Speak Volumes: Indexical Storytelling
Open accessAbstract
In the problematic exploration of the narrative potential of videogames, one of the clearest aspects that bridge stories and games is space. This paper examines the different devices that videogames have used to incorporate stories through spatial design and what is known as environmental storytelling, focusing on the design elements that make the story directly relevant to gameplay beyond world-building and backstory exposition. These design-related elements are accounted for with the term indexical storytelling. As a refinement of the concept of environmental storytelling, indexical storytelling is a productive game design device, since reading the space of the game and learning about the events that have taken place in it are required to traverse the game successfully. Storytelling becomes a game of story-building, since the player has to piece together the story, or construct a story of her own interaction in the world by leaving a trace.
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The story is there, but the player has to earn the right to witness the entirety of it by examining the environment with enough attention to detail.
“The story is there, but the player has to earn the right to witness the entirety of it by examining the environment with enough attention to detail (cf. Fernández-Vara, 2011, p. 6).”
From Real-time hermeneutics: meaning-making in ludonarrative digital games (2018) · cites this paper as Fernández-Vara, 2011, p. 6
The Environmental Storytelling and Detective Work sections say players piece together a story by interpreting details in the game space and examining the environment. The Interpretation of Remains section adds that players may form different interpretations; it does not support the claim that sufficient attention lets a player witness the story in its entirety. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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Research works printed but not linked: 13
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- Fernandez Vara, C. (2009). "Play's the Thing: A Framework to Study Videogames as Performance," presented at the Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory: International Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Conference, Brunel University, West London.
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Real-time hermeneutics: meaning-making in ludonarrative digital games
Arjoranta, J. (2018) · doi:10.31237/osf.io/uep74 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
- Authors
- Fernández-Vara, C.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Fernández-Vara, Clara
- Venue
- DiGRA Digital Library
- Published
- 2011-01-01
- Volume
- 6
- ISSN
- 2342-9666
- OpenAlex
- W2188158996
- Cited by
- 79
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 3 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 1.75
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Digital Games Research Association Conference
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Games and Media
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Narrative Theory and Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Artificial Intelligence in Games
- Keywords
- environmental storytelling, game space, spatial design, world-building, gameplay, player interaction, narrative construction
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