Phantasmal Spaces: Archetypical Venues in Computer Games

Description

Recognizable, recurring spatial settings in video games serve not only as points of reference and signposts for orientation, but also as implicit sources of content. These spatial archetypes denote more than real-world objects or settings: they suggest and bring forward emotional states, historical context, atmospheric “attunement,” in the words of Massumi, and aesthetic programs that go beyond plain semiotic reference. In each chapter, Mathias Fuchs brings to the fore an archetype commonly found in old and new digital games: The Ruin, The Cave, The Cloud, The Portal, The Road, The Forest, and The Island are each analysed at length, through the perspectives of aesthetics, games technology, psychoanalysis, and intertextuality. Gridding these seven tropes together with these four analytical lenses provides the reader with a systematic framework to understand the various complex considerations at play in evocative game design. Cover page Halftitle page Title page Copyright page Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Phantasmal Spaces 1 The Road 1.1 Road phantasms 1.2 Driving games and driving game interfaces 1.3 Psychology of driving 1.4 Transmedia road phantasms 2 The Ruin 2.1 Painting decay 2.2 Digital dust 2.3 Sigmund Freud’s death drive and the opponents thereof 2.4 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Tarkovsky’s wastelands 3 The Cave 3.1 Cave men 3.2 Boolean subtract 3.3 Claustrophobia 3.4 C-movies 4 The Cloud 4.1 The beauty of clouds and industrial steam 4.2 Cloud rendering 4.3 Head in the clouds: daydreaming 4.4 Transmedia cloud formations 5 The Cliff 5.1 Running and falling 5.2 Physics engines 5.3 Psychology of risk taking 5.4 Leaping from one medium to another 6 The Forest 6.1 Nibelungen forests 6.2 Tree-generators 6.3 The uncanny 6.4 Tale of Tale of Tales 7 The Portal 7.1 Doors, gateways, passages 7.2 Warp zones 7.3 Rites of passage 7.4 Portals in transmedia spacetelling 8 The Island 8.1 You are alone! 8.2 Chiselling mountains – fetching pretty sunrises 8.3 Really alone!!! 8.4 Robinson Crusoes Conclusion: Atmospheric Spaces Notes References Ludography Index of names A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T V W Y Z Index of games A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Z