Encuentros y desencuentros entre videojuegos y literatura. Jugabilidad y narrativa en The Stanley Parable

• Main Author: Alejandro Lozano
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Editorial Delirio 2017-05-01
• Series: Caracteres: Estudios Culturales y Críticos de la Esfera Digital
• Subjects: Video games; storytelling; narrator; gameplay; design
• Online Access: http://revistacaracteres.net/revista/vol6n1mayo2017/videojuegos-literatura/

This paper focuses on the narrative of video games paying attention to resources and strategies borrowed from literature. I will approach a particular issue regarding the possibilities of video games as a suitable media to tell stories. This topic is related to the bonds, compatibilities, and incompatibilities between storytelling and gameplay. Such relationship is responsible for the debates that have centered the methods and approaches to video game studies since the late 90s. Video game creators are exploring this relationship to push the creative boundaries of this medium. This research focuses on the use of omniscient narrator within a series of recent games and further analyze the case of The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe, 2013) to study this phenomenon.