Self-Location in Interactive Fiction

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to make sense of a characteristic feature of interactive fictions, such as video game fictions, adventure books and role playing games. In particular, I describe one important way consumers of interactive fiction ‘take on the role’ of a fictional character and are ‘involved’ in the story. I argue that appreciative engagement with such works requires imagining being someone else and imagining parts of the story in a self-locating manner. In short, consuming works of interactive fiction involves imagining the story from the protagonist’s perspective.

The Promotion of Originality Perceived in Two Multimodal Storytelling Applications: Storybird and Scratch

“…Our results align with the qualitative results of a previous investigation by Del Moral et al [37], recognising the development of expression and communication through the use of DTS, as well as that of digital competence, though less explicitly. In this study, the variables of the character's point of view, empathy with the character [56], or selflocalization [18] did not appear, although mental flexibility did. The variables time and space did not appear explicitly either [22].…”

“…Antonsen [18] stated that in interactive works of fiction, such as video games, journey books, and role-playing games, consumers acquire the point of view and the role of the protagonist and immerse themselves in the story. Furthermore, they require imagining themselves to be another person and imagining parts of the story while keeping in mind that they are located in the projected place.…”

Current attitudes on digital interactive fiction and text adventure games within learning contexts: A systematic literature review

“…The immersive potential of IF Providing a more immersive learning experience through IF Consumers are involved in the IF story and take on the role (Antonsen, 2020).…”

“…In an observation of 228 participants within a text adventure game environment, results revealed that immersive tendencies predicted the player's identification with the main character of the IF (Felnhofer et al, 2022). Another author took a more mathematical theoretical approach by combining three ideas to explain the phenomenon of the player imagining themselves in the role of the IF protagonist: a) The Imagination Assumption; b) The Indexicality Thesis; and c) The Identity Crisis (Antonsen, 2020). Immersion of the player is clearly a core concern for IF developers.…”

Emotion in Fiction: State of the Art

“…13 Saying that imagining or fictionality can make a difference to emotion need not be interpreted to mean that this is the only or the most important difference. Walton's contribution is to explore how imagination and fictionality matter to emotional experience 10 Recent discussions of interactive fictions include Van De Mosselaer (2020); Antonsen (2021). Though they are focused on so-called i-desires rather than emotions, I think that many of the same considerations apply.…”