It has become very apparent during the debate that games cannot be entirely explained by narratology, so that question has definitely been resolved. The questions left hanging are actually those fuelling my current research.

Games are not narratives, but games can tell stories. This mode of storytelling in games hint at a sort of collaboration between the game and the player to produce the “session” (Frasca, 1999) or “diegesis” (Klevjer, 2002). Therefore, in this dialogue between the player and the game:

1. Who is the narrator and who is the narratee?
(I hypothesis that the player is both to some extent)

2. What is the role of rules in this form of collaborative storytelling?

XM

I am also very young, so when you say ‘people coming from literature’ or ‘ludologists’ I’ve never worked at a high academic level in anything other than videogames! I did study both English literature and information systems as an undergraduate though so I like to think I’m well-placed to be balanced between the two.

I think it has become clear that there is no single resolution to the question, so in that sense it hasn’t been resolved, but we are no longer discussing the high-level question “are games are stories yes/no?”.

Below that, I think that people coming from film or literature have learned that games have unique qualities that aren’t explained by storytelling, and “ludologists” such as myself have learned to better appreciate using ideas from storytelling in both theory and design.

Was that an answer? What are the questions You think are left hanging?

On another note, there seems to be a large amount of interesting talks happening all over the world, but none in Singapore, where I live. Sigh.