Narrative Theory Series
Narrative Perception
Designing Games & Interactive Stories
In some respects, the difference between entities and events is a function of time. Imagine that you could live for tens of thousands of years and all that time you were staring at a boulder in a river. Over the years you could watch that boulder get eroded into a small pebble by the water’s flow. The entity of ‘the rock’ might actually seem more like an event, or the passage from boulder to pebble. You might say that entities are slow moving events, or that events are very fast moving entities!
Just as we can imagine this reversibility between events and entities, we can also imagine a reversibility between entities and characters. Our cognition of narrative (all the mental processes involved when we understand experiences as narratives) has often been studied using very simple geometric shapes. Psychologists have interesting debates as to whether narrative mental processing occurs at very ‘high’ (i.e. in consciousness) or very ‘low’ (i.e. at the level of the senses) neural processing, exemplified by the Heider-Simmel Illusion and Albert Michotte’s study on the perception of causality.
The Heider-Simmel Illusion is a visual illusion in which a group of simple geometric shapes appears to be interacting with one another in a social manner, as if they were animate beings with intentions and emotions. There have been several different interpretations of this illusion, including the following three:
The Perceptual Interpretation: This interpretation suggests that the illusion arises from the way that the human brain processes and interprets visual stimuli. According to this view, the brain automatically attributes social characteristics to the shapes, in order to make sense of the scene.
The Cognitive Interpretation: This interpretation suggests that the illusion arises from the way that the human mind works. According to this view, the mind is naturally inclined to attribute mental states (such as beliefs, desires, and intentions) to other beings, and this tendency leads us to interpret the shapes as if they were animate and social.
The Cultural Interpretation: This interpretation suggests that the illusion arises from the way that our culture and society shape our perception of the world. According to this view, the illusion reflects the way that we are conditioned to think about social relationships and to attribute human-like characteristics to nonhuman objects.
Related Articles
Narrative in Analog & Digital Media
Narrative Continuity vs Poetic Montage
The Structure of Narrative Time
The Fourth Wall & Direct Address
Fact, Fiction & Narrative Contestation
Character Interactions and Narrative Progression
Agency in Interactive Narrative
Bibliography & Further Reading
- A Game Design Vocabulary: Exploring the Foundational Principles Behind Good Game Design by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark
- A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
- Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach by Michael Sellers
- An Introduction to Game Studies by Frans Mayra
- Basics of Game Design by Michael Moore
- Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier
- Board Game Design Advice: From the Best in the World vol 1 by Gabe Barrett
- Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: an Encyclopedia Of Mechanisms by Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev
- Character Development and Storytelling for Games by Lee Sheldon
- Chris Crawford on Game Design by Chris Crawford
- Clockwork Game Design by Keith Burgun
- Elements of Game Design by Robert Zubek
- Film Art by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
- Fundamentals of Game Design by Ernest Adams
- Fundamentals of Puzzle and Casual Game Design by Ernest Adams
- Game Design Foundations by Brenda Romero
- Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton
- Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans
- Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames edited by Chris Bateman
- Games, Design and Play: A detailed approach to iterative game design by Colleen Macklin and John Sharp
- Interactive Narratives and Transmedia Storytelling, by Kelly McErlean
- Introduction to Game Systems Design by Dax Gazaway
- Kobold Guide to Board Game Design by Mike Selinker, David Howell, et al
- Kobold’s Guide to Worldbuilding edited by Janna Silverstein
- Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd Edition by Scott Rogers
- Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet by Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth Foote, et al.
- Narrative Theory: A Critical Introduction by Kent Puckett
- Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates by David Herman, James Phelan, et al.
- Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Fourth Edition by Mieke Bal
- Practical Game Design by Adam Kramarzewski and Ennio De Nucci
- Procedural Storytelling in Game Design by Tanya X. Short and Tarn Adams
- Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing by Wendy Despain
- Rules of Play by Salen and Zimmerman
- Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Frontiers of Narrative) by Marie-Laure Ryan, Jan-Noël Thon, et al
- Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers by Ethan Ham
- The Art of Game Design, 3rd Edition by Jesse Schell
- The Board Game Designer’s Guide: The Easy 4 Step Process to Create Amazing Games That People Can’t Stop Playing by Joe Slack
- The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative by H. Porter Abbott
- The Grasshopper, by Bernard Suits
- The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media, by by Marie-Laure Ryan, Lori Emerson and Benjamin J. Robertson
- The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies by Bernard Perron and Mark J.P. Wolf
- The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory by David Herman
- The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten
- Unboxed: Board Game Experience and Design by Gordon Calleja
- Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques by Evan Skolnick
- Writing for Video Game Genres: From FPS to RPG edited by Wendy Despain
- Writing for Video Games by Steve Ince
- 100 Principles of Game Design by DESPAIN
