Narrative time in video games and films: from loop to travel in time

Abstract

Within the broad framework of audiovisual theories, this paper deals with the analysis of narrative time in video games. Starting with the concept of participation time, which is taken from the interactive media, the now classic concepts of the narratology of flm studies are applied to clarify the main mutual infuences between the two media in relation to narrative time. Unlike the cinema, the narrative character of video games is not always clear. Generally, video games are always games and ofen also stories. Certainly, the playable character of these stories confers on them a few specifc characteristics that need to be explored. Two aspects of narrative time are relevant here. Firstly, the loop as an elementary control structure of computer programming and as a characteristic narrative form of time structure in video games, and secondly, the paradox of travel in time in the discrepancy between the time order at the level of the story and at the level of the narrative.