Abstract

ALVAREZ IGARZABAL, Federico. En el laberinto del tiempo. El videojuego y la evolución de la narrativa. Cuad. Cent. Estud. Diseñ. Comun., Ensayos [online]. 2021, n.98, pp.36-51.  Epub Oct 15, 2021. ISSN 1853-3523.  http://dx.doi.org/10.18682/cdc.vi98.3968.

Video games grant players the capacity to save and load game states, allowing them to travel back in game time. Whenever an unwanted event takes place, players can load a previously saved state and replay a portion of the game to achieve the desired results. Two challenges arise from this mechanic when telling stories: 1) The capacity to undo events is incompatible with tragedy and 2) a temporal paradox emerges: When players travel back in time, they have knowledge about the future. The player character cannot possess this knowledge, since it was reset with the rest of the fictional world. Nevertheless, it behaves as if it possessed it, given that it is controlled by the player.

Keywords : video games; narrative; multilinear narrative; fiction; interaction; time; literature..

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