S
HOOTA study into the workings of narrative in SHOOT
Geert Bruinsma 0061948
Tutorial Computergames Joost Raessens February 4th 2008
Introduction
The veterinarian pulls up at the farm and the farmer is coming up to meet her as she gets out of her car. The farmer explains the situation to the veterinarian while they enter a barn packed with cows. In the far left corner of the barn lies her patient: a six hundred kilograms heavy cow with two broken legs. But the veterinarian was not called here today to heal the crippled animal; she is here to perform an emergency slaughter. And while she approaches the cow, she remembers she has forgotten to ask the farmer to separate the healthy cows from the injured one. And as she moves to the back of the barn, the cows get more and more restless, until they finally brake out in a stampede-like frenzy trampling the veterinarian, the farmer and anything in their way…
The above is a possible scenario of SHOOT, a videogame-based VR application that has recently
been developed by a team of students – team Stunning Creations1 – of the Hogeschool voor de
Kunsten Utrecht (HKU) and the Professional School of the Arts Utrecht (PSAU). Modifying the Half-Life 2 graphics engine, they were able to create their own environment that is experienced through a Head Mounted Display and is controlled by a motion controlled Wiimote2.
The project was initiated by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University, who were looking to software designers and game scholars for a prototype educational tool in training aspiring veterinaries in the practice of an emergency slaughter. Stunning Creations was assigned to:
“Develop a reality/simulation3 game, in which the circumstances concerning an
emergency slaughter are the main theme and the actual shooting is of secondary importance.”
To clarify, the practice of slaughter basically consists of two steps; the first one is the stunning of the animal by shooting of a steel pin through the animals brain, which renders the animal brain dead; the second step is the cutting of the jugular veins which exsanguinates and kills the animal. The initiators of the assignment were chiefly interested in the emotional experience of an
emergency slaughter, as opposed to the actual practice of shooting and cutting. The research of team Stunning Creations, however, showed that games and simulations are better suited to
recreate processes instead of emotionally laden experiences. In short: no game or simulation can evoke the same emotional experience of actually killing an animal. Stunning Creations then decided to take a more structural approach to the subject matter, focussing on an emergency slaughter as a complex set of practices of which the stunning and exsanguinating are but two steps.
At a given point in the development of the VR application the team was unclear on what is was exactly that the user should be able to do. Sitting down and mapping out all of the options they had envisioned until then, they soon realised they were never going to be able to program and design all of the options. They in turn, needed to break down the event of an emergency 1Stunning Creations is formed by Paul Reijnierse, Rick van den Bergh, Joost van Ginneke, Djego Ibanez, Aaron Oostdijk, Joeri Leferve, and Thijs Brandsma.
2The Wii Remote, or Wiimote, is the primary input device for Nintendo’s Wii console, a videogame console released in 2006.
3In Gonzalo Frasca’s definition of simulation, as discussed in more detail in chapter 2, a part of reality is seen as a complex system that is then simulated through a less complex system. If one were to take a real city as a complex system, the videogame SimCity3000 would be a less complex system that simulates the real city.
slaughter into a sequence of a limited amount of essential practices. They, effectively, needed to create a narrative, or narratives, of an emergency slaughter.
‘From the interviews with both Jan Bronkhorst and Theo Bartens [a professional
slaughterer and a cattle farmer] we were able to distillate a sequence of steps and attributes to take with, that would lead the student through an emergency slaughter situation’ (Brandsma ed., 2008, p.26, italics added).
If and how a sequence of steps can be considered a narrative will be further discussed in the following chapter. For now we can say that the educational aim of shoot is to inform the user of a number of steps that one should – in a specified order – take into account in every emergency slaughter situation. Team Stunning Creations did so by recreating one of the most common situations; that of a stalled cow or bull with broken limbs. SHOOT was presented on the 24th of
January 2008 in a twofold fashion: one version of the program was presented as a VR installation and one version was running on an ordinary PC.
This paper will examine what project SHOOT can teach us about the workings of narrative
in educational games. Given the somewhat ambiguous nature of SHOOT – game or simulation –
we will elaborate respectively on SHOOT as a videogame and as a simulation. In the first chapter,
SHOOT will be approached as a videogame and a theoretical analysis of the workings of narrative
in SHOOT will be made. While the ideas on videogame narrative stem from Henry Jenkins “Game
Design as Narrative Architecture”, one will not find here a blind submission to Jenkins analysis, as the analysis of SHOOT will in turn be critical of Jenkins’ theory. The focus of this paper will
then shift to the workings of narrative in SHOOT, by approaching SHOOT through a definition of
simulation. This second chapter will draw on both the work of Gonzalo Frasca on simulation and James Paul Gee’s work on videogame narrative and learning. However, in order to create a working ground for these discussions, we will first need to discuss the position of narrative theory in game studies, and we will need to define terms as ‘narrative’ and ‘story’.
This paper does not aim to propose any improvements or criticism on SHOOT as such. By
the time this article appears team Stunning Creations has already presented their fully operational prototype and it has done so without ever engaging in the discussion of narrative as set forth in this article. This article however does hope to take lesson from SHOOT in an attempt to offer
future developers of similar interactive training tools a theoretical framework that is informed by both theory on the topic of videogame narrative and practice.
1 Games and Narrative
1.1 Ludology as Game Essentialism
Before we can go on to discuss issues of narrative in videogames, we first need to address the ludology/narratology debate. For using narrative to gain insight into videogames is not an uncontested practice, and from the early 90s onwards much ink has been spent on the argument that games should be viewed as a unique phenomenon distinct from other cultural phenomena such as film, literature, and narrative. According to this view, a game is essentially a rule based system that governs the possible outcomes of the play, and a proper study of games should therefore focus on the rules of the game rather than its representational elements. This approach to the study of games is referred to as ludology – from ludus, the Latin word for ‘game’ (Frasca,
1999*)4. Ludology has come to stand in direct opposition to the so-called narratological
approach to videogames, a term used to describe a general interest in the way videogames convey stories. The ludological critique on the narratological approach to videogames can be characterised as the games-are-not-stories argument:
‘To claim that there is no difference between games and narratives is to ignore essential qualities of both categories’ (Aarseth, 1997, p. 5).
According to Janet Murray, ludology can be perceived as a two-sided coin: on the one hand ludology operates as an ideology and on the other hand it functions as a methodology for game studies. As an ideology ludology is aimed towards a prescriptive theory about what makes for good game studies. And as a methodology ludology is focussed on the formal and unique characteristics of games. Making this distinction allows Murray to acknowledge the valuable insights that ludology as a methodology has offered, while at the same time it allows her to dismiss the games-are-not-stories argument:
‘[N]o one has been interested in making the argument that there is no difference
between games and stories or that games are merely a subset of stories. Those interested in both games and stories see game elements in stories and story elements in games: interpenetrating sibling categories, neither of which completely subsumes the other. The ludology v narratology argument can never be resolved because one group of people is defining both sides of it. The “ludologists” are debating a phantom of their own creation’ (Murray, 2005, p. 3).
It is certainly not my ambition to argue that games are reducible to stories, but I do believe that thinking about games and narrative can be useful in the case of SHOOT. According to Murray
‘games are not a subset of stories’, but ‘objects exist that have qualities of both games and stories’ (Murray, 2005, p. 3), and based on the description of project SHOOT in the introduction
and the analysis ahead, I would argue that SHOOT is such an object.
1.2 Narratology 101
One of the leading theorists on the topic of videogame narrative is Henry Jenkins, who, in his article “Game Design as Narrative Architecture”, tries to establish a middle ground position between the ludological and the narratological approach to videogames (Jenkins, 2004, p. 119). Jenkins takes an approach to videogame narrative similar to the one Murray uses, by
acknowledging that not all games tell stories, but many games do have narrative aspirations. Jenkins argues that games stand to narrative much in the same way as narrative stands to dance: ‘Some ballets (The Nutcracker for example) tell stories, but storytelling isn’t an intrinsic or defining feature of dance’ (Jenkins, 2004, p. 119). Another reason to turn to Jenkins for a theory on videogame narrative is the fact that his article shares a common general goal to this one: to inform game designers about the workings of narrative in games in order to enable them to tell their stories better.
4The term ludology was proposed by Gonzalo Frasca to refer to ‘the discipline that studies game and play activities’ (Frasca, 1999*). It is however not quite clear who initially introduced the term, Henry Jenkins ascribes it to Espen Aarseth (Jenkins, 2004, p. 129), and Jesper Juul has traced the term back to a 1982 article by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Juul, 2004*).
But even though Jenkins aims to provide game designers with a basic vocabulary of narrative theory, he fails to define concepts such as ‘narrative’ and ‘story’56. Moreover, he uses the terms
narrative and story as synonyms. The differentiation between narrative and story is a much debated issue within narrative theory7. And while a detailed discussion of the uses of both story
and narrative within narrative theory lies beyond the scope of this article, it is in light of this study useful to determine what the differences between a narrative and a story are. Since I am myself not schooled in narrative theory, I will turn to Mieke Bal’s comprehensive introduction to narratology for a definition of story and narrative.
According to Bal, narrative appears exclusively in texts. A text is understood as ‘a finite, structured whole composed of language signs’ (Bal, 1997, p. 5). For adherents of the ludological approach to the study of videogames, the idea of a videogame as texts is however problematic. ‘For ludologists, it makes no sense to talk of the videogame text, […] because it can not be seen to be constituted without the activity and action of the player’ (Newman, 2004, p. 95). But I would argue that, from a designer’s point of view, it makes perfect sense to speak of the videogame as text. After all, much of the design of a game consists of the actual writing of program code. Obviously, the design is also concerned with the visual representation of the game, but the workings of the game exist primarily in code.
Bal’s definition of narrative and story, although being a broad definition, exemplifies the complex nature of narrative theory. And even though the aim of this paragraph is to be concise, Bal’s definition is in need of some further explanation in order to create a working ground for discussing narrative and games. Bal defines narrative and story as follows:
‘A narrative text is a text in which an agent relates (‘tells’) a story in a particular medium, such as language, imagery, sound, buildings, or a combination thereof. A story is a fabula that is presented in a certain manner. A fabula is a series of logically and chronologically related events that are caused or experienced by actors. An event is the transition from one state to another state. Actors are agents that perform actions. They are not necessarily human. To act is defined here as to cause or to experience an event’ (Bal, 1997, p. 5). In this definition, the agent who tells the story is not the author of the book or the designer of the game; the agent is a fictitious spokesperson which conveys the story in the text. This can be a narrator in a novel, or the camera in a film. In the case of a videogame, it could be argued that the narrator is that which produces the story: the videogame in combination with the player’s actions. Chapter 2 will further elaborate on if and how a videogame and the user can produce a story.
Returning to the difference between story and narrative, Bal states the story is the creatively invested or unique element of the narrative text, the unique manner in which the fabula is presented. For instance, the stories of Homer and J.R.R. Tolkien relate different and 5As was rightly pointed out by Markku Eskelienen in an online response to Jenkins article (Eskelienen, 2004, p. 120). 6There is one more term that is used by Jenkins, which is not included in the definition of narrative and story as given ahead, namely plot. This definition is provided in a footnote because issues of plot are not among the topics discussed in this paper. It is however provided to clarify Jenkins’ use of the term. According to E.M. Foster, a plot describes the causal relations between the events reported by the narrative. For instance: ‘The king died and then the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot’ (Foster, 1963, p. 40).
7‘Perhaps the key activity of narrative theory is precisely this differentiation between stories (‘novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy’, to list just some of Barthes’ examples of the kind of thing we think we know we are referring to when we say ‘stories’) and narratives (as a process of grammatical structuration within language and an object of rigorous, even ‘scientific’, analysis)’ (McQuillan, 2000, p. 3-4).
unique events but can both be regarded as a narrative. Narrative, in this view, pertains to the formal structure of the fabula, or the configuration of states, events, actions, and actors. Throughout this article, the term narrative will be used to refer to this formal structure. The term story will be used to describe a unique series of related events. Not all authors that will be discussed use these definitions, and their use of the terms story and narrative will be evaluated constantly.
1.3 Games as Spatial Stories
In his article on videogame narrative, Jenkins introduces several concepts of how narrative possibilities might be mapped onto game space, understanding game design less as storytelling in a traditional sense and more as narrative architecture. Drawing on Henri LeFebvre and Michel de Certeau, Jenkins argues that games should be examined as spaces ripe with narrative
possibility. Jenkins compares videogames to Homer’s Odyssea and Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, stating that they are spatial stories in which ‘the characters – our guides through these richly developed worlds – are stripped down to the bare bones, description displaces exposition, and plots fragment into a series of episodes and encounters’ (Jenkins, 2004, p. 122).
SHOOT can be considered as a spatial story as well. The program starts with the user being
in a car, where he or she receives a phone call from a farmer requests an emergency slaughter. This space was designed both to introduce the theme of an emergency slaughter and to accustom the user to the input devices of the installation. The second space is the yard of the farm, where the veterinarian’s car stands and where the farmer awaits the user to provide him or her with instructions. This space was designed to focus the user’s attention on the different tools needed for an emergency slaughter. The third location is the inside of a barn and is the location where the slaughter will take place. Each of these three spaces allows the user to perform different actions and each of these spaces needs to be traversed in order to complete SHOOT. There is
however one aspect on which SHOOT seems to divert from Jenkins’ notion of the spatial story:
‘Spatial stories […] are often dismissed as episodic - that is, each episode (or set piece) can become compelling on its own terms without contributing significantly to the plot development and often, the episodes could have been reordered without significantly impacting our experience as a whole’ (Jenkins, 2004, p. 124).
Indeed, in the case of Nintendo’s Super Mario series, one could say that collecting coins and jumping through sewer pipes has little direct relation to the story of saving Princess Toadstool. So the order of the levels in a given Super Mario game could well be changed without
endangering the experience of the story. But in SHOOT the spaces cannot be traversed in a
different order without distorting the scenario of an emergency slaughter. The order in which one performs the actions can not be altered without disrupting the scenario; to exsanguinate an animal before stunning it would not make for a very successful slaughter.
SHOOT can not be described as episodic, but this does not mean it cannot be perceived as
spatial story. After all, Jenkins first introduced the idea of videogames as spatial stories while studying a very specific kind of stories: New World travelling narratives of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century (Fuller & Jenkins, 1995). Perhaps the concept of a spatial story can be better described as the way in which space is used to structure a narrative, rather than the way space is used to structure a certain kind of narrative.
One of the ways in which Jenkins maps narrative possibility onto game space is through enactment. The enactment of a story refers to games that enable the player to perform narrative events. Using the example of the game Star Wars, Jenkins states that ‘narrative enters such games on two levels - in terms of broadly defined goals or conflicts and on the level of localized
incident’ (Jenkins, 2004, p. 124).
The broadly defined goal in Star Wars would be to defeat the dark side, while in a football game, it would be to score at least one more touchdown than your opponents does in each game. In project SHOOT the goal is obviously the enactment of an emergency slaughter, but this
goal is not at all broadly defined. Moreover, the scenario of an emergency slaughter is predicting the order in which each action is ideally performed. Localized incidents, or micronarratives as Jenkins calls them, can be either cut-scenes, or ‘a simple sequence of preprogrammed actions through which an opposing player responds to your successful touchdown in a football game’ (Jenkins, 2004, p. 125). In the case of SHOOT, the farmer’s response to a certain action by the
player is a micronarrative, or the fact that the bull does or does not fall down after the stunning, depending on whether or not the user has placed the captive bolt gun in the right position.
In addition to micronarratives, Jenkins also introduces ‘localized actions’, such as the scoring of the touchdown by the player in a football game. The ‘localized’ in localized action refers to the spatial dimension of the events and actions in a videogame. When put together it is the broadly defined goal that functions as a framework against which localized actions by the player become meaningful. This framework is communicated through micronarratives. And even though the term “micronarrative” is not commonly used in narrative theory (Bal, 1997; McQuillan, 2000; Prince, 2003), it does closely resemble the term “minimal narrative”, which is used to describe a narrative relating a single event (e.g. ‘He sat down’). (Genette, 1988). A localized action might then be understood as an action or event enacted by the user, and a micronarrative would constitute an action or event initiated by a non-user actor.
Reflecting on this rather structured approach to the spatial story; one could argue that the term “spatial narrative” would be more appropriate. Because even though Jenkins uses specific examples of games with unique stories to them, his theory of spatial stories is concerned with configurations of stories in videogames, rather than the particularity of these stories.
The relation between localized actions and micronarrative effectively describes the configuration of action-timed triggers within the game space. Jenkins makes clear how games can convey stories through the concepts of micronarrative and localized actions, and how these concepts are structured in and by space. However, SHOOT is but one of many examples of the
fact that game designers generally grasp the workings of triggers, cut scenes and space to convey a story. Addressing game design, Jenkins states that the process of game design can be
understood as a balancing act between trying to create a compelling narrative framework and offering the player a degree of freedom at a local level. In this view, localized actions and micronarratives are conceived as structures that are opposed to one another, and that can even work against each other; to strong an emphasis on the story would constrain the freedom of player activity. And while Jenkins rightly points out the tension between player activity and narrative exposition with which game designers are faced, he fails to elaborate on how concepts such as localized actions and micronarratives might also work together to convey a story. So perhaps it is necessary to now broaden the theoretical scope of this study to include not only the configuration of narrative in SHOOT, but also the workings of this configuration.
2 Simulation and Narrative
2.1 SHOOT as Simulation
One way in which the theoretical scope might be expanded is by reassessing the idea of shoot as a narrative videogame. After all, Jenkins did not write his theory with education in mind, and it is fair to say that the story embedded in SHOOT is not one of great dramatic development, nor is
it a contest between two worthy adversaries; the story in SHOOT is a non fiction story. The
research report on SHOOT uses the terms protocol and scenario to describe the sequence of
events in the program, but despite what you name it, SHOOT does contain different states,
events, actions and actors. The story or protocol revolves around a change in the state of the crippled cow, but the farmer also changes states in a more literal sense: making mistakes will annoy him and make him less helpful and even grumpy.
Another way of approaching narrative and videogames is through the concept of simulation. Gonzalo Frasca defines a simulation as the ‘act of modeling a system A by a less complex system B, which retains some of A’s original behavior’ (Frasca, 2001, p. 3). A game such as SimCity can be thought of as a system (system B) that simulates a real city (system A). SimCity has some of the characteristics of a real city – buildings in SimCity also need power for instance – while some characteristics of a city are not included in SimCity. In a similar way, SHOOT can be perceived as a less complex system that simulates the more complex system of an
actual emergency slaughter situation. One can for instance imagine that an actual farm displays more agrarian activity than the one in SHOOT; on the SHOOT farm nothing happens apart from the
emergency slaughter.
Even though Frasca is commonly known as a ludologists, he can not be said to be a Game Essentialist, as he leaves room for narrative in his approach to videogames. According to Frasca videogames are simulations that have the ability to produce stories:
‘But the simulation itself is something bigger than narrative. It is a dynamic system that yes, contains thousands of potential “stories”, but it is larger than the sum of its parts. The simulation itself is not a narrative, it is something different, in the same way that a kaleidoscope should not be understood as a collection of possible images but instead as a device that produces images according to certain mechanics’ (Frasca, 2001, p. 1). To explain the subtle differences between narrative and simulation, Frasca makes a comparison between a comic-book style narrative of the workings of a tobacco pipe, and a Flash simulation displaying the workings of the pipe. In fact, Frasca uses two Flash simulations, a simple one and a more complex one. The simple simulation shows a pipe and a button. Once the button is pushed the simulations shows the working of the pipe – pushing the button shows smoke coming through the small end of the pipe, releasing the button shows smoke coming up through the top of the pipe. This simple simulation does not differ a great deal from a comic-book style narrative as ‘the button is basically doing the equivalent of flipping through pages or images’ (Frasca, 2001, p. 2). But in the case of a more complex simulation of a pipe – where variables like the quality of the tobacco and the force with which one sucks on the pipe are included – the
differences become more apparent. Moreover, a simulation is not a set of possible outcomes; it produces certain outcome through the operation of certain mechanics.
Stunning Creations also made an accompanying comic-book style narrative alongside SHOOT, a one-page handbook displaying all the necessary equipment and steps used in the
emergency slaughter protocol. The difference between this one-page handbook and SHOOT as a
simulation is apparent: the handbook does not include variables such as a farmer with adaptive moods or the possibility of stunning the cow incorrectly. The fact that the moods of the farmer change adaptively to the user’s performance on several instances makes for a multitude of possible stories, depending on the manner in which the user performs each individual action. 2.2 Education and the Production of Story
As opposed to Jenkins’ formal approach to videogame narrative, the notion of the production of story through simulation is more attuned to issues of player activity. And while education theorist James Paul Gee is not engaged in the discussion about videogames and simulations – or any other definition of videogames –, he does however comment on how playing certain videogames can generate stories8. Gee enters the discussion on a different level, focussing on
how people learn through videogames.
His book Why Video Games are Good for the Soul, deals with the idea that ‘in fact all videogames are, at bottom, rule systems about shapes (though the shape may look like a person or an object), movements, and combinations. [And] in many […] games, there are
interpretations for these shapes, movements, and combinations’ (Gee, 2005, p. 17). Gee
proposes that videogames be understood as a marriage between an abstract rule system and story elements. By “story elements” Gee means actors, actions, and states. In this view, the rules of a game do not only produce a myriad of problems but at the same time a myriad of story
elements. Each action in a game becomes both a move in the game and an element in the story, producing story elements as we play.
When taken back to Jenkins’ concepts of localized actions and micronarrative, a localized action generates a story element just as micronarratives produce story elements.
Gee uses the term “story elements” because single actions such as the stunning of a cow, the final blow with a lightsaber to Darth Vader’s head, or the scoring of a touchdown, hardly constitutes a whole story in itself. But when combined with other actions or story elements, they can come to form a story. In a similar way, a minimal narrative functions as the building block for so called “complex stories” in narrative theory (Prince, 1973)9.
Looking at the production of narrative on a more general level, Gee distinguished two different stories operating in a given game. The first one is the designer’s story, or, the
interpretations that have been assigned to the shapes, movements, and actions. The second story is the one the player produces while playing the game, the unique trajectory through the game space. The first story primarily exists to allow the second one to exist, making the second story crucially important. But in the case of SHOOT, the first story is of fundamental importance, and
the unique trajectory will ideally not fundamentally deviate from the scenario of the emergency slaughter. After all, it is hard to convey a protocol of a certain order if the users are allowed to reconfigure the individual steps that make up the order.
Being attuned to questions about videogames and learning, Gee offers not only the insight of how actions configuratively produce story elements or meanings, but he also reflects 8Gee does not explicitly define his notion of a videogame, instead he lists a number of commercial games he believes to be videogames: ‘Castlevania, Half-Life, Deus Ex, Metal Gear Solid, Max Payne, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Tony Hawk Underground,
Rise of the nations, Civilization, Age of Mythology, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Allied Assault, Call of Duty, Tales of Symphonia, ICO, Pikmin, Zelda: The Wind Walker, and Ninja Gaiden to name some random good games off the top of my head. There are
many others’ (Gee, 2005, p. 1).
9A complex story is understood as the combination of at least two minimal narratives through linking, embedding or alternation (McQuillan, 2000, p. 316).
on the interpretive act that accompanies this production. ‘The story […] is there to “interpret’- that is, give meaning to – its rule system and, thus, in turn, to interpret and give meaning to each and every action the player takes in the game’(Gee, 2005, p. 21). The act of interpreting is central to the workings of the human mind, according to Gee. The human mind is a pattern recognizer par excellence; it is what is most characteristic about human intelligence (Gee, 2005). As a specific type of pattern, stories are especially meaningful to human understanding:
‘We try to interpret everything that happens as if it were part of some story, even if we don’t know the whole story. We are not just avid pattern recognizers, we humans prefer, story-like patterns’ (Gee, 2005, p. 21).
The idea that narrative shapes our knowledge and experience is a topic of extensive research in the field of psychology. Psychologists Katherine Nelson, for instance, described the role of narrative in the cognitive development of children from the age of two (Nelson, 1996). And Jerome Bruner refers to narrative as ‘a mode of thought and an expression of a culture’s world view’ (Bruner, 1996, p.xiv). Narrative in this view does not only have an aesthetic function; it is central to human cognition from the early childhood onwards, as it helps us think, remember, communicate and make sense of ourselves and the world. The works of psychologist Donald Polkinghorne suggests that narrative cognition is the primary mode of human meaning making:
‘Narrative cognition configures the diverse elements of a particular action into a unified whole in which each element is connected to the central purpose of the action’ (Polkinghorne, 1995, p. 11).
This definition of human understanding directly reflects the aims of team Stunning Creations: to offer the user the particular action of performing an emergency slaughter through a series of diverse elements or actions that are all connected to the central purpose. Even more so, the elements are connected to the central purpose in a strict order through the protocol.
Concentrating on the cognitive production of narrative or meaning in the process of learning, George Gagnon and Michelle Collay have taken a constructivists approach to learning in which ‘learners construct their own knowledge on the basis of interaction with their
environment’ (Gagnon & Collay, 2001*). In this view, the learner is not so much viewed as a passive recipient of information, rather the student is engaged in a form of active learning, making their own meaning and constructing their own knowledge in the process. In SHOOT, the
user constructs knowledge of an emergency slaughter situation and the best way to go about it, through trail-and-error interaction with the game space. Ideally SHOOT is played more then once,
to allow a student to construct knowledge in reference to the previous attempt.
3 Conclusions
A theoretical analysis of narrative in SHOOT has shown how SHOOT can be considered a spatial
story, comprised of an overarching goal that is communicated through a set a micronarratives and that is accomplished through a series of actions that are localized in different spaces.
When approaching SHOOT not as a game space on which narrative possibility is mapped,
enacting a narrative, the user is actively and constructively producing a story while playing. In this view micronarratives and localized actions are understood as both actions of play and story elements. As an example of constructive learning, SHOOT becomes a learning tool that allows the
user to construct knowledge of an emergency slaughter protocol on the basis of interaction. As said, this article aims to inform game designers on a theoretical level of the workings of narrative in educational tools such as SHOOT. It seems obvious to use narrative patterns in
educational simulations or videogames, if narrative cognition is the primary mode of human meaning making. The way these narrative patterns can be applied in games, is through the use of localized actions and micronarratives. The idea of a videogame as a marriage between game rules and stories elements provides the insight that both micronarratives and localized actions contain aspects of narrative and action. Each move or action in the game – either by the player or by a non-player agent – produces a story element. By playing the game, the gamer constructs the eventual story out of these story elements. To learn how to conduct an emergency slaughter is the most important learning goal in SHOOT. But instead of offering a predetermined protocol in a
traditional form (e.g. a book), SHOOT offers the user to put together this protocol him- or herself
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