Did you know about Ludonarrative Dissonance?
Updated: Feb 6, 2023
This is a term that I didn't know until I came across it while researching for another article. In general terms, it designates the contradictions that can occur when in a game, the player chooses actions other than those proposed by the story, without this influencing the development of the story.
An example: the narrative guides you to save a character and as a player, you decide to continue farming. The logical thing to do would be to go as soon as possible, but there is nothing to prevent other actions (perhaps detracting from the intensity or realism).
Clint Hocking, former creative director at LucasArts, opened the debate among the gaming community a few years ago -sixteen years ago- by publishing this post on his blog:
Then working at Ubisoft, Hocking introduced the Ludonarrative Dissonance by reviewing the game Bioshock:
"This is a serious problem. In the game's mechanics, I am offered the freedom to choose to adopt an Objectivist approach. Still, I also have the freedom to reject that approach and to rescue the Little Sisters, even though it is not in my own (net) best interest to do so (even over time according to this fascinating data)".
He explains that the serious problem lies in the fact that the game mechanics offer the freedom to make choices that as a player you would not want to make. Ludology and narrative were associated, affirming and assuming that all games should flee from this dissonance.
This debate opened the doors to the reflection of other dissonances related to ludonarrative:
- In the article Sound and Ludonarrative (Faure-Carvallo, Calderón-Garrido, Gustems-Carnicer; 2021) we have the premise that sound is crucial for harmony and since in video games the source of information is multimodal, with the help of sound and its qualities we will be able to manipulate the narrative. Something very interesting is the intersemiotic possibilities, that is, four situations can be produced depending on the sound used for each narrative:
Similarity: if what we hear makes sense with the story, emotions will be accentuated (whether positive or negative).
Contrast: if there is dissonance between what we hear and what we perceive from the story, emotions will be moderated and softened.
Regulation: this situation is brief, as it is used to give way to another action, another landscape, and another environment...
Substitution: produced when the words of the narration are exchanged for sounds or images.
So, through sound, emotions can be oriented, intensified, regulated or introduced in new environments, thus strengthening harmony.
- On the other hand, the magazine Rakonto (history and popular culture) they coin the concept of ludo historical dissonance to refer to "cases in which the playable mechanics of a historical videogame transmit to the player contradictory information with respect to the historical reality that is being reconstructed". In this case, harmony is determined by storytelling, historical narrative, setting and gameplay.
Apparently, there are many variables to take into account so that our game does not fall into these dissonances, ceasing to be intuitive and ending up meaningless.
But who determines that? The player. And what is the profile? There are as many profiles as there are players.
The article by Daniel García Raso -historian and writer- published on his website, has the following title: "IS LUDONARRATIVE DISSONANCE THE BIGGEST SELF-TROUBLE THE VIDEO GAME CULTURE HAS EVER MADE? SPOILER: YES". It brings us a different view of ludonarrative dissonance. Or rather of the repercussion that the term had. He points out that there was more "commotion" on the part of informers and disseminators than among teachers of narrative and video game design, who received it as something to take into account but without much importance.
He considers that what Hodking once said is not universal and defends the idea of Tomas Majkowski, "the clash [of "worlds" that can exist in videogames] is not ludo versus fiction but different ludo fictional models".
He also points out Hocking's background, Fine Arts. It was not until the late nineties when the figure of the designer and his specialization appeared, which may explain this realistic vision of the game, more typical of cinema.
What do you think, to what extent does "ludonarrative dissonance" influence your experience as a player?
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