Videogame Sciences and Arts 11th International Conference VJ 2019 Aveiro Portugal November 27 29 2019 Proceedings Nelson Zagalo
Videogame Sciences and Arts 11th International Conference VJ 2019 Aveiro Portugal November 27 29 2019 Proceedings Nelson Zagalo
Videogame Sciences and Arts 11th International Conference VJ 2019 Aveiro Portugal November 27 29 2019 Proceedings Nelson Zagalo
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Videogame Sciences
and Arts
11th International Conference, VJ 2019
Aveiro, Portugal, November 27–29, 2019
Proceedings
Communications
in Computer and Information Science 1164
Commenced Publication in 2007
Founding and Former Series Editors:
Phoebe Chen, Alfredo Cuzzocrea, Xiaoyong Du, Orhun Kara, Ting Liu,
Krishna M. Sivalingam, Dominik Ślęzak, Takashi Washio, Xiaokang Yang,
and Junsong Yuan
Videogame Sciences
and Arts
11th International Conference, VJ 2019
Aveiro, Portugal, November 27–29, 2019
Proceedings
123
Editors
Nelson Zagalo Ana Isabel Veloso
University of Aveiro University of Aveiro
Aveiro, Portugal Aveiro, Portugal
Liliana Costa Óscar Mealha
University of Aveiro University of Aveiro
Aveiro, Portugal Aveiro, Portugal
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface
The 11th Conference on Videogame Sciences and Arts (Videojogos 2019) was held in
Aveiro, Portugal, during November 27–29, 2019. The event was co-organized by the
Department of Communication and Art of the University of Aveiro (DeCA), DeCA’s
DigiMedia Research Center, and the Portuguese Society of Video Games Sciences
(SPCV).
The annual conferences of the SPCV promote the scientific gathering of researchers
and professionals in the expanded field of videogames and is usually held in Portugal.
This year, 10 years after the first conference, SPCV and the co-organizers decided to
convert the conference into a full international event, with English as a working lan-
guage. Indeed, the videogame industry has been challenged over the past years with the
need of different knowledge bases – from Gameplay Experience to Artificial Design,
Art, Programming, Psychology, Sound Engineering, Marketing, among others. In
addition, games have been increasingly adopted as cultural artifacts in a hobbyist and
artisan market and, therefore, presenting digitally mediated innovations in this popular
but somewhat saturated global market is more and more in demand.
In game design, the symbiosis between player-centric and game-centric approaches
seem to be key in bringing fundamental elements to gameplay such as rewarding
conditions, a sense of fairness, dilemmas, narrative fantasies, and flow experiences that
subsequently may change the way a certain environment or scenario is perceived by a
gamer community. In these proceedings, both game theories and the interlink between
gameplay, narrative, and fiction are covered. Section 1 “Games and Theories” consists
of four papers that discuss the use of gameplay elements and the transcendence in
fiction and reality. In “First-Person Refugee Games: Three Design Strategies for
Playing the Stories of Refugees and Asylum Seekers,” Victor Navarro Remesal and
Beatriz Zapata analyze games as a biographical medium and a representation of societal
stories. Regina Seiwald advocates games as fiction and an illusory medium in “Games
within Games: The Two (or More) Fictional Levels of Video Games.” In the same
vein, Mateo Torres propose a Mechanics – Performance – Fiction (MPF) framework
for the analysis of ludic artifacts. Finally, Su Hyun Nam highlights the importance of
rules in videogames and control in Digital Societies.
Section 2 entitled “Table Boards” advances current research on tabletop
game-playing and its importance in game design and playtesting. In “Towards a
Tabletop Gaming Motivations Inventory (TGMI)”, Mehmet Kosa and Pieter Spronck
discuss the motivations for tabletop game play and propose a tabletop gaming moti-
vation inventory to assess these motivations. Micael Sousa and Edgar Bernardo recall
the origin and characteristics of modern board games, taxonomy, and current trends in
“Back in the Game: Modern Board games.” Seeram Kongeseri and Christopher Coley
describe the process of developing a collaborative tabletop game for social
problem-solving and civic engagement. This section ends with the development of a
vi Preface
toolkit for game design proposed by Pedro Beça, Rita Santos, Ana Veloso, Gonçalo
Gomes, Mariana Pereira, and Mónica Aresta.
eSports and group competition in a multiplayer environment are another topic
highlighted in this conference (Section 3). Whereas Cátia Ferreira presents the
Portuguese eSports media ecosystem, a literature review on game design decisions and
communication theories applied to eSports are identified by Gabriel Canavarro, João
Sequeiros, and Farley Fernandes. Furthermore, the negative perspectives on the use of
videogames and brands to sponsor eSports are discussed by Bruno Freitas, Ruth
Espinosa, and Pedro Correira. Group Dynamics in eSports is then illustrated by
Tarcizio Maxedo and Thiago Falcao, who present the (Semi) Professional League of
Legends Amazonian Scenario.
A number of papers also discuss innovative uses and methodologies in game design
(Section 4). Daryl Marples, Pelham Carter, Duke Gledhill, and Simon Goodson report
on “Broad Environmental Change Blindness in Virtual Environments and Video
Games.” Virtual Reality Arcades and its usage habits and frontiers for exergaming is
presented by Tuomas Kari. In “Jizo: A Gamified Digital App for Senior Cyclo-tourism
in the miOne Community,” Cláudia Ortet, Liliana Costa, and Ana Veloso suggest the
use of a co-designed gamified digital app to support Senior Cyclo-tourism. Similarly,
Jackeline Farbiarz, Alexandre Farbiarz, Guilherme Xavier, and Cynthia Dias highlight
the role of gamification but in this case, for graphic education.
Section 5 delves into Game Criticism. A personalized game review score is in the
spotlight with the paper “Personalized Game Reviews” authored by Miguel Ribeiro and
Carlos Martinho. Mythogames are introduced by António de la Maza with his paper
entitled “The symbolic labyrinth in the mythogame: the axes Minos-Daedalus and
Theseus Minotaur in the contemporary video game.” A classification of hybrid games
is offered by Ryan Javanshir, Beth Carrol, and David Millard in “Classifying Multi-
player Hybrid Games to Identify Diverse Player Participation.” Finally, Emmanoel
Ferreira ends this section with socio-cultural and historical aspects of media archae-
ology in a game context.
This book contains a total of 20 papers from academia, research institutes, industry,
and other institutions from 7 countries (Brazil, Finland, India, Portugal, Spain, the UK,
and the USA) that resulted from a 40% acceptance ratio and a selection of papers in the
topics of e-Sports, Game Criticism, Games and Theory, Tabletop Games, and Uses and
Methodologies. These contributions address the novel research and development out-
comes in the videogame context, gathering in itself several different scientific areas,
such as Multimedia, Communication, Technology, Education, Psychology, Arts,
among others.
It thereby confirms the decision taken by the conference chairs to take a step
forward: out of the national domains, and towards an international platform reflecting
global interests and relevance. This move reflects the desire and the will to take on the
international challenge by the SPCV of opening up critically, reflecting, and integrating
views and ideas, not only nationally but also internationally, towards a wider audience
always striving for a holistic perspective, trends, and future directions.
To help the videogame community bridge the gap between industry and academy,
two keynotes were invited. Ernest Adams talked about planning and processes for
Preface vii
game development, and Diogo Gomes about the use of Artificial Inteligence (AI) in
game development, alongside examples on learning practices with AI.
We would like to thank the scientific board for their contribution in guaranteeing
and delivering the highest scientific quality, evidenced by the outstanding relevance of
this book. We would also like to thank the program chairs (demo, poster, and work-
shops) and the organization team for all their concerns and efforts with regards to the
organization, an extremely important contribution for the overall success of the
Videojogos 2019.
Last but not least, we would like to thank the DigiMedia Research Center and SPCV
for all the support, and the DeCA for hosting the event and making this conference
possible.
Committees
Ana Isabel Veloso University of Aveiro, Portugal
(Conference Chair)
Nelson Zagalo University of Aveiro, Portugal
(Scientific Chair)
José Nunes University of Aveiro, Portugal
(Organizing Chair)
Program Committee
Aaron Rodríguez Universitat Jaume I, Spain
Abel Gomes University of Beira Interior, Portugal
Adérito Fernandes Marcos Open University, Portugal
Alex Mitchell National University of Singapore, Singapore
Alexis Blanchet Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, France
Ana Amélia Carvalho University of Coimbra, Portugal
Ana Torres University of Aveiro, Portugal
André Neves Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil
António Coelho University of Porto, Portugal
Antonio José Planells Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Beatriz Legerén Universidad de Vigo, Spain
Beatriz Pérez Zapata Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain
Carla Ganito Catholic University, Portugal
Carlos Martinho University of Lisbon, Portugal
Carlos Santos University of Aveiro, Portugal
Cátia Ferreira Catholic University, Portugal
Christian Roth University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
Ciro Martins ESTG de Águeda, Portugal
Conceição Costa Lusófona University, Portugal
Cristiano Max Universidade Feevale, Brazil
Daniela Karine Ramos UFSC, Brazil
Diogo Gomes University of Aveiro, Portugal
Duarte Duque IPCA, Portugal
Emmanoel Ferreira Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Esteban Clua Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil
Eva Oliveira ESTG IPCA, Portugal
Fanny Barnabé Université de Liège, Belgium
Filipe Luz Lusófona University, Portugal
Filipe Penicheiro University of Coimbra, Portugal
Fotis Liarokapis Masaryk University, Czech Republic
x Organization
Organizing Committee
José Nunes University of Aveiro, Portugal
Ana Isabel Veloso University of Aveiro, Portugal
Nelson Zagalo University of Aveiro, Portugal
Oscar Mealha University of Aveiro, Portugal
Tânia Ribeiro University of Aveiro, Portugal
Organization xi
Organizing Institutions
Support
Table Boards
eSports
Game Criticism
Abstract. This paper aims to offer a critical analysis of recent games by and/or
about refugees, with a strong focus on the narration and reconstruction of per-
sonal experiences and biographies. We have selected three European (French
and German) productions and a global one (created by UNHCR), describing the
journeys refugees fleeing their country: Finding Home (UNHCR, 2017), Bury
Me, My Love (Playdius Entertainment, 2017), and Path Out (Causa Creations,
2017). We also consider a fourth game: North (Outlands, 2016), an experi-
mental cyberpunk indie game that presents well-known bureaucratic and sys-
temic obstacles for refugees. This paper contextualizes the media representations
of refugees and studies these selected games first by describing their conditions
of production and communicative aims, including their intended effect on
players and their calls to action (if any) beyond the act of playing. Secondly, we
consider the narrative design choices they employ, in particular, their narrators
and focalizers, paying attention to if and how they give voice to actual refugees.
Lastly, we study the genres, goal structure, and mechanics of interaction they
use, separating them in three main ludonarrative strategies: interface-based
newsgames, reality-inspired interface games, lost phone newsgames, autobio-
graphical JRPG-like, and experimental cyberpunk first person adventure. In this,
we observe how these works apply the language of videogames to bridge their
ludofictions to the real world stories behind them.
1 Introduction
Postcolonial studies have, for many decades now, provided us with tools to analyze and
question relationships of power in an increasingly globalized world. Literature and film
have been the focus of many scholarly analysis in postcolonial studies and, of late, the
study of postcolonial games and videogames has come to the fore. Recently, Souvik
Mukherjee and Emil Lundedal Hammar [1] have called for the critical exploration of
colonial discourses in games, which persist up to date under many neocolonial guises.
Both mass-produced games and independent, serious, and activist games have
addressed postcolonial concerns to varying degrees and have sought to contest dis-
courses and means of production and consumption. These narrative forms aim to give
voice to the subaltern, those whose voices have been systematically silenced. In con-
temporary times, mass displacement has oftentimes turned refugees into subaltern
subjects, their voices silenced or highly mediated. Not in vain does David Farrier [2]
label them the “new subaltern”. Thus, as Stephen Morton [3] argues, we need “nar-
ratives of postcolonial refugees” that can “take account of the histories of dispossession
and abandonment associated with the global expansion of capitalism”. And games are
one of the ways in which refugees’ experiences can be expressed.
The purpose and ethics of “refugee games” raise many questions. This paper
focuses on two central ones: first, how do games portray refugees’ lives? And second,
what do games do to change both the refugees’ realities and the way in which Western
audiences and host countries relate to these experiences? In order to answer these
questions, we will first contextualise the representation of refugees in the media to then
analyze the narration and/or reconstruction of personal experiences in four games: Bury
Me, My Love (The Pixel Hunt, 2017), Finding Home (UNHCR & Grey Malaysia,
2017), Path Out (Causa Creations, 2017), and North (Outlands, 2016). The first two
use a “reality-inspired” approach to try and mimic the way Syrian and Rohingya
refugees use technology to communicate with their loved ones. The third one uses
gaming tropes to present his protagonist, an actual Syrian refugee, as a gamer
youngster, not different from its intended audience. The fourth one, North, eschews
referencing the current “refugee crisis” to present a science-fiction tale about a refugee
living in an alien city.
We argue that some of the most relevant strategies these games use to portray the
refugees’ experiences are the representation of suffering and the appeal to emotions,
more particularly, compassion. Therefore, the analysis of these games will focus on
narrative devices such as focalization and strong characterization, as well as on the
different genres and interfaces. This paper will also draw attention to the creators,
intended audiences, and the calls to action the games propose. Thus, we will study a
selection of relevant “refugee games” through the lenses of postcolonial theory,
emotion in media, and ludonarrative (that is, the combination of fictional, narrative, and
gameful elements) analysis. Furthermore, using the concept of the “implied player” [4],
we explore the affective responses these games seek to create in order to contest current
misrepresentations of refugees, allow the player to recognise their suffering, and bridge
the gap between the mere act of witnessing and action.
When refugees are portrayed as victims in humanitarian texts, their defining trait is
often suffering, and especially their capacity to endure continued suffering. Mustapha
Marrouchi [5] explains that “It is the subaltern’s resilience that defines his or her
literary representation”. Refugees, as well as other types of dispossessed, are recur-
rently shown as devoid of agency or personality, means to an editorial end: “He or she
is often the interface between the reader and the text’s scheme of values, which is
First-Person Refugee Games: Ludonarrative Strategies 5
regularly undercut by the subaltern’s canny presence, still winking at the reader” [5].
The stories in the different games this paper analyzes, make it clear that those voices
have to be heard, that we need to be open and exposed to their truths. As we shall see,
the use of first-person narrative strategies closely entangles players with histories that
could, at one point, seem too foreign. These games remind us that, as Lyndsey
Stonebridge [6] affirms, “far from being a ‘crisis’ affecting just the poor unfortunates of
the world, the history of placeslessness is everybody’s history”.
Media representations of refugees often paint a collective picture rather than
focusing on individual stories. Against these biased and/or incomplete representations,
there are numerous literary, cinematic, and ludofictional representations of refugees’
lives that try to imbue their narratives with the humanity that they have lost in the
processes of displacement and placeslessness, and which try to communicate their
suffering without falling into a “regime of pity” [7]. The suffering of refugees is often
framed within histories of drowning, impossible escapes, and traumatic histories, so
much so that some can only think of refugees as “suffering people” [8]. These images
and preconceived ideas are part of what Chouliaraki [7] describes as “the spectacle of
suffering”, which raises ethical questions about our relationship with “distant sufferers”
and our subsequent engagements with their suffering. Although this research is very
much necessary in order to understand responses towards suffering, it is still very much
focused on the reactions towards suffering rather than in the articulation of others’
suffering.
Recent studies have nevertheless analyzed how refugees’ voices are raised and
mediated. Wright [8] and Sigona [10], for example, denounce how the media do not
allow refugees to speak for themselves, turning them into “anonymous passive victims”
and draw attention to the political agency of refugees telling their stories. However,
Pantti and Ojala [11] see these increasing first-person accounts as embedded in “a
pervasive ‘culture of disbelief’”, which arises from seeing refugees as suspicious and the
assessment of truth in processes of Refugee Status Determination. Smets, Mazzochetti,
Gertmans, and Mostmas [12] interviewed refugees and found that, while “they want
their suffering to be represented”, they reject current “suspicious” and “miserabilist”
portrayals and favour more realistic representations that show “the ugly truth” (italics in
original). Smets et al. further argue that “making suffering visible becomes a gateway for
our participants to express frustration, or at least disappointment, with the fact that there
is a lack of realistic media representations about their histories of individual trajecto-
ries”. Thus, we need individual accounts of refugees’ experiences that lay bare the whole
truth and show suffering in an honest way to challenge current discourses.
Lastly, Watt Smith [13] defines pity as “more of a spectator sport”. Pity is moreover
connected to power and establishes a clear barrier between safety and suffering [6] and,
“releash[es] us from the discomfort of responsibility” [13].
Compassion is the emotion that could potentially bring about change. For Nuss-
baum [14], it is a matter of education as well as of institutional concern, and we should
aim at becoming “compassionate spectators”, those who are “always attempting to
compare what [they] sees with [their] own evolving conception of the good” and
“keenly aware of hidden impediments to flourishing in the lives [they] encounter”.
Nussbaum [14] concludes, referring to the classical origins of compassion, that
“without being tragic spectators, we will not have the insight required if we are to make
life somewhat less tragic for those who […] are hungry, and oppressed, and in pain”.
We are all spectators, which may not be negative per se. However, if our role in society
in only limited to that of spectator, the potential for compassionate connections and,
ultimately, a more just world, may be lost.
Chouliaraki [7] argues that “the ethics of public life insists that suffering invites
compassion, it must be acted on and on the spot if it is to be an effective response to the
urgency of human pain”. It is true that nowadays, as she argues, it may seem impos-
sible to act and re-act compassionately towards the images and stories of suffering. In
our globalized times, we are all witnesses to the suffering of others. Most of the time we
can only observe, acknowledge, and communicate a limited version of what is being
witnessed. Sontag [15] argued that if we are unable to do anything about what we
witness we become “just voyeurs”. Nowadays, the spectacles of suffering have mul-
tiplied exponentially, which may result in “compassion fatigue”, defined by Chou-
liaraki [7] as “the audience’s indifference towards distant suffering”. Indeed, some
players may detach themselves from the realities of the refugees and concentrate on the
ludic aspects of the games. However, the ludonarrative strategies of the games analyzed
here, put the focus on fiction, on setting and character, in what can be related to the
“non-ludus” design templates discussed by Craveirinha and Roque [16]: complex
choices, tragedy, and theatre. By placing the players as protagonists and/or in very
short proximity to the refugees’ experiences, these games aim to bring to the fore more
reflective forms of compassion that go beyond both that acting “on the spot” and
bearing witness, by questioning the rules within and outside their ludofictional worlds.
They are based on a procedural rhetoric of suffering.
How can games portray this suffering? Navarro-Remesal and Bergillos [17] dis-
tinguish between “ludic suffering”, that caused by the challenge, the controls, the skills
the game demands from us, and the desire for a better state, and fictional suffering or
“suffer-believe”, expressed by player and non-player characters (NPCs) via character
animations, voice acting, text messages, and other narrative strategies. This form of
vicarious suffering could lead to the recognition of a character’s suffering (a sort of
“recognise-believe”) and could effectively prompt an ethical response. Rentschler [18]
warns that, when confronted with images of others’ suffering, “people may simply not
know how to act or what to do with their vicarious experience of others’ suffering,
because they have not been taught how to transform feeling into action”. It is our
contention that the videogames here analyzed promote transformation and that com-
passion can extend beyond the act of playing.
First-Person Refugee Games: Ludonarrative Strategies 7
In our approach to games and play, we follow Fernández-Vara [19], who views
play as a performance and the player as both a spectator and a performer. She explains
that “The role of the player […] is just one element that straddles between the role of
the audience and the interactor”, and thus, “the performance of the player is a nego-
tiation between scripted behaviours and improvisation based on the system”. This
hybrid, dual role offers players multiple modes of affective identification, as Isbister
[20] argues: the “parasocial interaction” of non-interactive media, in which “over time,
some viewers/readers form powerful attachments to characters”, but also a projection of
themselves into their avatars, as well as interactions with NPCs that move beyond
parasocial feelings into “consequential social experiences with accompanying social
emotions and behaviours”.
Elsewhere [21] we define compassionate play as “the acknowledgement of one’s
own suffering as a player as well as the suffering of others (human or fictional agents),
and the interconnectedness between them”, with “interconnectedness” being a key
concept. We argue that this way of playing is thus a “critical reflection where the player
can see clearly who is suffering, how and why, what impact it has on the ludofictional
world, and what she can (or cannot) do about it”, as well as establish parallelism with
the real world and use the game as a basis for ethical reflection. For this conceptual-
isation, we understand “ludofictional worlds”, following Planells [22], as “a system of
concatenated possible worlds that generates a play space determined by a fictional
content and rules closely related. Meaning is then generated through the combination of
the fictional elements (characters, locations, actions) and the rules that govern them.
Ludofictional worlds can serve as commentaries on the real world. Several creators
have referred to the possibilities for change that games offer. Alter [23], from Subaltern
Games, states that “Video games can’t change the world any more than books or
movies can. But they can change how someone perceives the world”. Similarly, Karam
[24], the Syrian refugee whose experience is told in Path Out, claims that “I believe
games and interactive media are a great way to learn and change perspectives. In my
opinion as long as its [sic] being used to show the truth + neutrality”. By confronting
players with first-person refugee stories, these games put players in the refugees’ shoes
and allow them to experience the anxiety of waiting, the struggle to escape, and the
difficulties in narrating their stories of suffering. These games encourage a heightened
awareness of the refugees’ experiences and urge players to act accordingly, which will
be later analyzed.
Except for Finding Home, conceived and built by Grey Malaysia (the local branch of
an advertising company established in New York), all of these games were created by
small teams. Bury Me, My Love (from now on, BMML) was conceptualized by Florent
Maurin, a former journalist and founder of the French independent studio The Pixel
Hunt in 2009. Path Out was made by Causa Creations, a two-person team founded in
2014 by Tilmann Hars and George Hobmeier, which had previously produced activist
games such as Burn the Boards (2015), on which they denounce the human cost of
8 V. Navarro-Remesal and B. P. Zapata
although the calls to action are relevant, these games highlight the persuasive power of
narratives to change minds. An evaluation of such change would require a larger
audience study, which escapes the scope of this paper, but these games work towards
that possibility.
Telling a personal story, fictional or more (auto)biographical, and inviting players
to think about it seems to be a priority for all these games: the official website for
BMML [29] states that “This story is about those [migrants] who achieve that goal
[getting to Europe]’’, “It is about those who don’t. It is about those who die trying. It is
about the world around us. Something which we hope will lead you to keep pondering
on after it is over”. Their off-game goal is to promote understanding. As mentioned
before, these games have “compassionate play” in mind, which is achieved by making
us play as or walking alongside refugee characters. And, although their focus is on
individual stories, they also direct players to question the world through the rules of
their ludofictional worlds.
The main strategies shared by all these refugee games are the focus on a single story
together with the use of a single-character focalization. As such, all of them include
voices written in the first person. Personal communication is also central in these
narratives: they resort to letters, instant messaging, and Twitch/YouTube-like feeds.
These games put forward individual stories and highlight the need to create a con-
versation, both as a survival strategy in their escape journeys and re-settlement and as a
way to connect with wider audiences. In what follows, we describe each game in detail
and pay attention to their respective strategies, pointing to further commonalities and
their differences.
The main character in BMML is Nour, a Syrian woman who flees her country
aiming to reach Germany. However, we play as (and from the perspective of) Majd, her
husband, who had to stay behind in Syria and is in constant communication with her
through his smartphone. As Majd, we receive messages from Nour telling us about her
situation and progress (or lack thereof) in her journey. She often asks us for advice, and
this is where player agency comes in, although in a very limited and controlled manner.
Our capacity to influence the game state is quite minimal. In a talk for the GDC (Game
Developers Conference) of 2018 entitled “Exploring helplessness in games with Bury
Me, My Love”, Maurin [30] explained that their goal was to make Nour “feel like a real
person”, and thus she is consistent, hesitates, and may lie to Majd. They wanted to
avoid being “too player-centric” and make players feel they are “not on the ground”,
“not in control”, and that “life is not fair”. Finding Home uses a very similar narrative
design, with the player taking on the role of Kathijah, a 16-year-old Rohingya forced to
flee her home with her brother Ishak. When the game starts, she has reached Malaysia
and lost Ishak on the way, and they communicate through their phones. The main
difference with BMML is that the roles are somehow reversed: as Kathijah we can and
must communicate with more people, especially with Rohingya people already settled
in Malaysia, in order to try and survive there while waiting for Ishak.
10 V. Navarro-Remesal and B. P. Zapata
Autobiographical videogames are not very common, with Dis4ia (Anna Anthropy,
2012), Cibele (Nina Freeman, 2015) or Memoir En Code: Reissue (Alex Camilleri,
2016) being rare examples. Having the author speak or appear on-screen, as a sort of
developer’s commentary integrated in the game, is even rarer, with meta-narrative
exercises such as The Beginner’s Guide (Davey Wreden, Everything Unlimited, 2015)
exploring this less travelled path. Path Out combines both by having the player control
Syrian youth Abdullah Karam as he tries to escape his country, while having him
interrupt the game to comment on its events and act as a narrator in recorded videos.
The game starts in 2014 in a forest in northern Syria and forces the player into an
ambush by a soldier. It is then that the action is interrupted for the first time and a video
feed of Karam is shown on the top left corner: “You just killed me, man. In reality I
wasn’t as clumsy as you. Yeah, you don’t get it, right? You’re playing me in the game.
You see that little guy with the yellow shirt? That’s me, trying to escape Syria and stuff.
But the adventure started a few years ago. Let’s take you there, shall we?”. During the
first episode (the only one released at the time of writing)1, he, the player avatar, needs
to talk to his family and friends in order to progress, while he, the real person, talks
directly to the player in a one-to-one manner. Moreover, videogames are used as a
shared cultural space that reinforces identification, as well as a communication channel:
“I used to be an average kid – going to school, listening to music, and playing video
games… Lots of video games”, writes Karam in the game’s Steam page. Path Out
plays with scenes of the quotidian and direct addresses to players, which makes them
confront the loss of home and the quick disruption of everyday life that refugees face.
As a first-person adventure game, North does not show the body of its main
character, nor do we ever know exactly how different he is from the aliens living in his
new host city. However, we are granted access to his subjectivity in three ways: first,
we are made to inhabit his daily life, including working, sleeping, and doing paper-
work. Second, there are sections that take place within his dreams, using an internal
focalization. Lastly, and more importantly, in order to progress we have to send letters
to the protagonist’s sister, who still lives in the South. These letters are written in the
first person by the protagonist and include vital clues and instructions for the player,
while giving us access to the protagonist’s thoughts. The first one we send reads “Dear
sister, yesterday I arrived in the city. […] I applied for asylum today. The people here
speak strangely so I don’t really understand what I have to do”. Language and its
barriers are thus a key element for the narrative. Unlike BMML and Finding Home,
where we can communicate with the protagonists’ loved ones, the sister in North never
writes back. These two ludonarrative choices, together with themes of vigilance and
opaque bureaucracy, enhance the sense of alienation and loneliness. North, in fact,
portrays the lack of communication as almost a kind of prison (coincidentally, the
Spanish language uses the same word for “lack of communication” and “solitary
confinement”: incomunicación).
1
We contacted Abdullah Karam and Georg Hobmeier and they explained that although “many
publishers still shy away from the refugee theme”, they are negotiating with a publisher to expand
Path Out to a proper game.
First-Person Refugee Games: Ludonarrative Strategies 11
All these four games, thus, share a focus on dialogue and one-to-one communi-
cation, the use of a first person voice, and limiting the player’s access to one half of the
story, and they do so to tell personal stories about escape journeys and/or survival in
the host countries. However, they differ in their narrative design strategies, offering
three different approaches which we analyze in the next three sections.
as her. If SIM and A Normal Lost Phone frame their fiction as a sort of interactive
version of “found footage” films, where the player is supposed to have found a lost
phone and must unravel a mystery to which the actual phone is the key, Finding Home
asks us to imagine we inhabit a wholly different ludofictional world that extends
beyond the screen. The game still uses access to everything in a phone as a setup for
mystery: on the store page, they encourage us to “view the image gallery to uncover
Kat’s past and find clues to help her”. We can and must check her emails, chats, photos,
videos, and even voice and video calls (which we cannot answer) to learn more about
her and Ishak. The phone’s date and time are used as a narrative device and its battery
allows the designers to create tension. In addition to this pseudo-mystery, the apps’
educational purposes are always evident: a UNHCR app is presented at all times in the
phone’s desktop, allowing the player to get more information and bridge the fiction
they are playing with the realities of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia.
BMML and Finding Home present similar stories and interfaces, but they take
radically different approaches to game structure. Decisions made as Majd can and will
change the path taken by Nour and the game’s ending. There are 19 different outcomes
and 39 different end states. According to Maurin, they designed different types of
choices and consequences: direct decisions, “blind” decisions, and cumulative effects
[30]. The game uses four system variables: Nour’s morale, the couple’s relationship
status, Nour’s budget, and her inventory; but these variables are never displayed.
“Contrary to lots of other interactive fictions”, the game’s site says, “your choices in
Bury Me, My Love really have an impact on the story” [29]. In this regard, BMML
posits itself as a narrative challenge that demands attention and effort from the player.
Finding Home, as a free educational app, is less intended for traditional videogame
players and more for a general audience: not only is it highly accessible and self-
explanatory, but there are also limited branching choices and none of them truly change
the critical path of the story. The game reaches the same ending, no matter what, in
which the two brothers are reunited. It is very telling that it is normally described as an
“app” and not as a “game”, though we consider the ontological limits of the two
products to be fuzzy enough to consider them part of a similar trend. Moreover,
Finding Home asks us to roleplay and fits within broad notions of “interactive narra-
tive”. Thus, it could be argued that they use videogame elements to present two
versions of the same idea, with BMML being more gameful and Finding Home offering
a narrower performance space and restoration of behaviours.
If BMML uses a more traditional gaming approach and is sold in core markets and
platforms of “gaming culture” (Switch, Steam), Path Out goes one step beyond and
uses well-established gaming genres and conventions. Not only does Karam presents
himself as a gamer, but the game’s store description also describes it as “camouflaged
as a Japanese RPG”. “The game is deliberately designed in the style of classic role
playing games”, it continues, “a graphical language which stands in sharp contrast with
the portrayed sujet [sic] and the dramatic events of the game” [34]. The game aspires to
First-Person Refugee Games: Ludonarrative Strategies 13
Unlike the other games in this paper, North makes no claim to represent a specific
reality. With a highly stylized cyberpunk and surreal aesthetics, it starts when the
protagonist arrives in a new city after a journey through the desert. Then, he has to
solicit asylum and work to meet the requirements for it. While he waits for a resolution,
he uses writing as a way to communicate with his sister, who has stayed in the South,
and also as an attempt to better understand the new surroundings. North presents an
alien city which is purposely difficult to navigate. It is poorly lit (the game seems to
take place in a perennial night), labyrinthine, full of buzzing hums, almost uninhabited.
The dark world in which the player must survive is one of harsh working and living
conditions, making it clear that even though the protagonist has escaped, he is nev-
ertheless trapped. This feeling is heightened by the pervasiveness of security cameras
that constantly surveil you and the fact that the way to work is mined with crosses
signalling graves.
14 V. Navarro-Remesal and B. P. Zapata
To achieve his goal, the player has to complete a series of disorienting tasks: work
in the mines (under a very strict time limit that can result in the only death state of the
game), find every camera and be seen, convert to a local religion, pass some medical
and police tests, and visit the immigration office with all the documents (from work, the
doctors, and the police). With little action and a focus on exploration and observation,
North could be considered a “walking simulator” game, a recent subgenre whose name
started as a derogatory term meant to criticize the lack of traditional gaming challenges,
and later became a common classification label (for example, in Steam). In fact, a
review for Switch Player stated: “North is a brave entry into the Walking Simulator
pantheon [36]. These works are, according to Grabarczyk [34], “the result of sub-
tractive design practices” that often defy traditional definitions of games, and have even
been conceptualized as a “new literary genre” [37]. However, the opaque and disori-
enting qualities of its level design and goal hierarchy make North hard to navigate,
retaining some gameful qualities. Moreover, the mines level requires trial and error,
speed, and reflexes, mirroring the high-risk nature of the job.
It is implied that the protagonist had to flee to the North because of his homo-
sexuality. To do so, the player needs to pick the right choice in a dream that is being
watched by the doctors. Persecution for same-sex relationship is still enforced in 70
countries from the United Nations. And the process whereby asylum seekers have to
justify their sexual orientation to asylum officers can be excruciating. The doctors’ test
can feel invading and depowering, taking place within psychedelic nightmares in which
rectangular forms that seem to emulate city landscapes quickly follow one another.
Everything in North is clinical, cold, trippy, and alien, as removed from affect as
possible, and proving one’s affective orientation in this environment becomes a matter
of harsh paperwork. North replicates the limbo that many refugees face, in that the
player is caught in a seemingly endless waiting in the hope that their status is recog-
nised and asylum granted. “We wanted to make a game that highlighted the Kafka-
esque absurdity of a refugee’s situation”, said Helfenstein to Vice.com [26]. He added
that “Our main goal was to confront the player with feelings like confusion, boredom
and frustration without putting her in an outside or observer position. It was an
interesting challenge to make an unpleasant game that is still engaging”. The strange
physicality of the city’s aliens and their indecipherable language creates a wall of
uncanniness between the player and the gameworld. To add to the general unpleas-
antness, North can only be played in one session, with no save points. The last level
takes place in a highly surreal location, where the player has to leave his documents,
stained with blood, in a machine. It is an ambiguous ending that makes the game all the
more impenetrable for general audiences. Even if North is the least accessible game
and, seemingly, the one further removed from the realities of refugees, it is certainly the
one that probably best reflects the sense of dislocation and frustration since its opaque
and confusing game design is meant to capture the hardships of the refugees’
experience.
First-Person Refugee Games: Ludonarrative Strategies 15
9 Conclusions
Although these games, as narratives, tell fictional stories, they have all been inspired by
and/or made with the help of refugees, which, as has been shown, brings to the fore
more truthful representations that recreate their anxieties, fears, and placeslessness
within the asylum circuits and leave behind simplistic humanitarian approaches.
Moreover, and despite their difficult circumstances, the refugees in these game show
limited, but real, agency. In this manner, these games move away from the represen-
tation of refugees as extremely resilient people or as seen through the lens of pity. Even
the option to give blind advice allows players to act, and when nothing else can be done
there is always joking, small talk, or comforting their loved ones. Narrative uncertainty,
even in lineal experiences like Finding Home or North, is often combined with long,
frustrating waits without rendering the characters voiceless.
The struggles of refugees are presented in a realistic way by paying minute
attention to details: getting ready to leave, communicating in real time, filling up
paperwork, being unable to charge their phones… There is an emphasis on daily life
aspects and process minutiae that takes refugee narratives beyond iconic images. The
use of synchronic time adds an ethical dimension in how it reinforces communication,
social dynamics, and mutual support. The main unifying element in these games is that
of connection, as well as the severing of ties. As Maurin [30] says in his GDC
presentation, “What we learned listening to migrants? […] Being connected with your
loved ones is nice - it is also very hard [and] helplessness is the most difficult thing to
deal with”. The use of branching paths and multiple outcomes, when present, make
some of these games include every conceivable variation of a single story, showing the
player how easy it is for things to go awry. The stories of Nour, Kathija, or Karam
portray refugees’ hardships without reducing it to a single experience or making them
be “the” refugee, a single archetype with no characterization.
How do games portray refugees’ lives? Not in a single way, not always through
recreating our world and time as a ludofictional world. What do games do to change
both the refugees’ realities and the way in which we relate to those experiences?
Although practical calls to action are often included, the general focus is on performing
the refugee, living from their perspective for a brief time, and blurring the barriers
between their world and ours. Our phones become their phones. They talk to us via
(fake) streaming. We make choices as them. We are lost in alien cities and alien
bureaucracy as them. This paper has shown that by means of different strategies of
identification and communication, these games encourage compassionate play, that is,
they transmit the suffering of refugees to players as audience and performers. They
create an interconnectedness that leads to reflection. We are interconnected to these
fictional refugees as players, to their loved ones in a parasocial interaction and a
(simulated) social relationship, and to the real refugees serving as inspiration as
engaged users.
Since these games promote ethical, compassionate players, they could also expand
the conversation about ethics to pressing political questions that surround the refugee
question, such as rescuing (even when forbidden by governments) or the inhuman
treatment of asylum seekers in camps, detention centres, and precarious temporary
16 V. Navarro-Remesal and B. P. Zapata
accommodations. Not only do they put players in the others’ shoes, they also raise
awareness and broaden the possibilities to engage in political questions in smaller and
larger scales. Of course, public perception of such broad issues and the impact of small
initiatives such as these games are hard to measure, and they fall outside the scope of a
paper like this one, focused instead on game analysis. Moreover, the claim that games
promote instant empathy should make us wary. But, at the same time, we cannot deny
these four games constitute a burgeoning trend that show clearly defined implied
players and reframe the media representation of refugees under a nuanced, personal
light, hopefully countering other hostile or simplistic discourses.
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Adonc pria li roys à un mout vaillant chevalier et moult uset
d’armez, que on clammoit le Monne de Basèle, et à trois ou quatre
autres preus chevaliers ossi, que il se volsissent avanchier et
chevauchier si priès des Englès, qu’il pewissent conssiderer leur
couvenant. Chil vaillant chevalier le fissent vollentiers et se partirent
dou roy, qui tout bellement cevauchoit, mès s’arestoit en
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se bannierre, si comme ordonnés avoit estet en devant, car bien
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archiers mis contre les annemis. Enssi et en cel estat les trouvèrent
li dessus dit chevalier. Quant il eurent bien conssideré et ymaginé
leur couvenant que pour rapporter ent le certaineté, et bien s’en
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à son consseil, et dissent qu’il avoient veut et comsideret les Englèz,
qui estoient à mains de deux lieuwez de là et avoient ordonnet trois
bataillez, et les atendoient bellement. Adonc estoit dalléz le roy
messires Jehans de Haynnau, qui le relation oy mout vollentiers,
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pria li roys au Monne de Basèle qu’il en volsist dire son advis, pour
tant qu’il estoit durement vaillans chevaliers, et les avoit veu et
justement conssideré. Li Monnes s’escuza par pluisseurs foix, et
disoit que là avoit tant de noblez seigneurs et de bons chevaliers
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qu’il en dist son advis en telle mannierre. Fos 93 vº et 94.
—Ms. de Rome: Ce samedi au matin, qant li rois de France ot oy
messe en l’abeie de Saint Pière, dedens Abeville, où il estoit logiés,
on fist sonner ses tronpètes, liquel cevauchièrent en toutes les rues
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camps. Au son des tro[n]pètes dou roi, se armèrent et apparillièrent
tous signeurs et toutes aultres gens; et tant en i avoit grant fuisson,
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sçavoir que onques nobles gens, qui deuissent sentir et considerer
que c’est de tels coses, ne se ordonnèrent pis, ne issirent de bonne
ville ne ne missent sus les camps, que les François fissent. Li rois
issi de Abbeville, mesire Jehan de Hainnau et le signeur de
Montmorensi en sa compagnie, et se traist sus les camps. Li rois de
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on ot un petit eslongiet Abbeville, il fu dit au roi: «Sire, ce seroit bon
que vous envoiissiés chevauceurs devant, pour aviser le couvenant
de vostres ennemis.» Li rois respondi et dist: «On i envoie!»
Donc furent esleu quatre chevaliers usés d’armes, les quels je
vous nonmerai: premiers le Monne de Basèle, le signeur de
Biaugeu, mesire Mille de Noiiers et mesire Loeis d’Espagne. Chil
quatre chevalier se departirent dou couvenant des François et
cevaucièrent sus les camps, et si avant aprocièrent les Englois que
les Englois euissent bien trait jusques à euls, se il vosissent, mais
nennil. Onques ne se desrieulèrent, mais se tinrent tout quoi et les
regardèrent en seant. Et qant li quatre chevaliers les orent avisés et
considerés, il se missent au retour. Et ensi que il retournoient, il
encontroient lors gens qui ceminoient, les auquns à cheval, les
aultres à piet et sans ordenance, de quoi il en fissent pluisseurs
arester et demorer tous qois sus les camps, car il lor disoient:
«Pourquoi allés vous avant, folle gent, sans les banières des
marescaus? Vous vos alés perdre: vechi les ennemis devant vous.»
Qant chil quatre chevalier furent venu deviers le roi, il s’arestèrent et
trouvèrent le roi sus les camps, le conte d’Alençon, le conte de
Flandres, le conte de Blois, le duc de Lorraine, mesire Jehan de
Hainnau, le signeur de Montmorensi et grant fuisson de nobles
signeurs autour de li, car tout s’arestoient, pour tant que il estoit
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quel cose il avoient veu et trouvé, ce fu raison. Li chevalier
regardoient l’un l’autre, et ne voloit nuls parler premiers. Donc
regarda li rois sus le Monne de Basèle et li dist: «Monnes, parlés, je
vous voel oïr.» Fos 118 vº et 119.
P. 171, l. 30: le Monne de Basèle.—Mss. A 1 à 6: le Moyne de
Baselée. Fº 145 vº.—Mss. A 11 à 14, 18, 19: le Moynne de Baseles.
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P. 171, l. 31: Noiiers.—Mss. A 23 à 29: Nouyers. Fº 164 vº.
P. 172, l. 22: que on tenoit.—Ms. B 6: pour tant que il estoit le plus
rusés de guerre. Fº 322.