THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY

BAHÇEŞEHİR UNIVERSITY

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTURAL EXPERIENCE
IN VIDEO GAMES:
SPATIAL, TEMPORAL & NARRATIVE

M. S. Thesis

OĞUZ ORKUN DOMA

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emine Özen EYÜCE

ISTANBUL, 2014
 THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY
BAHÇEŞEHİR UNIVERSITY

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE

Title of the Master’s Thesis: Architectural Experience in Video Games:

Spatial, Temporal and Narrative
Name / Last Name of the Student: Oğuz Orkun DOMA
Date of the Thesis Defense: 15.04.2014

The thesis has been approved by the Graduate School of Natural and Applied
Sciences.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tunç BOZBURA

Graduate School Director

I certify that this thesis meets all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of
Master of Architecture.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emine Özen EYÜCE

Program Coordinator

This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that we find it fully adequate in
scope, quality and content, as a thesis for the degree Master of Science.

Examining Comitee Members Signatures

Thesis Supervisor
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emine Özen EYÜCE :

Member
Assist. Prof. Dr. Nilay ÜNSAL GÜLMEZ :

Member
Assist. Prof. Dr. Güven ÇATAK :

ii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank to all my professors; especially to my supervisor Özen Eyüce for
her inspiration, endless support, and understanding; to Güven Çatak for inspiring and
encouraging me as an architect in video game studies and sparing me time in his tight
schedule; to Nilay Ünsal Gülmez for her constructive criticism as a jury member; and to
Dürnev Atılgan for making the video game project THROWN: Geworfen possible.

Very special thanks go to Ahmet Eyüce, for always being very supportive and inspiring
in my academic life. His lost was unexpected and sorrowful; he will always be
remembered as an academic role-model, and a father figure.

I thank my family for always supporting and inspiring me while pursuing my dreams.

I must also thank all my friends, especially my colleagues and companions in my

graduate studies; Hidayet Softaoğlu and Nazlı Efe.

Lastly, I would like to two video game studios: Ubisoft Montreal and Crytek. Alongside
the good time I had playing their exceptional works; the point of view the architecture
of their universes provided to me played a pivotal role in shaping the backbone of this
work. Also THROWN: Geworfen would not be what it is today, if Crytek did not make
their stunning video game engine CryEngine 3 free for developers.

April 14, 2014 Oğuz Orkun DOMA

iii
 ABSTRACT

ARCHITECTURAL EXPERIENCE IN VIDEO GAMES:

SPATIAL, TEMPORAL & NARRATIVE

Oğuz Orkun Doma

Master of Architecture

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emine Özen Eyüce

April 2014, 134 pages

Existence of humankind is temporal and spatial. Our experiences of acts are temporal
and take place in spaces. When we tell stories, we design a spatiotemporal construction
which mimics the reality while addressing to our deeper senses. Therefore the design of
time and space is essential in narrative. Through ages, humankind has been telling their
stories in evolving narrative forms: starting with a verbal tradition and developing into
literature, theater, cinema, and most recently: video games. As a new form of design
work in which the production and consumption cycles entirely take place in a digital
medium, video games can also give us new perspectives on the experiential and
representational relationships of the physical architecture, especially in an age when the
borders between physical and virtual are blurring gradually. Interaction, agency and the
significant role of flexible operational time in gameplay; creates a fundamental
difference between video games and other narrative media. This thesis focuses on a
framework of qualitative and phenomenological analysis of video game spaces,
complementing and recontextualizing narrative and architectural theories of Gerard
Genette, Kevin Lynch, Christian Norberg-Schulz and Michael Nitsche from a
multidisciplinary perspective. Starting with an introduction to the history, theory and
genres of videogames, this thesis intends to get inspired from frameworks of narrative,
space and time discussed in various types of media like cinema, affiliating with
architecture. Then an original analytic framework for spatial and temporal experience in
video game spaces will be delivered. The framework will be illustrated on levels from
Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed series, and possible ways to utilize the insights of
this framework in the design of architecture and video games will be discussed.

Keywords: Video games, Temporality, Narrative space, Phenomenology, Architecture

iv
 ÖZET

VİDEO OYUNLARINDA MİMARİ DENEYİM:

MEKANSAL, ZAMANSAL ve ANLATISAL

Oğuz Orkun Doma

Mimarlık Yüksek Lisans Programı

Tez Danışmanı: Doç. Dr. Emine Özen Eyüce

Nisan 2014, 134 sayfa

İnsanoğlunun varoluşu zamansal ve mekânsaldır. Eylemleri mekanların içinde zamansal

olarak deneyimleriz. Hikayeler anlatırken de -duygularımıza da hitap edecek şekilde-
gerçekliği taklit eden uzam-zamansal (spatiotemporal) bir kurgu tasarlarız. Anlatıda
zaman ve mekanın tasarımı temeldir. Çağlar boyunca insanoğlu hikayesini değişen
anlatı biçimlerinde anlatagelmiştir: sözlü bir gelenekten başlayarak, edebiyat, tiyatro,
sinema ve son olarak etkileşimli bir anlatı türü olan video oyunlarına kadar. Video
oyunları, üretim ve tüketim döngülerinin tamamen dijital ortamda gerçekleştiği yeni bir
tasarım ürünüdür. Özellikle de fiziksel ve sanal olan arasındaki sınırların giderek
belirsizleştiği günümüzde, fiziksel mimarinin deneyimsel ve temsili ilişkileri konusunda
video oyunları bize yeni bakış açıları kazandırabilir. Etkileşim, mümessillik (agency) ve
eylemsel zamanın esnekliğinin oynanıştaki önemli rolü, video oyunları ve diğer anlatı
ortamları arasında temel bir ayrım yaratıyor. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Gerard Genette,
Christian Norberg-Schulz, Kevin Lynch ve Michael Nitsche’nin anlatı ve mimari
kuramlarını mimari bağlamda tamamlayıcı bir şekilde uyarlayarak, video oyunu
mekanlarının niteliksel ve fenomenolojik analizinde kullanılacak bir çerçeve önerisinde
bulunmaktır. Video oyunlarının tarihi, kuramı, türleri ve mimarlık-video oyunu
ilişkisine kısa bir giriş yaptıktan sonra; çalışmada ortaya konulan video oyunlarında
mekansal ve zamansal deneyimi inceleyen analitik çerçeve Prince of Persia ve
Assassin’s Creed oyunlarından seçilen bölümler üzerinde denenerek, bu çerçeveden
ortaya çıkan kavrayışın mimarlık ve video oyunu tasarımında olası kullanımları
tartışılacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Video oyunları, Zamansallık, Anlatısal mekan, Fenomenoloji,
Mimarlık

v
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLES ........................................................................................................................viii

FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ ix

ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................................... xii

1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1

1.1. VIDEO GAMES AS A FIELD OF STUDY ................................................. 2

1.2. METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................... 4

1.3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY .............................................................................. 6

2. VIDEO GAMES AND ARCHITECTURE .............................................................. 8

2.1. A BRIEF HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES .................................................. 8

2.2. PHENOMENOLOGY AND VIDEO GAMES ............................................ 9

2.2.1. Background of Phenomenology ................................................................ 9

2.2.2. Phenomenology and Architectural Space .............................................. 10

2.2.3. Architecture in Video Game Spaces....................................................... 13

2.2.4. Being-there via Persona........................................................................... 14

2.2.5. Phenomenology of Temporality in Video Game Spaces....................... 15

2.3. REPRESENTATION OF SPACE IN VIDEO GAMES ........................... 18

3. SPACE AND TIME STUDIES IN VIDEO GAME NARRATIVES ................... 29

3.1. SPACE IN VIDEO GAMES ........................................................................ 30

3.2. TIME IN VIDEO GAMES .......................................................................... 44

4. DEVELOPMENT OF A FRAMEWORK ............................................................. 48

4.1. SPATIAL CHARACTERISTICS ............................................................... 51

4.1.1. Spatial Structures .................................................................................... 51

4.1.2. Spatial Functionality................................................................................ 54

4.1.3. Interactive Structure ............................................................................... 55

vi
 4.1.4. Sensuousness............................................................................................. 55

4.2. TEMPORAL CHARACTERISTICS ......................................................... 56

4.2.1. Sequence Order ........................................................................................ 58

4.2.2. Narrative Speed........................................................................................ 59

4.2.3. Frequency ................................................................................................. 60

4.2.4. Storytelling Structure .............................................................................. 60

4.3. PICTOGRAPHIC VISUALIZATION ....................................................... 61

4.3.1. Design of the Pictograms ......................................................................... 61

4.3.2. The Pictographic Framework ................................................................. 63

5. ELABORATION OF THE FRAMEWORK AND ANALYSIS OF CASE

STUDIES........................................................................................................................ 65

5.1. ELABORATION OF THE DEVELOPED FRAMEWORK ................... 65

5.2. ANALYSIS OF SELECTED CASE STUDIES ....................................... 108

5.2.1. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, At Last We’re Here ................ 109

5.2.2. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, The Prince’s Banquet ....................... 115

5.3. USE OF THE FRAMEWORK IN VIDEO GAME DESIGN ................ 122

6. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 126

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 129

vii
 TABLES

Table 3.1: Ernest Adams' list of common patterns in level layouts. ............................... 43
Table 4.1: Spatial and temporal characteristics that affect narrative and gameplay
experience. ...................................................................................................................... 50
Table 5.1: Summary of the spatial characteristics of the framework. ........................... 106
Table 5.2: Summary of the temporal characteristics of the framework. ....................... 107
Table 5.3: Analysis of the spatial characteristics of the level "At Last We’re Here" from
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with the framework. ........................................... 111
Table 5.4: Analysis of the temporal characteristics of the level "At Last We’re Here"
from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with the framework. .................................. 112
Table 5.5: Analysis of the spatial characteristics of the level "The Prince's Banquet"
from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations with the framework ............................................. 118
Table 5.6: Analysis of the temporal characteristics of the level "The Prince's Banquet"
from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations with the framework. ............................................ 119

viii
 FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Scheme of player-persona transition in video game spaces ......................... 15

Figure 2.2: Elements of a video game as shown in a video game engine editor ............ 19
Figure 2.3: Sketch of Hogwarts drawn by Stuart Craig. ................................................. 22
Figure 2.4: The sketch of Hogwarts’ plan drawn by J.K. Rowling. ............................... 23
Figure 2.5: The blueprint of the Hogwarts castle model used in films. .......................... 24
Figure 2.6: The model of Hogwarts castle used in films. ............................................... 25
Figure 2.7: Editing process of level design for videogame Uncharted 2 ........................ 26
Figure 2.8: Sculpting the block mesh and texturing the level, Uncharted 2 ................... 27
Figure 2.9: Finalizing the design upon test play experience, Uncharted 2 ..................... 27
Figure 2.10: Editing a space upon the narrative of game scenario, Uncharted 2 ............ 28
Figure 3.1: Schematic of Lefebvre’s spatial triad. .......................................................... 31
Figure 3.2: Lynch's five elements of urban cognitive maps. .......................................... 33
Figure 3.3: Spatial relationship schemes established by Ching. ..................................... 34
Figure 3.4: Spatial organization schemes established by Ching. .................................... 35
Figure 3.5: Ordering principles established by Ching. ................................................... 36
Figure 3.6: A video game space analyzed with Ching's ordering principles. ................. 37
Figure 3.7: A video game space mapped with Lynch’s cognitive elements. .................. 37
Figure 3.9: Continuum of space-time in Zoran’s work. .................................................. 40
Figure 4.1: User interface in Crysis 2. ............................................................................ 49
Figure 4.2: Spatial structures shown in the sample video game level. ........................... 52
Figure 4.3: Paths and trails shown in the sample video game level................................ 53
Figure 4.4: Zones and platforms shown in the sample video game level. ...................... 53
Figure 4.5: Rhizomes and networks shown in the sample video game level.................. 54
Figure 4.6: Narrative time frame for video games .......................................................... 57
Figure 4.7: Pictograms designed for framework characteristics ..................................... 61
Figure 4.8: Development of the pictograms .................................................................... 62
Figure 4.9: Hexagonal pictograms creating distinctive perceptional patterns. ............... 62
Figure 4.10: Pictograms of the framework ..................................................................... 64
Figure 5.1: A chariot chase path from Assassin's Creed: Revelations. ........................... 66
Figure 5.2: The floating path of the flying machine from Assassin’s Creed II. ............. 67

ix
Figure 5.3: Continuity of path is obtained with portals in Portal 2. ................................ 67
Figure 5.4: Roman Colosseum is an example of arena-like zones and platforms. ......... 69
Figure 5.5: The puzzle platform from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. ................. 69
Figure 5.6: The platform in the middle of panopticon gulag in CoD: MW 2. ................ 70
Figure 5.7: The map of the kingdom of Ahura in Prince of Persia [2008]. .................... 72
Figure 5.8: Four main locations create a rhizome structure in PoP [2008]..................... 72
Figure 5.9: Moving a box to the switch to make it open................................................. 76
Figure 5.10: The engraved map of the kingdom of Ahura in PoP [08]. ......................... 80
Figure 5.11: Different camera modes in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. ............. 82
Figure 5.12: The color schemes of the different cities in Assassin’s Creed. .................. 82
Figure 5.13: The effect of the change of materiality and colors in PoP [2008]. ............. 84
Figure 5.14: The changing materiality of the Island of Time in past and present. ......... 85
Figure 5.15: Materiality comparison of Beyazid District and the Imperial District. ...... 86
Figure 5.16: Configuration of PC controls of AC versus Xbox controls of AC:R. ........ 87
Figure 5.17: HUD interface of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. .................................... 88
Figure 5.18: Starting point of the Mission 22: Bar Brawl from GTA Vice City ............ 90
Figure 5.19: Starting the mission "One Shot, One Kill" in Pripyat, Ukraine 1996, Call of
Duty 4: Modern Warfare ................................................................................................. 91
Figure 5.20: The Prince trying to avoid the traps in the level "The Drawbridge" .......... 93
Figure 5.21: The character is able to revisit his ancestor's memories with Animus. ...... 94
Figure 5.22: The Prince foreseeing how to solve a puzzle in the level "The Drawbridge"
......................................................................................................................................... 95
Figure 5.23: Ezio collects eagle feathers for his brother Petruccio, for 23 years. .......... 98
Figure 5.24: Ezio spending a romantic night with Cristina Vespucci............................. 99
Figure 5.25: An example of "stretch", or "bullet time", from Max Payne 3. ................. 99
Figure 5.26: Haytham Kenway's journey to the New World from London. ................. 100
Figure 5.27: Objectives appear on the screen before every mission. ............................ 101
Figure 5.28: Ezio sees the Arch of Constantin, with a database notification. .............. 102
Figure 5.29: Haytham writing to his journal in his cabin on Day 28. ........................... 104
Figure 5.33: Operational map of the level "At Last We’re Here". ............................... 110
Figure 5.34: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level "At Last We’re Here"
from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with the framework, part 1 ........................ 113

x
Figure 5.35: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level "At Last We’re Here"
from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with the framework, part 2 ........................ 114
Figure 5.30: Operational map of the level "The Prince's Banquet" from Assassin’s
Creed: Revelations ........................................................................................................ 117
Figure 5.31: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level "The Prince's Banquet"
from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations with the framework, part 1 .................................. 120
Figure 5.32: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level "The Prince's Banquet"
from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations with the framework, part 2 .................................. 121
Figure 5.36: Spatial functionality shown in the sample video game level.................... 122
Figure 5.37: Elements of sensuousness shown in the sample video game level........... 123
Figure 5.38: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level designed with the
framework for THROWN, part 1 .................................................................................. 124
Figure 5.39: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level designed with the
framework for THROWN, part 2 .................................................................................. 125

xi
 ABBREVIATIONS

2D : Two-dimensional
3D : Three-dimensional
AC : Assassin’s Creed
AI : Artificial Intelligence
CoD : Call of Duty
FPS : First-person shooter
NPC : Non-playable Character
MMO : Massive Multiplayer Online
PC : Personal Computer
PoP : Prince of Persia
PoP: SoT : Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

xii
 1. INTRODUCTION

Architecture can be thought as interactive environmental-spatial storytelling. Interaction

has always been a pivotal element of artistic expression. Starting with verbal to visual
and plastic narrative, artists always aimed to create the awe for the audience. Every age
creates its own medium of arts and spirit of age. So the storytellers, or artists, utilize the
tools and media of their own age as interpreters of their own time.

The world is at the early periods of such a breakpoint, a digital revolution. One of the
distinctive features of this digital revolution is that the developments are occurring
faster than ever, owing to the acceleration in the process and transfer of information. In
this atmosphere of rapid information flow, various branches get developed in the same
time from particle physics and the concept of origin of time to the human genome. In
the present age, rapid innovations in computational technologies made interactive media
more prominent in communication and entertainment. Thanks to the technology
revealed more and more ways of production –and postproduction– and removes
limitations, artists and designers started to use the new kind of the digital medium as an
interactive vehicle. Most kinds of arts utilized the fruits of the digital revolution, from
music to literature, cinema and architecture. Moreover, new storytelling forms and types
emerged and evolved, like websites, hypertexts and interactive fictions. Video games
are one of these many forms of the digital arts.

Video games received a significant attention and popularity among the other digital art
forms. Video games are considered to be one of the most successful applications of
interactive narratives, due to their audiovisual language, evocative atmosphere, and
user-oriented interactive fiction. Architecture is one of the essential elements which
constitute the visualized physical and spatial characteristics of the imagined
environment and atmosphere of the fiction. Whether it be digital or not, acts and
occurrences happen, in other words, “take place" due to place phenomenon; therefore
space reveals itself as our “existential foothold” (Norberg-Schulz, 1980).Hence the
narrative always needs space to take place, which makes it a subject of architecture.
Architecture has played a pivotal role in fictions through the ages. The virtual
architecture embedded in the fiction not only serves as a mere background but deeply
affects the sensorial atmosphere of the scenario, in both literature and cinema. In video
games, architecture takes it to another level; the interactivity of the space creates an
atmosphere to be experienced by the human being from inside the cyberspace via a
digital persona, or avatar 1. Everything player experiences during a video game directly
addresses to player’s senses; through the visual and auditory inputs, the video game
space creates an ambiance, spatial mood, and visually transferred tactile feelings.
Developing technologies allows more human senses to be involved in this process, yet
the relationship of video games and architecture gets more and more concrete.

Following the call for an interdisciplinary approach, experiences of spatiality,

temporality and narrative in video games will be discussed drawing on many other
disciplines such as literature, architecture and cinema. Firstly, how time and space are
structured in the narrative in general will be examined. Through a careful reading of
narrative theory of different forms, and approaches of various disciplines for the video
game studies will help to form an original analytical framework. After an overview of
the foundational concepts, the framework will be illustrated with relevant video game
titles as example case studies.

1.1. VIDEO GAMES AS A FIELD OF STUDY

It is useful to define what is meant by “video game 2 ” to avoid any conflicts on

terminology in the beginning.

“Computer game” or “digital game” is sometimes used synonymously with “video

game”. Nevertheless a computer game does not necessarily require any video qualities
1
An avatar or digital personais the graphic representation of a user in virtual worlds, e.g. video games.
2
There is a debate about one word and two word spellings of “video game”. The term “video game”
presents the form’s status as a “game” and its use of “video” technology, and is consistent with other
forms such as card game and board game; whereas the term “videogame” is consistent with video
technologies such as videotape and videodisc (Wolf, 2008), and in a similar manner calling computer
games as “computergames” would be grammatically incorrect.

2
or visuals; moreover, a video game could work on different platforms and consoles
which are not being called “computers."

Status of “game” is equally important in the definition of video game; something that
runs on a video game engine and has similar technical and visual qualities might not be
a video game but a video animation or simulation. In the game literature, common
defining elements of games are usually listed as: [1] challenge, [2] rules, [3] player
interaction and [4] valued outcome. Therefore, before labeling a digital simulation as a
“video game”, one should consider these ludic qualities.

Video game is not only a design field, but also a significant industry. In its forty years
of history, video games made from a niche market to a global cultural and commercial
industry of enormous proportions. Only in 2012, the video game industry made a record
$67 billion in the global market, which is expected to grow up to $82 billion by 2017
(Gaudiosi, 2012). Influence of video games is increasing on the other media: film and
television series adaptations of video games are being made, and online multiplayer
video games are being played over Internet by hundreds of millions worldwide (Wolf,
2008). None the less, video game studies have only recently managed to call the
attention of academia.

The literature review shows that video games have been investigated from diverse
perspectives since they have entered academia. One challenge of the video game studies
is that there are several disciplines involved in video games, and its theory is a
convergence of a wide range of approaches including film theory, semiotics, ludology,
narratology, simulation, performance, literature, aesthetics, psychology, art theory, et
cetera. (Wolf & Perron, 2003). The next challenge is that it is a still expanding media
form and keeps rapidly changing while the critical literature is being written.

Video games cannot be reduced to any of its components or properties in its rich and
vivid nature. Thus, it is incomprehensible to expect any single theory to respond this
form sufficiently: to get a richer picture of video games, a new approach of a wide
spectrum covering different yet interconnected perspectives is needed (Nitsche, 2008).

3
Architects, who are interested in video game studies, are primarily concerned on what
spatial qualities and characteristics arise from computer games, and what could be their
implications on contemporary architecture. On the other hand, game designers are
interested in constituting game space, utilizing certain architectural attributes to trigger
intended types of interaction. Many game level 3 designers take inspiration from
physical architecture, just as filmmakers: Certain places and configurations retroactively
shape the perception of the audience, and designers make use of it in their interactive
fiction. Thus, video game design is not only about the “rules of play” but also about the
“rules of place” (Von Borries et al., 2007).

As discussed above, the fact that architecture is one of the many components which
structure a video game brings one to the conclusion that an interdisciplinary approach is
required to analyze video games. The author being interested in both disciplines; this
thesis intends to look from the phenomenological perspective of both the architect,
amateur video game designer, and passionate video game player. Therefore, the
resulting framework of this thesis aims to be not only an analysis framework, but also a
design tool which is useful for video game designers and architects.

1.2. METHODOLOGY

There were three main concerns during the development of an analytic framework for
video games: The first one is not to restrict the approach to an architectural-only
perspective in video games, given that architecture is just one of the key components of
a video game. Analysis of architectural experience in video game spaces is more than a
reading and classification of architectural elements in the video games. Nevertheless,
reconsidering the theory of architectural typologies, for instance, can be useful in video
game theory to widen the perspective with the knowledge of architecture. The second
concern is, as explained previously that video games cannot be reduced to their
components, the analytical approach should be deductive rather than inductive. The

3
A video game level, map, area, stage, world, or zone is a section or portion of the game which loads at
one time, and includes the space and challenges during the course of completing an objective.

4
third concern is to define the scope of the work carefully, given that one single theory
cannot be applied to all video games. In this thesis, the video games discussed: [1] have
to be available on consumer hardware 4 , and [2] have to offer 3D navigable
environments.

There are existing frameworks for analyzing the space and time in interactive narratives,
which are detailed in the Chapter 3. They are mostly derived from other narrative forms
like literature or cinema. Moreover, there are also works that are focusing on reading
and classification of architectural elements in the video games. Getting inspired from
these existing frameworks, this thesis aims to complement and recontextualize narrative
and architectural theories of scholars like Gerard Genette, Christian Norberg-Schulz,
Kevin Lynch and Michael Nitsche, and finally deliver an original framework which can
be used in the analysis of 3D adventure games. In this study, mixed research methods
are used. Namely “case studies with combined strategies” and more specifically
“interpretive research with simulations”, and “modeling research with argumentation”
(Groat & Wang, 2013).

Following the above mentioned methodology, the study follows these five steps:
i. Literature review: Existing approaches and theories on video games and
architecture, focusing on spatiality, temporality, and narrative are examined.
ii. Criticizing the existing models. In order to create a combined and
complementary original framework; the missing, inadequate, and impractical
parts of the existing models are argued through a comparison on the
literature review.
iii. Developing an analytical framework. Considering the scope of this thesis,
which is the spatial and temporal experience in 3D adventure video games,
the framework has been developed.
iv. Development of a pictographic visualization. Each category and element of
the framework is visualized with distinct and memorable pictograms, which
serve as an interface for the analysis.

4
Consumer hardware refers to the computers or video game consoles such as PC, Mac, PlayStation,
Xbox or Wii.

5
 v. Analysis of video games with the framework. The final framework is
illustrated in detail, and two levels from Prince of Persia and Assassin’s
Creed series are analyzed as case studies.

1.3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

In this first chapter, the aims, motivations, content and methodology of this work are
explained and the thesis is introduced.

The second chapter, Video Games and Architecture, starts with the definition and a
concise history of video games and refers to the key issues and debates -such as the
conflict between narratologists and ludologists- in current video game studies literature.
Then the focus shifts to how can one read the architecture that constitutes the place for
video games in terms of spatiality, temporality and narrative; avoiding to read it only
through the theory of physical architecture as a professional reflex. In this perspective,
elements of video games and design phases of video games will be compared with the
works of architecture, and then the inspirations and interactions between these two
fields will be briefly mentioned. This chapter also introduces the philosophical basis of
the thesis: After a brief introduction to philosophies of Bergson, Husserl and Heidegger,
the temporality and phenomenology of the ludic spaces are studied from an architectural
perspective.

In the third chapter, Space and Time Studies in Video Game Narratives, a literature
review on the background of space and time studies, and evaluation and comparison of
these different approaches are given.

In the fourth chapter, Development of a Framework, following a review of the existing

studies; a new hybrid video game-specific analysis framework is developed. The
categories of the framework are explained, and the framework is visualized with
pictograms.

6
In the fifth chapter, Analysis of Selected Video Games with the Framework, the
framework is applied on to the selected video game levels.

The sixth chapter, Conclusion, concludes the work with a self-criticism of the
framework, examples of possible uses of the pictographic framework in the design of
video games, and envisions future studies that might be based on this thesis by the
author or other scholars.

7
 2. VIDEO GAMES AND ARCHITECTURE

Architecture has played a crucial role in fictions through the ages. The virtual
architecture embedded in the fiction not only serves as a mere background but deeply
affects the atmosphere of the scenario, in both literature and cinema. In video games,
architecture takes it to another level; owing to their interactive nature, video game
spaces create an atmosphere to be experienced by the players from inside the
cyberspace via a digital persona. In this chapter, discussions on video game studies in
current literature are briefly introduced. Afterwards, the concept of architecture in video
games has been elucidated with its philosophical background. Architecture’s role in
narratives has been explained, then the design and representation of architecture and
video games have been discussed.

2.1. A BRIEF HISTORY OF VIDEO GAMES

History of video games starts with the application of interactive narratives in video
format. Historians call Spacewar [1962] the first real video game, Computer Space
[1971] the first commercial video game, PONG [1972] the first hit game (Wolf &
Perron, 2003). With the rise of market of home computers and consumer hardware for
video games between 1970s and 1980s, video games developed into a huge industry.

Video games have been investigated from various perspectives since they have entered
academia. One challenge of the video game studies is that there are several disciplines
involved in video games, and its theory is a convergence of a wide range of approaches
including film theory, semiotics, ludology, narratology, simulation, performance,
literature, aesthetics, psychology, art theory, etc. (ibid., 2003). The next challenge is that
it is a still expanding media form and keeps rapidly changing while the critical literature
is being written.

In the study of video games, there are two often conflicting viewpoints embraced by the
theorists: ludology and narratology (Jenkins, 2004). Ludologists think that the central

8
element in a video game is the ludic 5 structure of the gameplay. On the other hand,
narratologists believe a video game is mainly a form of narrative, so the prominent
element of a video game is narrative (Adams, 2010a). There is a vast array of examples
of video games which prove both approach is not entirely accurate, but a video game is
an interactive narrative, where the ludic elements and gameplay provide the basis of the
interaction.

Space and time play equally vital roles in the construction of narrative: both in the
process of narrative authoring and narrative comprehension. The temporal and spatial
structures of a game determine how the players engage with the game (Bridgeman,
2007). Therefore, narrative comprehension is directly related to the player’s experience
of the game, thus to phenomenology.

2.2. PHENOMENOLOGY AND VIDEO GAMES

The word phenomenology describes the philosophical study of phenomena, the structure
of experience of beings, how things appear in human experience, experienced from the
first-person point of view (Smith, 2011). The main argument of this thesis is the
concept of space and spatial experience achieved via audiovisual representations created
by the video game. As Nitsche put it: “players want to engage not with the screen but
with a fictional world these images bring to mind” (Nitsche, 2008). Therefore,
references to phenomenology might be useful to investigate in this thesis.

2.2.1. Background of Phenomenology

At the beginning of 20th century, this philosophical movement was started by Edmund
Husserl (Safranski, 2008). The original maxim of phenomenology was ‘zurück zu den
Sachenselbst in German or back to things themselves in English.

5
Originated from the Latin word ludo (“to play”), ludic means pertaining to game or gameplay. Words
originated from ludo and ludus became popular in the terminology of game studies, after the Dutch
historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga published Homo Ludens (“Playing Man”) in 1938.

9
Phenomenology is a philosophical movement which was founded with enthusiasm of an
inception, in search of oneself, when the western world was in a psychological collapse
in the early 20th century (ibid.). In its original form, by Husserl’s conception,
phenomenology is concerned with the interactions of consciousness and phenomena.
This conception of phenomenology then has been criticized and developed by a number
of 20th century philosophers, including his students like Martin Heidegger and Edith
Stein (ibid.).

Edmund Husserl responds to thinkers including Hegel and Schopenhauer, but his
approach methodologically differentiates. Husserl’s conception takes the bare fact of
human existence to its center. He criticizes that the immediate contact with existence
has been blurred in contemporary society (Sharr, 2007). Contrary to the Cartesian
tradition and its epistemology based approach, people should try to re-establish the
connection with the existence itself and its philosophical status.

As for Heidegger, phenomenological attributes of being were primary, rather than its
cerebral descriptions (ibid.). The concept of a self-aware being was broadly accepted in
between the prevailing philosophers, though Heidegger stated that all beings exist
before they start thinking about their own existence, they are already alive before they
try to think about life. The argument that draws a line between Heidegger and the
prevailing conception was that philosophical pursuit of being inevitably started from the
condition of being. His notion of being is established in relation to its alternative:
nothing. The existence, the first question of philosophy, should have been
fundamentally highlighted by the possibility of its opposite: non-existence (ibid.).
Therefore, Heidegger’s philosophy began with a long-forgotten question of being; the
overlooked fact that human life exists (Heidegger, 1996). Heideggerian concepts of
existence and non-existence becomes key concepts disclosing the architectural space.

2.2.2. Phenomenology and Architectural Space

Heidegger’s argument about the hypothetical jug in The Thing links the notions of
existence and non-existence better: The jug’s use consists in its void. Although the jug
is something recognized in its physicality, it is the void inside –the nothing at its core-

10
that makes it something useful. A scientist might tell that a jug could never be empty; it
contains some fluid whether liquid or gas (Heidegger, 2001). The jug example
concludes that the science is unable to measure nothingness of things, even if it is the
very existence of its use. Phenomenology provides a new way of looking at spaces to
understand voids and immaterial qualities, contrary to the analytical approaches that
measure the solids and material qualities. This section will further deal with the
relationship of phenomenology and architecture.

The concept of phenomenology also created a sensation in the world of architecture.

The attempt of returning to things themselves and to disclose the dwelling act via
experiences might clarify prevailing situations, which were dominated by visual and
scientific limitations (Pérez-Gómez, 2006).

Since the contemporary approach of phenomenology is based on Heideggerian

conception, it might be useful to take a look at Heidegger’s relationship with architects.
Heidegger was interested in various disciplines, other than philosophy as well. At his
time, he took the opportunity of meeting with creative people who inspired or interested
him, including writers, artists and poets. Although he wrote a few articles related to
architecture, Building Dwelling Thinking and Poetically Man Dwells to name a few
(Heidegger, 2001), he took a little interest in architects and their work. Petzet recorded
that he visited Le Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamp in 1953, but the building did not
excite him, and he preferred to pay attention to the Mass by a young Priest instead
(Petzet, 1993). Heidegger’s contact with Alvar Aalto is an exception to his ambivalence
to meeting architects; he sent his greetings to Aalto after hearing that Aalto keeps a
copy of Building Dwelling Thinking on his desk (ibid.). It is also noted that they
attempted to meet, but they never could due to Aalto’s death (ibid.).

Despite the fact that Heidegger did not have remarkable relationships with the architects
of his age, plenty of architects of the late 20th century showed interest in his writings.
Architects like Christian Norberg-Schulz, Juhani Pallasmaa, Peter Zumthor and Steven
Holl became developers and practitioners of phenomenology movement in architecture.

11
In Genius Loci, Norberg-Schulz states that our everyday lifeworld consists of
‘phenomena’: people, animals, vegetation, stone, earth, celestial bodies, night and day,
and changing seasons (Norberg-Schulz, 1980). He describes the phenomena as the
content of our existence, and criticizes that the contemporary world gives more
importance to the tools than the everyday life-world, which is a term introduced by
Husserl in his 1970 work The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental.

Norberg-Schulz puts forward that our given world is being constituted by concrete
things, which are interrelated in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. For
example, the forest phenomenon is constituted by concrete coexistence of trees. The
forest phenomenon makes way to the comprehensive phenomenon of landscape, the
same way the tree phenomenon makes way to the forest phenomenon. This brings us to
the conclusion that some phenomena form an environment for the others. Place is the
concrete term for environment. Our everyday acts and occurrences happen, in other
words take place, by virtue of the place phenomenon. Therefore, Norberg-Schulz
describes place as our existential foothold (Norberg-Schulz, 1980). The term place here
refers to a concrete thing with material substance, shape, texture and color. These
elements determine the environmental character of the place. This essential character
defines the ‘atmosphere’ of the place, which is being perceived by humans.

Such a way of thinking concludes that place is a total phenomenon, which cannot be
reduced to any of its properties –like spatial relationships– within its concrete nature
(Norberg-Schulz, 1980). The complete phenomenon of space creates the context of the
fiction throughout the history.

Architecture’s participation level has been gradually increasing in narratives, from

theatre mise-en-scènes to film sets. Lately, developing technologies allowed
photorealistic representations of architectural space to be an integral and interactive part
of the video games. In the following section, architecture’s role in video games is
further explained.

12
2.2.3. Architecture in Video Game Spaces

The interaction between the discipline of architecture and video games are not
unilateral. Architecture not only creates space for the video games, but also gets
affected by the developments of visual language and new perspectives of video games;
very similar to the inspirations and interactions between architecture and cinema. In this
section, these relationships will be detailed concisely.

Started with the verbal tradition of storytelling, the architecture has been constituting
the place for the acts and occurrences of fiction to take place. Architecture can be
involved in literature, theatre and cinema in different roles: as a theme or a
spatiotemporal component. The fiction can put the theme of architecture in the center of
its plot, e.g. the life of an architect or an architectural activity. Ayn Rand’s novel
Fountainhead and Jacques Tati’s movie Mon Oncle can be given as instances of fictions
that criticize the discipline of architecture.

Besides the role as a theme, architecture also constitutes the spatiotemporal context of
the story. An existing physical architectural artifact may be reproduced in the virtual
universe of the fiction as an atmospheric description. Furthermore, the fiction may
describe virtual architectural setups which do not exist in reality. In these instances,
sometimes description of this redefined architecture can be so complete and evocative
that the work of architecture can seem like another character. Existing architectural
pieces like Notre Dame de Paris in Victor Hugo’s novel Hunchback of Notre Dame, the
city of Rome in Fellini’s movie Dolce Vita and future New York City in Crytek’s video
game Crysis 2 became the dramatis personaes of their fictional universes. On the other
hand Thomas More’s book of Utopia, Ridley Scott’s movie Blade Runner and
Bioware’s videogame Mass Effect tell their stories within imagined universes of their
own creations.

The necessity of architectural space in video games is explained before; this recognition
can be summarized as follows: “The defining element in computer games is spatiality.
Computer games are essentially concerned with spatial representation and negotiation;

13
therefore the classification of a computer game can be based on how it represents or,
perhaps, implements space” (Aarseth, 2007).

Creating a space in a video game ontologically differs from modeling a space in the
digital environment; it also includes the reactions, interactions and narrative of a space.
A video game space is not a representation of an idea or a physical thing; it constitutes a
space for the player to be-inside, in which the transmission of the interaction is obtained
between player and their persona or avatar 6 via the interfaces, through emphatic
insideness.

2.2.4. Being-there via Persona

Video games somehow create a virtual simulation environment where player can
experience and interact with a spatial setting with most of their senses. However, a
simulation “is not a mere imitation of its referential reality, it has its own existence as a
hyperreality” (Baudrillard, 1999). The created digital world is a new existence level or
layer inside the simulation, given that the simulation is disclosable by a being-who-is-
there, this leads one to realize that a player-driven avatar or persona. Avatars enable
7
Daseins to be-in-digital-world. Through these new modes of interaction and
communication, one can re-read Heidegger’s basic concepts like Dasein as Being-in-
the-world. Since digital persona is a Dasein-driven being in the digital world,
phenomenology can be used for disclosure of this digital realm.

Everything players experience during a video game directly addresses to their senses;
through the visual and auditory inputs, the video game space creates an ambiance,
spatial mood, and visually transferred tactile feelings. Figure 2.1 shows the player-
persona transition scheme proposed by this thesis. Developing technologies allows more
human senses to be involved in this process. Phenomenology again proves itself to be
useful in giving meaning to this digital spatial experience.
6
An avatar or digital persona is the graphic representation of a user in virtual worlds, e.g. video games.
7
Dasein: In Heideggerian terminology, a human-being; especially the nature of being; existance,
presence, hereness, suchness, essence.
Source: Dasein. 2014. In Wiktionary. Retrieved from: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dasein

14
Throughout the discussion of virtual space, fundamental concepts like experience,
comprehension and spatial practice are repeated. Hitherto, how this experience is
generated in video game spaces is a quite new field of research. What is crucial here
during this thesis’ phenomenological investigation of video game spaces is to consider
the differences between the experience of virtual and physical space.

Figure 2.1: Scheme of player-persona transition in video game spaces

Heidegger’s fundamental of analysis of Dasein in Being and Time points out

temporality to be the primal meaning of Dasein’s being. Similarly, all spatial
experiences of a Dasein-driven persona take place in the spatiotemporal context of the
video game space. Therefore, another subject in video game spaces reveals to be
temporality.

2.2.5. Phenomenology of Temporality in Video Game Spaces

Time and space can be seen as separate aspects of game design and experience, but they
are not unrelated. Remarking the importance of player experience to examine game
time, Nitsche claims that the mapping of game time onto game world can only be done
with spatial reference due to the continuity of space (Nitsche, 2008). In video games
time can be stopped, rewound or bent, which makes the time a less reliable marker to

15
denote certain time point in a game; therefore, spatial reference seems more stable in
comparison (ibid.).

Video games inherit certain temporal design conventions from predecessor media like
film: flashback, flash-forward and bullet-time to name a few. However, the interactive
and ludic nature of video games makes new ways of temporal manipulations possible,
which grows the gap between actual play time and video game’s chronology.

In previous studies, temporal analysis has been limited to identifying a few typologies
of time schemes or frames, which is further discussed in Chapter 3. This section
discusses how the experience of space is interconnected with temporality from the
perspective of phenomenology.

The changing notion of time made time a field of interest for the twentieth century
philosophers. Many philosophers started to examine time in a four-dimensional
continuum, from a subjective point of view of consciousness.

Henri Bergson was among the philosophers of th 20th century who studied time
thoroughly. Bergson’s revitalized concepts of time, memory and being have been an
important influence upon the modernists (Quirk, 1990). Moss states that: “Feeling
disillusioned with the state of the world around them, the authors began to turn inward,
searching for self-consciousness, spiritual fulfillment, and inner peace” (Moss, 2008).
Bergson’s philosophy, which takes consciousness of being into its center, helped
modernists to express the spiritual void of welfare they were in.

The most essential concepts of Bergson’s radical notion of time appear to be time as
non-linear, simultaneous and intersecting planes of consciousness and the concept of
durée.

The Bergsonian notion of time discards time as a linear progression of images and
isolated states of consciousness (Wagner, 2010). Bergson approaches it
phenomenologically, with the perspective of consciousness: “We exist in the continual

16
change of forms and essence,” which reveals itself as time. “What we perceive as form
is a snapshot view of a transition” (Bergson, 1998). In his 1889 book Time and Free
Will, in which he introduces his revolutionary ideas about the simultaneous nature of
time, Bergson (2001) writes:

“When we add to the present moment those which have preceded it, as is the case when we are
adding up units, we are not dealing with these moments themselves, since they have vanished
forever, but with the lasting traces which they seem to have left”.

Here one sees that what is diffused into the consciousness from past experiences should
be considered as a whole, a manifold rather than singular memories. The nature of time
is simultaneous states of consciousness. He further explains the concept of memory in
Duration and Simultaneity:

“Where there is not some memory, some consciousness, real or virtual, established or imagined,
actually present or ideally introduced, there cannot be a before and an after; there is one or the
other, not both; and both are needed to constitute time” (Bergson, 1999).

Therefore, memory is the bounding factor which unites the successive and intersecting
planes of consciousness. Without an elementary memory which connects two moments,
there is no before or after, no succession, or no time (Bergson, 1999). Being a whole in
itself, time consists of parts which are in a continual interaction and persistent flux.
Like the concept of simultaneity, Bergson introduces the new concept of durée for the
first time in Time and Free Will:

“Pure duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when our ego
lets itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state from its former states. For this
purpose it need not be entirely absorbed in the passing sensation or idea; for then, on the
contrary, it would no longer endure. Nor need it forget its former states: it is enough that, in
recalling these states, it does not set them alongside its actual state as one point alongside
another, but forms both the past and the present states into an organic whole” (Bergson, 2001).

Duration is a heterogeneous whole, which absorbs the present and memory together, in
a similar manner which simultaneous intersecting planes of consciousness do. Also,
what is peculiar here is the involvement of ego itself. Marrati argues at this point this
sense of duration not only constitutes real time, but also the entire existence, which
takes place or is made of duration (Marrati, 2005). Ergo, duration is all about real time,
which is perceived and lived by the consciousness.

17
Speaking of the subjective perspective of consciousness, it is better to mention
phenomenology movement again, which was introduced by Edmund Husserl, who was
a contemporary of Henri Bergson 8.

Husserl’s phenomenology pays particular attention to temporality, for it would be

impossible to experience the world for beings if they do not have a sense of temporality.
For temporal aspects, Husserl uses the terms protention and retention, which are on a
level dimensionally different from now, rather than past and future. Retention is a
presentation of what is not before the consciousness anymore, but it is a temporally
extended present rather than a representation of a memory. Protention is our anticipation
of the moment which has yet to be perceived (Bernet, Welton, & Zavota, 2005).

Heidegger argues that temporality is the existential and ontological basis of Da-sein.
Then he examines the temporality of spatial characteristic of Da-sein, stating “Da-sein
must be addressed coordinately as temporal and also as spatial” (Heidegger, 1996).

Heideggerian concept of phenomenology and Bergsonian concept of durée influenced

many 20th and 21st century artists, philosophers and architects. These philosophical
concepts were also considered during the spatial and temporal discourse of thesis.

2.3. REPRESENTATION OF SPACE IN VIDEO GAMES

Design of video games and architecture has a lot in common. Both being great
industries being developed as a result of a teamwork, and consumed by the end user -or
client- there are similarities and analogies between the video game design and
architecture as a theory and a profession.

In a 3D action-adventure game, the components of the video game can be listed as

follows as seen in Figure 2.2:

8
Edmund Husserl and Henri Bergson were both mathematician philosophers, who also work on the
multiplicity notion of German mathematician Bernhard Riemann [1826-1866], and developed the
philosophical concept of Multiplicity by analogy with Riemann’s description (Deleuze, 1986).

18
 i. Terrain,
ii. Entities (Geometric and Scripted)
iii. Lights
iv. Areas / Volumes
v. Sounds
vi. Camera
vii. Avatar/Persona

Figure 2.2: Elements of a video game as shown in a video game engine editor

Source: Screenshot from CryEngine 3 by Crytek, ©2013.

The representations of body and space are the basis of architecture, cinema and video
games. Whereas 3D graphics is the key element of video games, use of 3D graphic
representations actually intends to generate fictional immersive and evocative worlds in
the player’s imagination. Space is an essential element for player’s experience. The
player generates new meanings from game spaces through comprehension of signs and
interactions with them. These game spaces do not contain the story themselves but
trigger an important part of the narrative process in player’s mind; thus, they are called

19
“evocative narrative elements” (Nitsche, 2008). The fundamental difference between
film spaces and video game spaces is that the film space represented on the silver screen
is limited to what the director wants the audience see. However, the video game space is
experienced by players themselves as a spatiotemporal continuum.

A good example to show architecture’s role in fiction, and transition from one narrative
form to another is the castle of Hogwarts, the fictional school of witchcraft and
wizardry in the Harry Potter series. This transition also reflects itself on the evolution
of representation of the castle of Hogwarts between the different forms, in this case,
from a work of literature to film, then from film to video games.

The author of the series, J.K. Rowling describes the castle: 9 “A huge, rambling, quite
scary-looking castle, with a jumble of towers and battlements. […] it isn't a building
that Muggles 10 could build, because it is supported by magic.” The castle was first
introduced in the novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1997. Figure 2.4
shows a sketch of Hogwarts’ plan that J.K. Rowling drew to give an idea to the
production designers of the film adaptation about the layout of the Hogwarts in the
novels.

In 2001, Warner Bros. adapted the series to film. In the novels, the castle is described to
be built in the 10th century, and cast under spells which support the castle and makes
some minor changes in its architectural details and plan organization regularly.
Accordingly, the castle shown in the films has a Romanesque style with Gothic
components, with some Victorian characteristics in the interior details. In the first two
movies, the preliminary layout of Hogwarts was used as a reference. Some scenes were
shot in real historic settings 11, some scenes were shot in the film sets which were also

9
Online chat transcript, Scholastic.com, 3 February 2000. Available at: http://www.accio-
quote.org/articles/2000/0200-scholastic-chat.htm
10
In Harry Potter universe, Muggles are people without any magical abilities and often unaware of the
existence of the magical world.
11
Alnwick Castle is known to be used for some interior and exterior shots.

20
using real historical settings as a reference 12. The director of the third film, Alfonso
Cuarón, made revisions on the layout of the castle for different locations to be placed
more consistently within the complex of the castle and its grounds, and finally a more
complete image of Hogwarts was created. Then the castle kept undergoing minor
changes until the eighth and the last film. Figure 2.3 shows the production designer
Stuart Craig’s first sketch of Hogwarts, created for the first film. Figure 2.5 shows the
3/16"=1'-0" scale plan of the Hogwarts castle model created for the last two films.
Figure 2.6 shows the 1:24 Hogwarts model in the film studio.

Starting with the first movie, EA Games adapted each Harry Potter film to a video
game, which was released for computers and various game consoles. The Hogwarts
castles presented in the first four video games were created independently for each
game and did not resemble the one in the movies. However, starting with the fifth game,
the video game studio purchased the rights of using the Hogwarts castle in the films,
which is also an iconic image for the audience. So they created the most complete
Hogwarts model ever. Kelvin Tuite, the art director of Harry Potter Order of the
Phoenix video game, explains their work in the development diaries 13:

“This year we are trying to build the Hogwarts that you see in the film. So we were working a lot
closer to film people; people like Gary Tomkins who [...] designed most of the blueprints for the
miniature of Hogwarts.

[…] Where everything was? Like where do I cross the Viaduct? Where do I get? What locations
are they? What floor are they? How does that work within the fiction? So we've been basically
trying to answer the questions which is like a large jigsaw puzzle. And it is something that the
film people themselves have not even considered. Because they don't need to. They don't need to
be able to work from A to B. They can just cut the camera, and there you're in a new location,
whereas for us [...] the player is able to work all around Hogwarts.

[...] we had the blueprints; we were looking to consolidate the miniature castle, the film sets, and
the books. We tried to put in all the shortcuts that are mentioned in the books. We didn't just stop

12
The Great Hall of Hogwarts is inspired from Christ Church College of Oxford. The Bell Towers are
adapted from the Durham Cathedral with the addition of Gothic spires.
13
Electronic Arts. 2007. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The Video Game, Development
Diaries: Creating Hogwarts. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=312EO-Nm4tI

21
 looking at the Goblet of Fire [the fourth book] or Order of the Phoenix, or even the Prisoner of
Azkaban [the third book]. We went back to the first two where Hogwarts was slightly different.”
The example of Hogwarts castle illustrates the changing participation level and
perception of architecture in different types of narrative media. In the novels, Hogwarts
was a recreation of verbal descriptions in the readers’ minds. The movies had to present
a concrete image of the castle with its details. However, what the audience sees on the
screen is predetermined by the director. Suspension of disbelief allows the audience to
pretend that there is a complete and consistent castle. It is different for the video games.
Almost all the perspectives, viewpoints, actions and the player determines the
navigation though the castle. The directors and designers can no longer intervene in the
visual experience, instead –just like the architects do– they create a complete setting
with a given program, function, and atmospheric values. Also, they play the god and
predetermine the key events of the narrative. Then they push the players into an
immersive story experience in the likeness of the Hogwarts castle.

Figure 2.3: Sketch of Hogwarts drawn by Stuart Craig.

Source: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. 2011. Harry Potter Film Wizardry (Version 1.2) [iPad app].
Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/harry-potter-film-wizardry/id449182715

22
Figure 2.4: The sketch of Hogwarts’ plan drawn by J.K. Rowling.

Source:Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. 2011. Harry Potter Film Wizardry (Version 1.2) [iPad app].
Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/harry-potter-film-wizardry/id449182715

23
Figure 2.5: The blueprint of the Hogwarts castle model used in films.

Source:Amazon.com. 2012. Harry Potter Wizard's Collection. Retrieved

from http://www.amazon.com/Wizards-Collection-Blu-ray-UltraViolet-Digital/dp/B007FSEAHY

24
Figure 2.6: The model of Hogwarts castle used in films.

Source:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2109071/Incredibly-detailed-model-Hogwarts-Castle-
used-Harry-Potter-film-revealed-time.html

25
Today, there's a common delusion that architecture is something that is produced via
orthographic projections, such as plans, sections and elevations. Withal, these
representation tools are only interpretations of architecture: something that makes the
architectural idea tangible for builders. Of course, educated eyes can somewhat see the
architecture in a well-drafted plan, but architecture is more than the solids and voids
created with those lines, architecture is the atmosphere which is being experienced by
subjects 'those who are there' among the poetic relationships between the masses.

Video game designers avoid orthographic representation techniques while designing a

video game space. The possible navigation tracks are determined considering the
scenario, gameplay elements, and movement abilities of the player. The designers and
artists define the visual language of the spaces in conceptual artworks. Geometric mesh
maps are modeled and textured according to the foresight of the concept artists. In the
end, a realistic space is modeled which has simulation qualities in terms of imitating
reality in the digital world, allows interaction within the space, in which almost all
senses are included. See the Figure 2.7 to Figure 2.10 for further illustration.

Figure 2.7: Editing process of level design for videogame Uncharted 2

Source: Pangilinan, E., 2010. Uncharted 2 Level Design Art. Santa Monica: Naughty Dog Studios.

26
Figure 2.8: Sculpting the block mesh and texturing the level, Uncharted 2

Source: Pangilinan, E., 2010. Uncharted 2 Level Design Art. Santa Monica: Naughty Dog Studios.

Figure 2.9: Finalizing the design upon test play experience, Uncharted 2

Source:Pangilinan, E., 2010. Uncharted 2 Level Design Art. Santa Monica: Naughty Dog Studios.

27
Figure 2.10: Editing a space upon the narrative of game scenario, Uncharted 2

Source:Pangilinan, E., 2010. Uncharted 2 Level Design Art. Santa Monica: Naughty Dog Studios.

28
 3. SPACE AND TIME STUDIES IN VIDEO GAME NARRATIVES

Classic tales always begin with “once upon a time” and often continues with “in a land
so far away." More modern ones could start with “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far
away…” 14 . Either way, such starting stock phrases clearly reveals two defining
elements of stories as time and space. As Bridgeman put it: “Temporal and spatial
relationships are essential to our understanding of narratives and go beyond the
specification of a date and a location” (Bridgeman, 2007).

It is not different in the digital narratives and video games. In narrative theory, the
temporality was discussed more than the spatiality (Wei, Bizzocchi, & Calvert, 2010).
However, if the stories are considered as sequences of fictional events, space is always
required for events to take place in a progression timeline. Digital narratives being more
immersive and interactive than the other forms of narratives, space becomes a
fundamentally defining component of them. Murray (1998) explains the importance of
space in digital narratives in her own words: “The new digital environments are
characterized by their power to represent navigable space."

The space not only provides a place for the story events, but also evokes images in the
players’ minds. The spaces may have symbolic meanings so that can address the
audience’s past experience and start to become a storytelling device. As Italo Calvino
uses to describe the fictional city of Tamara in Invisible Cities, “The eye does not see
things but images of things that mean other things” (Calvino, 1974). Similarly, Kevin
Lynch states: “Nothing is experienced by itself, but always in relation to its
surroundings, the sequence of events leading up to it, the memory of past
experiences”(Lynch, 1960). Henry Jenkins (2004) also emphasizes the importance of
space in video games, where he calls the video game designers as “narrative architects”:

14
All films in the Star Wars series start with a static text “"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." in
blue on black background, followed by the Star Wars logo and a text scrolling in the space, explaining the
backstory.

29
 “In the case of embedded narratives, the game space becomes a memory palace whose contents
must be deciphered as the player tries to reconstruct the plot and in the case of emergent narratives,
game spaces are designed to be rich with narrative potential, enabling the story-constructing activity
of players. In each case, it makes sense to think of game designers less as storytellers than as
narrative architects.”

Therefore, the spatiality and temporality should be considered as an integrated complex

of space-time in narrative.

In this chapter, a literature review on the of space and time studies in narratives are
given with this spatiotemporal approach. Only a few of these studies are specific to
digital narratives, but a careful adaptation of the works on other types of narratives
would be useful in the scope of this thesis.

3.1. SPACE IN VIDEO GAMES

In the current literature on the concept of space in video games, Michael Nitsche’s 2008
work Video Game Spaces is a pioneer one, which not only focuses on video game
studies, but also looks from the perspective of media studies, performance studies,
urban planning and architecture. Remarking the discussion of space in digital media in
its title, Nitsche creates a short list of existing literature on the field, including Lefebvre,
Norberg-Schulz, Kevin Lynch and Ching, and intends to suggest new principles based
on the element of game spaces, connecting various approaches. In this section, these
approaches will be further analyzed to develop this thesis’s final framework.

In his 1974 book The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre describes the social place
with a classification which he calls “a conceptual triad” (see Figure 3.1):
- Spatial practice is the daily routine of spatial enactors, which is revealed
through the physical and experiential deciphering of space
- Representations of space which is “[…] tied to the relations of production and to
the ‘order’ which those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs, to
codes, and to ‘frontal’ relations”

30
 - Representational space is the space experienced “through its associated images
and symbols and hence the space of ‘inhabitants’ and ‘users’”(Lefebvre, 1991).

Figure 3.1: Schematic of Lefebvre’s spatial triad.

Source: Reproduced from Hannah Anderson’s 2003 work applying Lefebvre’s The Production of Space
to Critical Mass, an urban cyclist movement. Original image is available
at: http://hannahwinkle.com/ccm/Lefebvre.htm

Following a similar division for the video game spaces, Nitsche approaches the video
game spaces in three parts:
- Structure looks at how 3D space forms the textual qualities of video games
considering rules, interaction, narrative and combining interaction and
narrative.
- Presentation concentrates on the role of moving images, relationship of cinema
and game spaces, the use of sound and the effects of narrative filters.

31
 - Functionality refers to the interaction of the game space and the player, and
approaches the game world “as a spatially defined condition for interaction”
(Nitsche, 2008). In this chapter, Nitsche builds a bridge with architectural
theory, then examples spatial structures in video games.

Similar to the philosophical perspective of this thesis, Nitsche also approaches the
architectural qualities of video game spaces through Norberg-Schulz’s application of
Heideggerian phenomenology to architecture.

The following paragraph details Nitsche’s research and model. With a Heideggerian
approach, Norberg-Schulz divides architectural space into two groups: human-made
spaces (settlements) and natural spaces (landscapes). Characters of the natural places
are defined through texture, color, and vegetation. On the other hand, human-made
spaces show the human being’s understanding and shaping of the natural space. “The
existential purpose of building (architecture) is therefore to make a site become a place,
that is, to uncover the meanings potentially present in the given environment” (Norberg-
Schulz, 1980). So, human-made spaces are based on and always relate with the natural
spaces in three different ways:

- The natural spaces can be made more precise, be visualized or enhanced, such as
forming a path where the natural space indicates a direction
- The natural spaces can be complemented, as in the example of building a bridge
over a chasm
- Human perception of nature can be symbolized, comprehended meaning of a
space can be translated into another medium. As Norberg-Schulz explains in his
own words: “The purpose of symbolization is to free the meaning from the
immediate situation, whereby it becomes a ‘cultural object,' which may form
part of a more complex situation, or be moved to another place” (1980).

Therefore creating a space is a call for precision, complementation and symbolization of

the natural spaces. An understanding as such requires a thorough reading and

32
comprehension of the space, which leads into spatial recognition and cognitive mapping
(Nitsche, 2008).

Written by urban planner Kevin Lynch and published in 1960, The Image of the City is
one of the most influential books on mental maps of observers’ comprehension of the
city. Lynch (1960) extracted five common elements to shape individual cognitive maps
(see Figure 3.2):

i. Path – linear axes, such as streets, trails, and other channels

ii. Edge – edges with directional qualities, such as buildings, walls
iii. District – relatively large sections of the cities, identified by its characters
iv. Node – focal points and intersections
v. Landmark – identified elements that also serve as reference points.

Figure 3.2: Lynch's five elements of urban cognitive maps.

Source: Lynch, K. (1960). The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

A spatial structure can be identified with more than one of these elements according to
the observer’s position, or the defining elements can change in different scales. A city
that consists of many districts can be recognized as a node in a larger map. In a similar
manner, a bridge can be considered a path for those who walk on it, a landmark for who
view it from afar, and a node for who takes photos of the panorama from the bridge in
the same time.

Frank Ching, a professor of architecture who is known for his works on architectural
design and graphics, is more focused on the visual properties of the form, space, and

33
order in architecture. Ching (2007) first introduces the primary elements of form and
space, and describes the spatial relationships that two spaces may be related to each
other (Figure 3.3):

i. Space within a space – a space is contained within a larger space

ii. Interlocking spaces – spaces are partially overlapping
iii. Adjacent spaces – two spaces share a common border
iv. Spaces linked by a common space – relationship of two linked spaces

Figure 3.3: Spatial relationship schemes established by Ching.

Source: Ching, F.D.K., 2007. Architecture: Form, Space, and Order 3rd ed., Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.

Then he (Ching, 2007) defines spatial organization schemes that spaces can be
organized and arranged (Figure 3.4):

i. Centralized organization
ii. Linear organization
iii. Radial organization
iv. Clustered organization
v. Grid organization

34
Figure 3.4: Spatial organization schemes established by Ching.

Source: Ching, F.D.K., 2007. Architecture: Form, Space, and Order 3rd ed., Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.

Employed the geometric basis for the organization of forms and shapes, Ching (2007)
introduces additional ordering principles (Figure 3.5):

i. Axis– “A line established by two points in space, about which forms and
spaces can be arranged in a symmetrical or balanced manner”
ii. Symmetry– “The balanced distribution and arrangement of equivalent forms
and spaces on opposite sides of a dividing line or plane, or about a center or
axis”
iii. Hierarchy– “The articulation of the importance or significance of a form or
space by its size, shape, or placement relative to the other forms and spaces
of the organization”
iv. Rhythm– “A unifying movement characterized by a patterned repetition or
alternation of formal elements or motifs in the same or a modified form”
v. Datum– “A line, plane, or volume that, by its continuity and regularity,
serves to gather, measure, and organize a pattern of forms and spaces”
vi. Transformation– “The principle that an architectural concept, structure, or
organization can be altered through a series of discrete manipulations and
permutations in response to a specific context or set of conditions without a
loss of identity or concept” (ibid., 339).

35
Figure 3.5: Ordering principles established by Ching.

Source: Ching, F.D.K., 2007. Architecture: Form, Space, and Order.3rd ed., Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.

Ching’s principles and schemes are mostly focused on the formation and transformation
of the spaces while Lynch’s elements are related to the mental images that these forms
evoke in the observer’s mind. Figure 3.6 shows a Rome panorama from Assassin’s
Creed: Brotherhood, analyzed with Ching’s ordering principles. Figure 3.7 shows the
same panorama analyzed with Lynch’s five cognitive mapping elements.

In the analysis and design of video game spaces, both approaches have its advantages,
and their combination would be helpful (Nitsche, 2008). Ching’s ordering principles
focuses more on the geometrical information while Lynch’s cognitive elements focuses
mainly on perception and navigation. Ching’s geometrical approach would be more
helpful while modeling the 3D assets of a video game space, while Kevin Lynch’s
cognitive approach has more promises for the design of the evocative and immersive
game spaces, which is going to be explored and experienced by an observer.
Phenomenology of the video games gains importance once more, because with
Norberg-Schulz’s terminology, the acts and events take place in these virtual immersive
places, and addressed to the player’s senses.

36
Figure 3.6: A video game space analyzed with Ching's ordering principles.

Source: Edited image credit: Ubisoft Montreal, 2011. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

Figure 3.7: A video game space mapped with Lynch’s cognitive elements.

Source: Edited image credit: Ubisoft Montreal, 2011. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

37
Nitsche argues that in addition to Norberg-Schulz’s three ways of relation with physical
spaces, namely precision, complementation and symbolization, game spaces can be
encountered with destruction and construction of space due to their digital nature
(Nitsche, 2008). Players can interact with spaces; create, manipulate, or destroy the
digital spaces. Once more temporality of constructive and deconstructive actions gains
importance, whether the effects of player are permanent or temporary, one-off or
repeated or changed, happened in real-time or another modus, et cetera.

Virtual spaces are free from the limitations of physical spaces, but they have their own
limitations. Therefore, while this architectural vocabulary might be useful for video
game spaces due their shared qualities with physical world spaces, no single theory can
hope an in-depth evaluation of video game spaces (Nitsche, 2008).

As a part of his evaluation of functionality of video game spaces, Nitsche proposes three
spatial structure typologies and a model for content assembly.
i. Tracks & Rails–axes that have directional values and define a movement
ii. Labyrinths and Mazes–a complex track open to exploration with rather less
visual cues
iii. Arenas–open structures with a surrounding enclosure
iv. Driven by Space–In space-driven model, narrative and possibilities of
engagement are directly built into the way spatial structures are assembled.

Nitsche’s model creates a typological classification for video game spaces. Although it
regards the operational and functional values of spaces; elements like nodes, districts
and landmarks are still missing from this model.

When it comes to narrative in cyberspace, Janet H. Murray’s 1997 book Hamlet on the
Holodeck 15 is one of the major works of the field. Murray discusses how the emerging

15
First introduced on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, a holodeck or a holographic environment
simulator is a simulated reality facility installed abroad starships and space stations in the fictional Star
Trek universe. Mostly providing entertainment for the crew, holodecks are also used for training
simulations and recreating the scene of crime for forensic investigations. The title of Murray’s book is a
futuristic allusion that with developing digital technologies, holodecks replace the stage of plays and
redefine our understanding of narrative.

38
digital technologies are reshaping the stories and what possibilities they promise for the
future of narrative. While Murray discusses agency 16 , she approaches the digital
narrative spaces as digital labyrinths. She states that: “Electronic environments offer the
pleasure of orienteering in two very different configurations, each of which carries its
own narrative power: the solvable maze and the tangled rhizome” (Murray, 1997).
i. Maze – “The adventure maze embodies a classic fairy-tale narrative of
danger and salvation”(Murray, 1997). Murray gives the example of a palace
level from Arabian Nights here (ibid., 130). Such scheme can also be seen in
most video games, including the series of Prince of Persia, where the main
character the player operates walks through different rooms and courtyards
of the palace, taking the hidden visual hints to navigate and proceed to the
next level. Eventually, he defeats the enemies and saves the damsel-in-
distress; the same pattern one would expect in a classic tale. Mazes have a
goal-driven structure.
ii. Rhizome–Its name inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s conception of
rhizome 17, this type of digital labyrinths does not have the linear progression
of a book but open-ended. “Full of wordplay and indeterminate events, these
labyrinths derive not from Greek rationalism but from poststructuralist
literary theory and are unheroic and solutionless. […] they offer no end point
and no way out” (ibid., 132).

Murray’s division of digital environments is rather operational than visual. However,

their operational structure would inevitably reveal itself in the visual language of the
story spaces.

In narrative theory, spatiality is often underrated and treated as a static component of the
story. Gabriel Zoran’s 1984 study Towards A Theory of Space in Narrative is a quite

16
Agency is the participation and interaction of the audience or the player in immersive narrative
environments. In Murray’s words, “Agency is the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the
results of our decisions and choices” (1997).
17
A concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, rhizome is a model of ideas in which any
point may be connected to another point (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). Deleuze and Guattari oppose the
tree-like model of ideas in which the connections follow a linear pattern, branching off at certain points;
they propose a root-like model which is non-linear and non-hierarchical.

39
exceptional one, which aims to present a general model of the structuring of space
within the narrative text (Zoran, 1984). Rather than accepting space as a static
component of a narrative, Zoran (1984) embraces a spatiotemporal model in which two
are entwined and presents the diagram shown in Figure 3.9 to illustrate the
transformation of space into the temporal-verbal text, and explains:

“The different points of the verbal continuum may refer directly to points in space or to points in
the continuum of events, relating to space through spacetime (the chronotopos). The text can
refer to space and spacetime units which are large or small, complete or partial, and can
structure them in any order and manner it chooses."

Figure 3.8: Continuum of space-time in Zoran’s work.

Source: Zoran, G. (1984). Towards A Theory of Space in Narrative. Poetics Today, 5(2), 309–335.

From the diagram he presents, Zoran’s model distinguishes three different levels of the
structuring of space for the written narratives:

i. Topographical level – “space as a static entity” (the bottom of the cube)

ii. Chronotopic level – “the structure imposed on space by events and
movements” (projections of the interior on the bottom of the cube)
iii. Textual level – “the structure imposed on space by the fact that it is signified
within the verbal text” (Zoran, 1984).

40
According to Zoran, these three levels belong to the reconstruction of the world and
“they are always perceived together, one through the other” (ibid., 315-316).

The layered approach on spatiality of narratives interconnected with the temporality is a

peculiar one in Zoran’s model. However being created for written narratives in 1984,
this model does not respond to any technologic and interactive aspects of video game
spaces. Compared with Nitsche’s study, it has been observed that both of them consider
the story space as a reconstruction in the audience’s mind, and regard the topographical
qualities of the spatial component of a story. However, Zoran’s model focuses on the
dynamic relationship of space and time better than Nitsche’s model, but lacks the way
Nitsche’s model corresponds to the interactivity and the stories and actions embedded in
the spatial entities.

Both in academia and industry of video games, Ernest Adams -a game design
consultant, author on game development, and a regular lecturer at the Game Developers
Conference 18 series- is considered as one of the important authorities of the field of
game design. In his influential book Fundamentals of Game Design, Adams (2010) lists
the essential parts that level designers create as follows:

- Space in which the game takes place

- Initial conditions of the level
- Set of challenges within the level
- Termination conditions of the level
- Interplay between gameplay and story
- Aesthetics and mood of the level

Adams (ibid., 365-369) explains universal and genre-specific design principles for level
designers, then emphasizes that “the layout of the space significantly affects the player's
perception of the experience”, and gives a list of seven common patterns of layouts for
level design:

18
The Game Developers Conference or GDC is the largest annual gathering of professional video game
developers since 1988.

41
 i. Open layouts
ii. Linear layouts
iii. Parallel layouts
iv. Ring layouts
v. Network layouts
vi. Hub-and-spoke layouts
vii. Combinations of layouts

Adams reminds that this list introduces the common patterns emerged over the years in
simplified form, and the designers should not hesitate to create any layout the game
needs (ibid., 365). It is peculiar that the list also gives hints about possible uses and
genre tips for the level designers, as shown in Table 3.1.

While providing a good source for combination of different elements, Adams’ layouts
cannot be considered complete since there are always new layout possibilities as he
remarks. Therefore, a simple model which focuses on the main spatial elements, and
leaves the combinations to the designers and observers would be preferred in this the
scope of this thesis.

After examining all these existing models, it has been decided that a model for
analyzing and creating video game spaces should focus on:

- Spatial structures
- Functionality
- Interaction
- Audiovisual inputs

This new model, developed in the next chapter, should also approach the video game
environments as a spatiotemporal complex.

42
Table 3.1: Ernest Adams' list of common patterns in level layouts.

OPEN LAYOUTS LINEAR LAYOUTS PARALLEL LAYOUTS

- Allow unconstrained movement - Require player to move in a fixed - Modern variant of linear layouts
- Correspond to the outdoors sequence - Variety of paths can go through
- Used in war games and role- - Player can move only to next or the level
playing games previous area - Can reflect a foldback story
Used traditionally in side- structure
scrolling action games and rail-
shooters

RING LAYOUTS NETWORK LAYOUTS HUB-AND-SPOKE LAYOUTS

- Path returns to its starting point - Spaces connect to other spaces - Central hub is usually a safe zone
- Oval tracks or twisting road- in different ways - Provides some choice of where to
racing tracks are rings - Give the player freedom to take go
- Used for racing games any path - Lock off some areas to control
- Stories must be able to tolerate sequence a little
player experiencing events in any
sequence

COMBINATIONS OF LAYOUTS
- Combines aspects of several
layout types
- Role-playing games and
adventure games often use
combination layouts

Source:Adams, E. (2010). Fundamentals of Game Design. Berkeley: New Riders.

43
3.2. TIME IN VIDEO GAMES

The most common approach on time in narrative theory is to divide the temporal modes
of narrative into two:

i. Story Time – the timeline in which the acts and events of the story take place
ii. Discourse Time – time passes by when the story is being told

Teresa Bridgeman (2007), who also uses the same separation, explains the distinction as
follows:

“The essential distinction here is between the "story" as the basic sequence of events that can be
abstracted from any narrative telling and the "discourse" as the presentation and reception of
these events in linguistic form (in other words, the act of writing resulting in the written text and
the act of reading that text ).”

When it comes to time in narrative theory, one might suspect that there is a silent
agreement on the competence of Genette’s work, which also separates the story time
and discourse time 19. First published in 1980 by French literary theorist Gérard Genette,
Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method is one of the most distinguished books of
narrative theory. To analyze the syntax of narratives, Genette (1980) uses five main
concepts:

i. Order – the relation between the order of events happened in story time
versus they are presented in the discourse time
ii. Duration – the relation between the duration of events happened in story
time versus they are presented in the discourse time
iii. Frequency – the relation between how many time the events happened in
story time versus how many time they are presented in the discourse time
iv. Mood – the mood created in the verbal representation of the story, depended
on the distance and perspective of the narrator
v. Voice – who narrates the story, and from where the story is narrated

19
Gerard Genette states that the temporal duality is referred by German theoreticians “as the opposition
between erzählte Zeit (story time) and erzählzeit (narrative time), is a typical characteristic not only of
cinematic narrative but also of oral narrative […]” (Genette, 1980).

44
The first three concepts of Genette are closely related with the temporality of a
narrative.

As cited by Wei et al. (2010), David Herman develops the concept of fuzzy temporality
to expand Genette’s study which is based on bivalent tempi 20 . The term fuzzy
temporality takes inspiration from the concept of “fuzzy logic” which enables the
variables to have a truth value that ranges between 0 and 1. According to Herman
(2002), story events can be ordered in four ways:

- Full ordering – “it is possible to decide whether one [of two events] is earlier,
later, or contemporaneous with the other.”
- Random ordering – “all mathematically possible arrangements are equally
probable.”
- Alternative or Multiple ordering – one ordering is more probable than the
other
- Partial ordering – some events “[…] some elements of the set can be
uniquely sequenced relative to all others, some only relative to some others,
and some relative to none.”

The concept of fuzzy temporality is especially important in digital narratives, where the
level of interaction is higher, and the players would like to have effect on the diegetic
ordering of the game events.

There are also works focused on video game time. Similar to the prevailing method of
approaching time as story time and discourse time duality, Wei et al. (2010) cite that
Markku Eskelinen defines two tempi:

i. User time – the time spent by the player to perform actions

ii. Event time – the period of “happenings” of the game

20
Tempi is used as plural of tempus, a temporal mode such as story time and discourse time.

45
However, both time frames of Eskelinen are based on a single time scheme, therefore,
Genette’s temporal categories are not effective here (ibid., 3).

Jesper Juul (2011)also adapts the temporal duality to video game time:

i. Play time – the real time spent by the player playing the game
ii. Fictional time – the time passing in the fictional world of a game during
gameplay, a projection of the real play time.

Based on Juul’s time frames, Michael Hitchens (2006) presents a new model for game
time:

i. Playing Time– the objective real world chronological time experienced by a

player during and between play sessions
ii. Game World Time– chronological time within the game worlds
iii. Engine Time– the objective chronological real world time in which a game
engine executes
iv. Game Progress Time – an abstract measure of time tracking movement
towards game completion and allowing events to be related in terms of
happening order.

As a part of their work for the Game Ontology Project 21, Jose P. Zagal and Michael
Mateas propose four temporal frames:

i. Real-world time – established by the set of events taking place in the

physical world around the player
ii. Game world time – established by the set of events taking place within the
represented gameworld

21
Lead by Michael Mateas, The Game Ontology projectaims to develop a design language to facilitate the
design and analysis of video games. Website of the project at http://www.gameontology.org/ was
unavailable when this thesis was written, but a mindmapping of their vocabulary work was available at:
http://www.mindmeister.com/324669511/game-ontology-project.

46
 iii. Coordination time – established by the set of events that coordinate the
actions of multiple players (human or AI) and possibly in-game agents
iv. Fictive Time – established through the application of socio-cultural labels to
a subset of events (e.g. Labeling the rounds in a game as “days” or “years”).

Comparing these models, it has been decided that the models that mainly rely on the
temporal duality of real time and fictive time –Eskelinen’s and Juul’s– do not
correspond the temporality of video games profoundly. The models that use multiple
time frames –works of Hitchens, and Zagal et Mateas– seem consistent in themselves.
However, one might argue if they could be considered universal for video game times,
since their temporal classifications are “somewhat arbitrary” and “are not clearly
defined” (Wei et al., 2010). Hitchens describes his concept of playing time and Juul’s
play time “are not completely equivalent” (Hitchens, 2006). Therefore, before adapting
an existing concept into another framework, each tempus should be redefined within the
context of the new framework.

Genette’s concepts of order, duration and frequency seems promising for a video game
specific spatiotemporal model, but again, all the temporal frames need to be redefined
and adapted for video games. Also, the aspect of agency, flexible operational time, and
selective order of video game events needs to be added to the framework, which is
going to be considered while developing the new framework in the next chapter.

47
 4. DEVELOPMENT OF A FRAMEWORK

Architecture constitutes the place of video game events. The video game designers use
elements of architecture to construct the virtual space in which the events of the
interactive story take place. The requirement of space reveals that the player’s
experience and comprehension of the immersive game world to be vastly a problem of
architectural design. Then what architectural characteristics do video game spaces have,
how can the designers manipulate the spatial design process accordingly? How can
architectural theory help to form a framework pursuing these characteristics?

In the previous chapter, vitality of a spatiotemporal approach on video game spaces was
explained, and the background of the studies on this field was exemplified. Now, a
complementary and hybrid framework has been developed with the help of these
existing theories in this chapter. Furthermore, this framework has been visualized with
distinct pictograms.

Without drawing a border line between the two, the framework considers the spatial and
temporal characteristics of video games (see Table 4.1):

Spatial Characteristics:
i. Spatial Structures
ii. Spatial Functionality
iii. Interactive Structure
iv. Sensuousness

Temporal Characteristics:
i. Sequence Order
ii. Narrative Speed
iii. Frequency
iv. Storytelling
The player’s experience of a video game, as explained in Chapter 2, is a reconstruction
of the spatial and temporal phenomena manifested by the video game in the player’s

48
perception (see Figure 2.1). This manifestation is revealed to two different subjects: to
the persona 22 (pseudo-subject) and to the player (subject).

This thesis examines these revelations under three categories: [1] Player revelation is
when something is revealed to the player only. Stamina level indicators and some level
maps can be given as examples to player revelation. [2] Character revelation is when
something that is revealed to the character only. When something that had been known
by the player already is revealed to the character, character revelation happens. [3]
Mutual revelation happens when something is revealed to both player and character.
Bullet counter in many FPS games is an example of mutual revelation.

Figure 4.1 shows the user interface in Crysis 2. The player plays as Alcatraz, a
supersoldier augmented with the Nanosuit. The energy level, mini-map and weapon
specializations on the interface comes from the Nanosuit, seen by both Alcatraz and the
player, therefore it is a mutual revelation. The message “Press F” is, however, an
instruction for only the player, therefore it is a player revelation.

Figure 4.1: User interface in Crysis 2.

Source: Crytek, 2011. Crysis 2.

22
Avatar or the in-game character.

49
Table 4.1: Spatial and temporal characteristics that affect narrative and gameplay
experience.

SPATIAL TEMPORAL

Paths & Trails Agent’s Choice

STRUCTURES

SEQUENCE ORDER
SPATIAL

Zones & Platforms Flashback

Rhizomes & Networks Flashforward

Spatial Repulsion Achrony

FUNCTIONALITY
SPATIAL

Spatial Appeal Scene

NARRATIVE SPEED
Spatial Puzzle Summary

Character Interaction Stretch

INTERACTIVE
STRUCTURE

Object Interaction Ellipsis

Navigation Pause

Objectives & Challenges Singular

FREQUENCY

Perspective (Camera) Iterative

Color Repetitive
SENSOUSNESS

Materiality Multiple

Sound Linear
STORYTELLING

Branching
Controls and Body Movement
Foldback

Interfaces Emergent

50
4.1. SPATIAL CHARACTERISTICS

“The approaches to space in narrative theory are not as consistent as those to narrative
time because of the lack of a rigorous model like Genette’s” model in narrative time
(Wei et al., 2010). Therefore, the proposed framework for spatial characteristics is a
rather hybrid and combined work which has a fourfold structure. These four layers are
listed as follows:

i. Spatial Structures
ii. Spatial Functionality
iii. Interactive Structure
iv. Sensuousness

Starting from the structure-only layer, each layer gets more interactive and perceptional
elements involved than the layer before, creating a complete and evocative spatial
environment when superposed in the end.

4.1.1. Spatial Structures

Spatial Structures are the first layer of the spatial characteristics. This layer is where the
structural components of a video game are. Figure 4.2 shows the spatial structures on
the sample level created to illustrate the framework of this thesis.

i. Paths and Trails

ii. Zones & Platforms
iii. Rhizomes & Networks

51
Figure 4.2: Spatial structures shown in the sample video game level.

In Zoran’s terminology, this first layer of spatial structures would be considered

topographical level. While preparing a model for the characteristics of spatial
structures, Kevin Lynch’s elements of cognitive mapping, and Michael Nitsche’s model
were used as main references.

Nitsche’s tracks and rails, Lynch’s paths, edges, and the nodes alongside the paths,
correspond to the paths and trails. Rhizomes and networks are similar to the concept of
labyrinths and mazes in Nitsche, but they also embrace the operational configurations of
maze and rhizome in Murray’s work. Zones and Platforms differ from Nitsche’s arenas,
they not only might not be visually as open as an arena, but also has the distinctive
characteristic identities of districts and nodes in Lynch’s cognitive elements.

Paths and trails are linear axes that have directional values, as shown in Figure 4.3.
Paths and trails can consist of the walking ways, race tracks, and even the floating
paths that the player follows. Definition of a movement in the video game space, from
point A to point B is the distinctive characteristic of paths and trails. Typologically they
define a rather narrow and road-like space.

52
Figure 4.3: Paths and trails shown in the sample video game level.

Zones and platforms are focal points that are identified by its characters. They are
likely to be in the intersections of paths and trails. Being a place of an objective, a
different mood, or a point that triggers a game event is the distinctive characteristic of
zones and platforms. Typologically they define a rather large and often open space (see
Figure 4.4).

Figure 4.4: Zones and platforms shown in the sample video game level.

53
Rhizomes and networks are complex tracks that often consist of various combinations,
intersections, and superposition of paths & trails and zones & platforms. They have a
maze structure where the player walks through one place to another to achieve a
predetermined goal, or a rhizome structure which is open-ended and player driven in
emergent narratives (mostly in Massive Multiplayer Online games). Typologically they
define a labyrinth-like complex place with less visual clues, which encourages the
player to explore and experience the space in-depth (see Figure 4.5).

Figure 4.5: Rhizomes and networks shown in the sample video game level.

4.1.2. Spatial Functionality

Spatial Functionality is the second layer of the spatial characteristics. This layer is
where the functional meaning of a video game space reveals. These functions can be
enabled with meanings given to space and experiences of the player.

Being completely based on the players’ cognition of the space and having its meaning
through the players’ reconstruction of the space in their mind, spaces essentially have
three functional meanings for the players:

54
 i. Spatial Repulsion makes the player keep away from that space. Zones with
traps, enemies or harder navigation paths are the repulsive spaces.
ii. Spatial Appeal attracts the player to that space. Zones with objectives,
bonuses or other valuable gameplay elements are appealing places.
iii. Spatial Puzzle is used to make the navigation through that space unclear for
the player. Therefore, the players are prompted to explore the space, solve
the spatial puzzle and complete their track through the level. Usually visual
hints are used to help the players to disclose their path.

4.1.3. Interactive Structure

Interactive structure is the third layer of the spatial characteristics. This layer is where
the player’s interaction with the space starts. Player interacts with the objects and other
characters in the space, receives objectives and navigates through the space.

Along with the second layer, this third layer shows how the design of space can directly
affect both the ludic and narrative qualities of the video game. Interaction types are
listed as follows:

i. Character Interaction – player’s interaction with other players’ personas or

non-playable characters (NPC) operated by the computer
ii. Object Interaction – player’s interaction with the scripted or static objects in
the game world
iii. Navigation – player’s navigation in the game space
iv. Objectives & Challenges – the gameplay elements which describe the
mission in the game

4.1.4. Sensuousness

Sensuousness is the fourth and the final layer of the spatial characteristics. In this layer,
the players are inside the video game space via avatars or personas, and the

55
reconstruction of the game world in their mind is created with the audiovisual sensory
inputs of the spatial setting.

All other spatial characteristics can be preliminarily discussed in the design process
with conceptual representations. However, this final layer is related to the sensuous
experience of the player, it cannot be fully understood without insideness. The elements
of sensuousness are listed as follows:

i. Perspective and Camera

ii. Materiality
iii. Color
iv. Sound
v. Controls & Body Movement
vi. Interfaces

These elements are considered to be components of the sensuous experience of the

player.

4.2. TEMPORAL CHARACTERISTICS

In the previous chapter, while different theoretical approaches on the use of time in
narratives were discussed, it has been observed that the relationship between discursion
time and story time is a prominent one. However, it is also crucial that none of the
existing approaches put emphasis on the effects of interactivity enough. In this thesis,
this duality is renamed to playing time versus story time while paying attention at the
fundamental differences that interactivity caused in the temporal dynamics with two
additional temporal modes: game progress time and user created time.

The proposed temporal model used in the framework (see Figure 4.6) is created
considering the models of Genette, Bridgeman, Herman, Eskelinen, Juul, Hitchens, and
Zagal &Mateas, which is explained in Chapter 3.

56
 i. Playing Time – the real world time that passes when the game is played
ii. Story Time – the progression of the predetermined story timeline
iii. Game Progress Time – the separate progression of game goals
iv. User Created Time (Impromptu) – the montage of story world events created
by the player

Figure 4.6: Narrative time frame for video games

Based on this narrative time frame, temporal characteristics of a video game are listed
as:
i. Sequence Order
ii. Narrative Speed
iii. Frequency
iv. Storytelling Structure

First three characteristics are adapted from three of Genette’s concepts of narratology:
Order, Duration and Frequency (1988), examining a previous adaptation of the theory
to digital game storytelling made by Wei et alii (2010).Storytelling Structures are taken
from Ernest Adams’ classification of story structures(2010).

57
4.2.1. Sequence Order

In Genette’s narrative theory, Order stands for the chronological order of events in the
story world (story time) compared to the order of the events narrated in the real world
(discursion time). Respectively what is meant by sequential order in this thesis is the
relation between the occurrence of events in story time and game progress time versus
the order they are represented in the playing time and impromptu.

Manipulating how the story unfolds, temporal order strongly affects the mental
reconstruction of the events in the player’s mind. Therefore, order is a very fundamental
element of the storytelling.

Sequential order can be classified as follows:

i. Agent’s choice – As discussed in the previous sections, agency stands for the
interventions of the narrator-audience, in video games the players themselves, in
the story time. Video games can give the players the flexibility of choosing the
occurrence order of several events, as discussed under Storytelling Structure.
Also, the player can choose to replay, pause and skip an event, or die several
times and create a gap between playing time versus story time and impromptu.
This effect of the player in the sequential order of events is called agent’s
choice.
ii. Flashback, or analepsis, is a temporal device which is used to unfold the events
that happened in the past of the story time. If a flashback is narrated to the
players directly,
iii. Flash-forward, or prolepsis, is when an action is represented in the narrative
before its time. Similar to the flashbacks, flash-forwards can cause a player
revelation or mutual revelation.
iv. Achrony is the temporal situation of the acts or events that do not have a specific
temporal location in the story time or game progress time. They can be
represented or played, when the player wishes; therefore, their temporal order in
the story is decided in the playing time and can be represented on the impromptu
in various orders.

58
4.2.2. Narrative Speed

Narrative speed is a concept derived from Genette’s conception of duration, and

concerns the comparison between the duration of the events in the game world (story
time and game progression time) and the duration of the events presented in the real
world (playing time and impromptu).

In all kinds of narratives, it is a must to use different narrative speeds as a temporal

device. If every story was told real-time they would take forever to finish. Since there is
no objective way of measuring the narrative speed, Bal (2009) proposes five speeds,
relative to the duration of the events represented in the narrative. These narrative speeds
are listed as:

i. Scene is the most common narrative speed in video games, in which acts or
events takes the same duration in the playing time and the story time.
ii. Summary is when something that takes time to happen in the story world (story
time and game progress time) is represented for a shorter duration in the playing
time and impromptu.
iii. Stretch is the opposite of summary, in which something that happens quickly in
the story world (story time and game progress time) takes more time in the
playing time and impromptu.
iv. Ellipsis happens when acts or events in the storyline (story time) is skipped in
playing time and impromptu. The ellipsis does not necessarily effect game
progress time.
v. Pause – Different than the pauses happen by the choice of the player when they
want to take a break, pause is a narrative speed when the events of the storyline
(story time) is paused in playing time. The pauses can be excluded from game
progression time and player’s impromptu since they have no operational value.

59
4.2.3. Frequency

Frequency is derived from Genette’s concept of the same name and concerns the
relationship of the number of times events happened in story time and number of times
it was presented in playing time.

Taken from Genette’s narrative theory, frequencies can be listed as:

i. Singular frequency occurs when an event occurs once in story time and be
narrated once in playing time.
ii. Iterative frequency occurs when an event occurs multiple times in story time and
is presented once in playing time.
iii. Repetitive frequency occurs when an event occurs once in story time and is
presented multiple times in playing time.
iv. Multiple frequency occurs when an event occurs multiple times in story time and
is presented multiple times in playing time.

4.2.4. Storytelling Structure

Storytelling structure of a video game is not only a temporal narrative order, but also a
defining element of the gameplay. Depending on how linear the story is, the level of
agency and interaction possibilities of the player changes. The framework endorses
Ernest Adams’ classification of storytelling engines:

i. Linear – the players cannot change the story, agency is limited, the challenges
are part of the story
ii. Branching – provides different experience when different choices are made,
offers more agency; the players have an immediate, deferred, or cumulative
effect on the game
iii. Foldback – the story branches, but the branches fold back into a single
inevitable event; a compromise between linear and branching stories, foldback
stories offer more agency than the linear stories

60
 iv. Emergent – storytelling entirely depends on the player and the in-game actions
without a predetermined or scripted event, agency is at the maximum level, not
common in adventure video games (Adams, 2010a).

4.3. PICTOGRAPHIC VISUALIZATION

In the analytical framework, each spatial and temporal characteristic has three to six
subcategories defining a typology or setting in the video games. These characteristics
and subcategories are visualized with special pictograms designed for each title, as seen
on Figure 4.7.

Figure 4.7: Pictograms designed for framework characteristics

4.3.1. Design of the Pictograms

The pictograms of the framework are hexagonal icons, which have the same template
for each characteristic to be represented with a particular symbol. Iconic quality of the
pictograms makes the concepts easier to comprehend, recall and illustrate on video
game analysis and design schemes.

Figure 4.8 shows in detail how the pictograms designed. The first illustration shows the
construction lines of a hexagonal pictogram. Firstly, the main shape and proportions are

61
determined on this stage. The second illustration shows an empty hexagonal shield and
highlights the circle that each pictogram’s own illustration should be placed. The third
illustration shows a red shield pictogram, which means it belongs to the main categories
e.g. interactive structure. The fourth illustration shows a blue shield pictogram that
belongs to the subcategories e.g. object interaction.

Figure 4.8: Development of the pictograms

The hexagonal outer shields of the pictograms enable various combinations to create
patterns. These patterns can lead to further analytical reading on which combinations
can be considered more successful or which certain combinations enable what kind of
impressions, as shown in Figure 4.9, a screenshot from THROWN shown with the
framework.

Figure 4.9: Hexagonal pictograms creating distinctive perceptional patterns.

62
The readings, insights and renditions of the framework can be applied to design process
of video games and architecture. The pictographic framework itself also can be utilized
as a tool in video game design.

4.3.2. The Pictographic Framework

Figure 4.10 shows the spatial and temporal frameworks explained and illustrated with
the pictograms.

This framework and the proposed pictographic visualization has been applied to
analysis of selected video games and used as a design tool for the sample level in the
next chapter.

63
Figure 4.10: Pictograms of the framework

64
 5. ELABORATION OF THE FRAMEWORK
AND ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDIES

In this chapter, the characteristics and the categories of the framework developed in the
previous chapter have been illustrated with examples from video games. Then, the
selected two levels, At Last We’re Here from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and
The Prince’s Banquet from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, has been analyzed using the
framework. Finally, the framework has been used to design a level for THROWN:
Geworfen, a video game which is being developed by the author.

5.1. ELABORATION OF THE DEVELOPED FRAMEWORK

In this section, the characteristics defined in the framework will be further elaborated
with examples from video games. Most of the examples are selected from the Prince of
Persia and Assassin’s Creed series to cohere with the case studies analyzed in the next
section.

SPATIAL
STRUCTURES

Spatial structures define the environmental context of the video game space. As Nitsche
explains, spatial structures can provide more reliable references for the player to locate,
navigate and orientate themselves since the temporality of video games are flexible
(2008). The movement and operational actions hinted by the spatial structures helps the
plot to develop. Moreover, orientation and navigation of a video game space is also
embedded in the typology of spatial structures.

PATHS &
TRAILS

Paths and trails are typologically long, narrow and linear spaces that hint a movement
in one or two directions. The movement enabled by paths and trails can happen in a

65
single, three or any of two-dimensional axes. Walking ways and race tracks are the
paths and trails where the navigation is primarily on x and y axes. Figure 5.1 shows a
chariot chase path from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

Elevators are paths in which the primary motion is on z axis. Figure 5.5 shows a raising
platform from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Floating paths that the player follows while flying are instances of paths and trails in
which the navigation is on all three x, y, and z axes. Figure 5.2 shows a flying path from
Assassin’s Creed II, where the main character tests Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine
in Venice in 1485.

Continuity of the movement is essential for paths and trails; therefore teleportation does
not interrupt a path. Figure 5.3 shows a path from Portal 2, in which the spatial
continuum is obtained with a portal between two different surfaces.

Figure 5.1: A chariot chase path from Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2012. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

66
Figure 5.2: The floating path of the flying machine from Assassin’s Creed II.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2010. Assassin’s Creed II. Retrieved

from: http://kotaku.com/5285165/assassins-creed-2-screenshots-take-flight/

Figure 5.3: Continuity of path is obtained with portals in Portal 2.

Source: Valve, 2011. Portal 2.

67
 ZONES &
PLATFORMS

Zones and platforms are focal points which are usually in the intersections, or starting or
end points of paths and trails. Zones and platforms have characteristics that put them
forward and make them easily identifiable. They usually house an objective or mission
in the gameplay.

During the analysis of various video games, two types of zones and platforms became
prominent. The first type is large and open spaces, which are arena-like spaces.
Movement in this type of zones and platforms are rather free; the player’s field of vision
is wide with less visual obstacles. Figure 5.4 shows the Roman Colosseum in Assassin’s
Creed: Brotherhood, which fits the arena-like definition.

Second type of zones and platforms are smaller yet distinct nodes, either by their visual
properties or role in the gameplay or story. Opportune zones where the player takes
cover and fends off the enemy waves in FPS games are examples of such zones and
platforms. Movement in such smaller zones is rather limited, but the player’s field of
vision not necessarily gets affected by this.

In the level A Secret Passage of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Figure 5.5 shows
the platform on which the Prince tries to solve a puzzle by moving the cranks to raise
the platform that he is on. This platform’s movement upwards defines a path, yet the
platform itself is an example of zones and platforms.

In the mission The Gulag in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the Petropavlovsk Gulag,
an old Russian prison is featured as a conflict zone. The player plays as a member of
Task Force 141 team, who infiltrated the building from the top. At one point, the player
gets trapped in the steel armory cage in the middle of the panopticon prison, which can
see all the cells yet exposed to fire from all angles. The armory cage in this mission, as
seen in Figure 5.6, is an example of this second type of zones and platforms.

68
Figure 5.4: Roman Colosseum is an example of arena-like zones and platforms.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2011. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

Figure 5.5: The puzzle platform from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal & Mechner, 2003. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

69
Figure 5.6: The platform in the middle of panopticon gulag in CoD: MW 2.

Source: Infinity Ward, 2009. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

RHIZOMES &
NETWORKS

Rhizomes and networks are labyrinth-like complex places with limited field of vision.
The limitation of the visual clues incites the player to delve into the space and discloses
the gameplay and narrative elements. As explained in the Chapter 4, rhizomes and
networks can have a maze or rhizome structure.

Maze structure is like adjacent different zones linked by paths, where player walks
through one zone to another to achieve the ultimate goal. In Prince of Persia: The Sands
of Time, one of two major case studies of this thesis, the maze structure is very obvious.
The Prince is trapped inside the Palace of Azad, and tries to reach the Tower of Dawn
which is the highest tower of the palace, by completing levels in different rooms and
courtyards of the palace. During the game, the tower is shown in cutscenes several times
to remind the players that their quest is to reach the Hourglass of Time in the Tower of
Dawn. Hence, the whole Palace of Azad is a maze, the Tower of Dawn being the final
destination.

70
Another typology of rhizomes and networks is rhizome structure, in which the
connections between different places are not linear, and the story structure is relatively
open-ended. The kingdom of Ahura in Prince of Persia [2008] is an example of
rhizome structure in video game spaces.

In Prince of Persia [2008], the fictional kingdom of Ahura consists of four districts,
each district having four peculiar locations as levels, and one of the Corrupted 23 as the
level boss at the end of each district. Figure 5.7 shows a map of the kingdom of Ahura.
The districts and their locations consist of many grounds, yards, halls and towers as
seen in Figure 5.8. In order to defeat Ahriman and stop him from escaping the temple he
has been sealed for many thousands of years, the Prince and his NPC companion Elika
need to bring the light back all four districts, location by location, and defeat the
Corrupted of each district. The order of playing these districts, locations and the boss
fights is up to the player, and the locations are linked to each other. Moreover, the
Prince and Elika can teleport between the locations once they bring the light back to
these locations. Therefore, consisting of paths and trails and zones and platforms, the
kingdom of Ahura is an example of rhizomes and networks, more precisely a rhizome
typology in which different places are interconnected in any random order, and the
player is free to choose where to go next.

23
In Prince of Persia [2008], the Corrupted are the most loyal and powerful followers of Ahriman, the
God of Darkness and the main antagonist of the game. They lead the war between the light and darkness
until Ahriman breaks free from the Temple he was sealed in by his brother Ormazd, the God of Light,
thousands of years before the events of the game.

71
Figure 5.7: The map of the kingdom of Ahura in Prince of Persia [2008].

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2008. Prince of Persia.

Figure 5.8: Four main locations create a rhizome structure in PoP [2008].

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2008. Prince of Persia.

72
Assassin’s Creed series are open-world games, which takes place in fictional historical
versions of the real world cities. Cities of AC also consist of zones and platforms, and
paths and trails. Moreover, when looked at these cities at a larger scale, one sees that
the city itself matches the characteristics of rhizomes and networks, with their open-
ended rhizome typology.

SPATIAL
FUNCTIONALITY

Topographical and geometric properties of the video game space being defined by the
spatial structure characteristics, spatial functionality includes the impression of the
space on the player: functional and evocative meanings conveyed through the space.
This layer’s function in the narrative is to define the spatial affects, to alter the
emotional experience, and to attribute meanings to the spaces to name a few. Its
function in the gameplay induces to help to create navigation patterns, to shape the
operational relationships, and to encourage the exploration of the spaces.

SPATIAL
REPULSION

Spatial repulsion is the characteristic of the spaces that player keeps away from. This
avoidance can be a temporary attitude, such as in the examples of waiting until the
advantageous conditions to occur in a space. Contrarily, the repulsion may be persistent
that makes the player avoid that place during the gameplay.

Places with high risk of falling to death, places that the player is unable to move, places
with disproportional count of enemies are examples of repulsive spaces. In Prince of
Persia series, the Prince can grab and hold onto ledges. However, if the players see
cracks on ledges, they will predict that the ledge is about to shatter and collapse, so they
choose a different way of navigation.

73
There are also dynamic traps such as booby trap spikes, and moving and spinning poles
with blades in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. See the Prince trying to avoid the
traps in Figure 5.20. When encountered with those, the player walks slowly, trying not
to activate the booby traps, and waits for the spinning poles to move away to use the
same path.

SPATIAL
APPEAL

Spatial appeal is the opposite of repulsion, a characteristic which is shared by the

locations of interests in video games. Appealing spaces are favorable places for the
player.

Places of objectives, missions, and rewards are appealing spaces. For instance, in Prince
of Persia: The Sands of Time, locations where you can find the sands of time to refill
your sand tanks are appealing spaces. Additionally, the locations that player decides to
be key nodes to finish a level, which could be considered zones and platforms, are also
appealing places.

Similar to spatial repulsion, appeal of a space can be temporary or persistent. In PoP:

SoT, when the traps move away from the Prince’s track, his path becomes appealing,
then changes to repulsive again when they roll back to his path.

An example to persistent appealing places is the rooftops in Assassin’s Creed series.

The main characters, namely the Assassins, are able to perform freerunning 24 and use
the variety of topographic and structural components of the environment creatively and
efficiently. To move around to the city quickly and stealthily without conflicting with
the guards of the city on the ground level, players mostly use rooftops.

24
Freerunning or parkour is the sport of moving along a route, typically in a city, trying to get around or
through various obstacles in the quickest and most efficient manner possible, as by jumping, climbing, or
running. Source: Parkour. 2014. In Dictionary.com. Retrieved from:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/parkour

74
Appeal can also be used as a gameplay element. Places that would normally go
unnoticed can be given importance and appeal with implementing a mission or reward
there. For instance, collecting eagle feathers from various points of the cities in
Assassin’s Creed II is a gameplay motif that rewards the player’s exploration of the
game space (see the second paragraph under Achrony and Figure 5.23).

Reward object of the spatial appeal should not necessarily be exposed to the player, it
can be promised verbally. The main motivation of Portal is a cake to be given to the
main character if she completes all the test chambers (levels of Portal), which is
promised by GLaDOS, the AI unit which controls the test chambers in Portal’s plot. At
some places in the game, however, the player sees the now famous motto scratched on
the wall: “The cake is a lie” (Valve Corporation, 2007).

SPATIAL
PUZZLE

Spatial puzzles are the setting in which the player has to think creatively to find out a
way of reaching a location or a spatial goal which seems unclear at the first sight.
Utilizing the visual hints embedded in the space, and the gameplay elements that they
have learned before in the game, such as the avatar’s motion abilities and the mechanic
rules of the environment, the players try to solve the spatial puzzle to proceed.

Spatial puzzles are very common in 3D action-adventure games that they can be the
main gameplay mechanic of the video game. Designed by Jordan Mechner and first
released in 1989, the original Prince of Persia was a platform game 25. In 2001, Ubisoft
Montreal teamed up with Jordan Mechner to revitalize the franchise of PoP (Mechner,
2007). Having such platformer DNA, it was inevitable for the new PoP trilogy to not to
put spatial puzzles in its center. As explained under the title rhizomes and networks,
main objective of PoP: SoT was to reach the Hourglass in the highest tower, by walking
through all the other locations of the palace, and solving their puzzles to proceed. See

25
Platform game or platformer is a type of computer game that is played by moving a figure on the
screen through a series of obstacles and problems. Source: Platform game. 2014. In Dictionary.com.
Retrieved from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/platform+game

75
Figrure 5.6 for a sample puzzle froom PoP: SoT, in which the Prince has to move the
cranks in the right order to rotate and raise the platform that he is on. Figure 5.9 shows a
very common puzzle motif in PoP series; the Prince has to move the box on the switch
to make the gate open. The same symbol on the switch and the gate hints to the player
that they must be related.

Figure 5.9: Moving a box to the switch to make it open.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2003. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Belonging to a similar genre, and being developed by the same studio with the new
Prince of Persia trilogy; Assassin’s Creed series has some similarities to PoP series in
gameplay mechanics. Starting with Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Tombs were added
to the game as optional achievements. The puzzle structure of Assassin’s Tombs in AC
series reminds of the puzzles of PoP series.

It is observed that the places of spatial puzzles mostly match with the structural
characteristics of zones and platforms. In some instances, however, as seen in the
Assassin’s Tombs in AC series, they can be in rhizomes and networks organization as
well.

INTERACTIVE
STRUCTURE

In the first two layer of spatial characteristics, structure and functionality, the spatial
setting is set, perceived and given functional meanings by the player. It is the third
layer, interactive structure, where player starts to interact with the video game space. A

76
narrative is embedded in the space yet already; interactive structure is the layer that
empowers the narrative, and makes gameplay possible given that three of the four
defining elements of game are challenge, rules and player interaction as explained in
Chapter 1. All elements of interactivity and agency are a part of the interactive structure
of the video game spaces.

CHARACTER
INTERACTION

Character interaction is the player’s interaction with the other characters available in
the game. Since the player’s in-game character, the avatar or persona, is also a
character representation, it is useful to divide the character interaction to three different
categories. First type of character interaction is the interaction with real players, in other
words in-game personas of the other real players. Such interaction needs a multiplayer
game in which two or more real players are sharing the same game world in real time.
Second type of character interaction is the interaction with AI characters, which are
controlled by the computer via the artificial intelligence algorithms coded by the game
designers. This type of interaction can also be divided into two types: Interaction with
NPC 26 companion, and interaction with enemies.

The gameplay and narrative of Assassin’s Creed series are highly dependent on
character interaction, since it is an open-world game with a city simulation, responsive
crowds, and many enemies and allies. In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, however,
the gameplay is essentially based on the spatial puzzles rather than the character
interactions. Only human characters the Prince interacts during the gameplay is the
Vizier, who is the antagonist of the game, and Farah the NPC companion who helps the
Prince to progress in the puzzles of the levels. The enemies of the game are not human
anymore, since they had been transformed to sand creatures by the curse of the sands of
time in the beginning of the game. Nevertheless, interaction with those zombie-like
sand creatures is also considered character interaction in the developed framework
since they display character qualities. Similarly, animals, zombies, ghosts, or any

26
NPC or non-playable characters are the characters that are controlled by the artificial intelligence, and
they are considered to be allies with or at least neutral towards the player. Hostile NPCs are often
addressed as enemies or bosses.

77
animated entity that manifests the qualities of an alive being through artificial
intelligence are considered to be characters.

OBJECT
INTERACTION

Similar to character interaction, object interaction is the player’s in-game interaction

with the objects found in the game. These objects can be static entities which just have
geometric and material qualities, and the physical rules of the game engine apply to
them. The objects can also be scripted entities, which are coded by the designers to
respond in a predetermined way to certain actions. Topographic elements such as rocks,
trunks, etc. or dull objects like boxes, barrels, and crates are instances of static entities,
although they might respond to the gravity and might get broken within the universal
physical rules of the video game engine. On the other hand, weapons, vehicles, utility
items found in the game world are scripted entities.

Interacting with cranks to activate a mechanism or trigger an action is a shared

gameplay motif in Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed series. These examples are
object interactions with scripted objects. Another shared gameplay motif between PoP
and AC is that the main characters grab the ledges, and move sidelong while hanging
from the ledge. It shows that there is an object interaction with the ledges. However, the
ledges are static entities, and they are not scripted by themselves. What makes the
character to grab the edges is a script 27 which is defined in the universal physical rules
of the level. Alternatively, the ledge itself can be scripted to enable climbing or
grabbing.

The border between character interaction and object interaction is a very fine one.
Mounts and animals are considered characters since their complex script manifests AI
and resembles an actual being while the transportation vehicles are considered objects.
Then how would one define a smart vehicle with a complex AI which almost shows an
intelligent behavior, e.g. responds when the player calls it, such as the Batmobile in the

27
Varying according to the engine and the script language used, the script basically defines the rule that if
the player’s distance to the edge is less than a set value, character plays the grab animation and gravity is
disabled for the character as long as he or she is holding onto the ledge.

78
Batman or J.A.R.V.I.S. in the Iron Man series? From the approach of this thesis, the
Batmobile and J.A.R.V.I.S. would be a considered as characters rather than objects.

The function of character interaction and object interaction in the narrative is to

increase the level of agency, to enrich the story universe and to develop the stories
further. They also create new operational possibilities and intensify the gameplay.

NAVIGATION

Navigation is one of the main components of an architectural experience in video game

spaces. The players orientate themselves and disclose the game spaces with orientation.
Similarly to the flowing speed of time is the basis mechanism of the temporal
sequences, navigation is the basis mechanism of the spatial perception and continuity.

Navigation can be split into two categories: guided navigation and unguided navigation.
In guided navigation, the player has a map or checkpoint indicators in the game world
or on the interfaces. The unguided navigation, however, is closer to real life navigation
without any given map or location indicators but solely relies on the visual clues of the
environment itself.

In Prince of Persia [2008], the NPC companion Elika is able to perform magic to guide
the way to the target location with a light ball shaped spell (see the second image in
Figure 5.10), which is a guided navigation. In most of the FPS games, such as Crysis 2,
the HUD of the player has a mini-map included guiding the navigation, which is a
mutual revelation for both the player and the in-game character (persona).
Alternatively, the navigation tools can be embedded in the game in a map form. In PoP
[2008], the kingdom of Ahura’s map (see Figure 5.7) is engraved on the courtyard of
the Temple of Light, as seen in Figure 5.10. So the players can navigate themselves in
the courtyard without opening the map interface.

The function of navigation in narrative is to define the location of the story and to
increase the player’s agency on the quest. In the gameplay, the orientation patterns of

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the levels are shaped via navigation. Also, the main gameplay elements are located in
the game space, and variety of gameplay is obtained with different navigation
possibilities.

Figure 5.10: The engraved map of the kingdom of Ahura in PoP [08].

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2008. Prince of Persia.

OBJECTIVES &
CHALLENGES

Objectives and challenges define the two essential elements of a video game: challenge
and rules.

Main role of objectives and challenges in the gameplay is to define the gameplay
mechanics, create a variation in the gameplay and to create the navigation patterns of
the levels. In the narrative, objectives and challenges help to create the plot, increase the
level of agency, alter the emotional experience, and to attribute meanings to the spaces.

SENSUOUSNESS

Sensuousness is the fourth and the final layer of the spatial characteristics. As in the
cinema example, suspension of disbelief is crucial in narratives. The perception of the
video game should be convincing for the player's emotional experience and effective
gameplay. Immersiveness and the level of realism in a video game profoundly depend
on the characteristics of sensuousness.

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The characteristic categories of sensuousness are given as a preliminary list in this
framework. Each element can have its subcategories, e.g. interfaces can be a HUD 28 or
pause level menu. These elements are open to be detailed, but it is out of the scope of
this thesis.

PERSPECTIVE
& CAMERA

The aspect of perspective is an essential element of 3D adventure games, since the main
visual input of the representational game space is conveyed through the perspective of a
virtual camera.

As a gameplay element, perspective defines the player’s field of vision and enables the
emphatic insideness of the player. Perspective and camera also ensure the continuity of
the space. First-person view can be the main element that the gameplay is based on, as
seen in the example of FPS games such as Call of Duty series. Changing camera angles
and perspectives in third-person view can also guide the player through the game space.
In Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia series, when a player enters to a puzzle space,
such as the rooms of the palace and the Assassin’s Tombs, the camera zooms out and the
player gets an overview of the spatial structures. Figure 5.11 shows the viewpoints
changed by the player in PoP: SoT to see the environment and to figure out the puzzle
in the level. The first pane shows the default third-person camera that follows the
player. The second pane shows the first-person view from the same spot. The third pane
shows the alternative camera of an overall view. The fourth pane shows the default
third-person camera angles being changed by the player via moving the mouse.

Role of perspective and camera in narrative is to define the agency level of the player,
to alter the emotional experience, and to enrich the story universe.

28
HUD or Head-up display takes its name from the graphic interface of the modern aircrafts and defines
the health, live, navigation, weapon etc. indicator which is superimposed on the game’s viewing pane.

81
Figure 5.11: Different camera modes in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2003. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Figure 5.12: The color schemes of the different cities in Assassin’s Creed.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2007. Assassin’s Creed.

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 COLOR

Since the visuals are one of the essential components of a video game, as the name
hints, color schemes of a video game setting speak a lot about the spatiality, temporality
and narrative.

In Assassin’s Creed series, characteristic moods of the medieval cities are reflected with
the color filter. As seen in Figure 5.12, Masyaf, the base of the Assassin Order has
neutral colors. Damascus, a wealthy city being ruled by the Saracens, has a warm color
filter. The green color scheme gives a calm mood to the holy city of Jerusalem. The
poor city of Acre, where the public is suffering from the plague and the Knights
Hospitaller, has a darker color scheme.

Derived from cinema, flashbacks can be shown in sepia or desaturated color schemes in
video games.

Colors can also give an idea about the physical condition of the in-game character. In
most FPS games, the screen turns to red when the player takes a hit, and blacks out if
the player dies or faints.

MATERIALITY

Together with color, materiality sets the mood, alters the emotional experience,
increases the level of reality, enriches the story universe and, defines the chronologic
context, and increases the effect of synesthesia 29.

Materiality and color also affect the gameplay by showing the hostility of the
environment, emphasizing some elements to guide the player through the objectives and
challenges of the game, and helping to create the navigational patterns.

29
In this context, the term synesthesia is used to describe the sensation of senses other than the sense of
sight, such as a tactile feeling or a smell evoked by the visuals of the video game

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Figure 5.13 shows the changing colors and materiality in PoP [2008]. In the first pane,
Ahriman, the God of Darkness, is breaking free from the temple in which he had been
prisoned for thousands of years. The effect of darkness taking over the kingdom of
Ahura is reflected on the materiality of the environment. In the second pane, Ahriman
has been sealed again. The light of Ormazd prevails and the kingdom flourishes once
more, as hinted by the warmer color scheme and materiality.

Figure 5.13: The effect of the change of materiality and colors in PoP [2008].

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2008. Prince of Persia.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is the sequel of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
in the SoT trilogy. Cursed for breaking the Hourglass and releasing the Sands of Time in
the events of the first game, the Prince journeys to the mystical Island of Time, where
the Sands of Time and the other relics of time are created in ancient time. He travels
back in time to those ancient times before the Sands of Time were created via the Time
Portal in the Island of Time. Then he tries to prevent the sands of time to be created;
because if there are no sands of time, he would not be cursed for releasing them. Figure
5.14 shows the ruins of the Island of Time [1 and 2] turning back to its days of glory [3
and 4] as the Prince goes back in time.

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Figure 5.14: The changing materiality of the Island of Time in past and present.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2004. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.

If the video game is settled on a physically existing place, the designers make a research
on the architecture and materiality of that place, and try to reflect a carefully stylized
version of the place in the video game. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations takes place in
Constantinople in 1511. In order to ensure a consistent Constantinople, the designers of
the game visited Istanbul, made researches, and took many pictures as reference 30.
Figure 5.15 shows the materiality difference in the concept arts of Bayezid District,
where the middle class lives, and the Imperial District.

30
Gameinformer.com. 2011. Assassin's Creed Revelations: Scouting Istanbul. Retrieved from:
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2011/05/20/assassin-39-s-creed-revelations-scouting-
istanbul.aspx

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Figure 5.15: Materiality comparison of Beyazid District and the Imperial District.

Source: http://www.oliviermartin-art.com/assassins-creed-iii-revelations/

SOUND

The second component of the audiovisual inputs of a video game is sound. Sound is
seen in three primary forms in video games: musical soundtracks, ambient sounds, and
character voices. Sound is not only utilized as a verbal storytelling tool, but it also sets
the mood, increases the level of reality, and enrich the story universe in video game
narrative. As a gameplay element, sound gives hints about the environment, shows the
hostility of the level, and conveys the reactions for acts or events.

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 CONTROLS &
BODY MOVEMENT

A player’s experience in a video game space is closely related with his persona or
avatar’s movement abilities, and the control scheme that the player uses to create this
link between the physical and virtual worlds.

In many video games, first moments of the game events are actually a tutorial for the
player to get used to the controls and understand the movement capabilities of his in-
game character. For instance, a leapable distance for Assassin’s Creed might be an
obstacle in another action adventure or FPS game.

In the AC series, from the first Assassin’s Creed to Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, four
main body parts, [1] head, [2] attack hand, [3] empty hand, and [4] legs, of the in-game
characters are controlled by four certain buttons, along with other controls. For instance,
to taunt an enemy in a fight, to call a horse, or to activate eagle vision, the player uses
the head action key. Figure 5.16 shows PC controls of Assassin’s Creed and Xbox
controls of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

Figure 5.16: Configuration of PC controls of AC versus Xbox controls of AC:R.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2007. Assassin’s Creed. & Ubisoft Montreal, 2012. Assassin’s Creed:
Revelations.

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 INTERFACES

Interfaces are primarily gameplay elements, and they just provide some information for
narrative. As for the gameplay, the camera angles, controls and configuration of the
game, and many of the gameplay information (such as mini-map for navigation, health
level, controls, tools, possible moves, prompts, objectives, etc.) are conveyed through
interfaces. Interfaces can be revealed mutually, or to the player only.

In Assassin’s Creed series, there is also a HUD interface supposed to be the courtesy of
the Animus (see Figure 5.17); which shows a mini-map, synch bar, quick inventory and
controls. However, the creative director of the series, Patrice Désilets explains that 31
this interface was made optional to turn on or turn off. Because, for an authentic
experience of being an Assassin in the medieval ages; the players should turn off the
HUD interface, and rely on their senses and memory for navigation, controls, remaining
health of the character, and the notoriety level in the crowds.

Figure 5.17: HUD interface of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2011. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

31
Patrice Désilets (personal communication, November 2, 2013)

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 SEQUENCE
ORDER

Sequence order is not only a narrative tool, but also can be a gameplay mechanic if
interpreted profoundly by the game designer. For instance, the possibility of
manipulating the time with flashbacks constitutes the basis of the gameplay in Prince of
Persia: The Sands of Time.

AGENT’S
CHOICE

In interactive narratives, the control of the events seems to be in the hands of the
players. As a matter of fact, games with stories (such as action-adventures and first-
person shooters) have a starting point and one (or more with alternatives) predefined
endings. Nonetheless, linear and very dictating plots can bore the players. Therefore, the
game developers tend to make the players choose the sequential order of various events.

Agent choice’s affect is better observed in the open world games, where player can
roam freely, choose to bring forward or postpone the game’s objectives to their heart’s
content. In recent open world video game examples, starting points of the missions are
highlighted, so the player knows where they need to interact to trigger the mission start.

Figure 5.18 shows the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City’s main character, Thomas "Tommy"
Vercetti, in the Vercetti Estate walking towards to the living room. Interacting the pink
circle by stepping through it will start the Mission 22: Bar Brawl with a cutscene
introducing the upcoming plot. The player has the freedom to start the mission, or to
free roam in the Starfish Island and complete other tasks first. These kinds of story
checkpoints are very common in the contemporary action adventure games, such as
Assassin’s Creed II.

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Figure 5.18: Starting point of the Mission 22: Bar Brawl from GTA Vice City

Source: Rockstar Games, 2002. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

FLASHBACK

Flashbacks usually occur in the middle of the game, to unfold the back story of an event
or a character. This unfolding can be on player revelation or mutual revelation level.
That said, in some examples, such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the entire
story can be a flashback itself.

A strong implementation of partial flashbacks into the storyline can be observed in Call
of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The game takes place in a fictional 2011 during the World
War 3. The story focuses on the team of special forces soldiers serving for Special Air
Service of British Army (SAS) commanded by Captain John Price: 22nd SAS Regiment.
The antagonist of the plot is Imran Zakhaev, a Russian Ultranationalist and the leader
of the uprisings in Russia and the Arabian Peninsula. After completing the twelfth
mission Safehouse in Northern Azerbaijan in 2011, players play the next two missions,
All Ghilled Up and One Shot, One Kill, as a flashback which takes place in Pripyat,
Ukraine in 1996 winter as seen in Figure 5.19.

All Ghilled Up and One Shot, One Kill are chronologically the first and the second
missions in the storyline; however, they are revealed to players as thirteenth and

90
fourteenth missions. In these two missions, authorized by the British government,
Captain MacMillian and then-Lieutenant John Price attempt to assassinate Imran
Zakhaev, who is attempting to sell radioactive fuel rods, remained from the Chernobyl
disaster in 1986 to the Russian Ultranationalists. Lt. Price snipes Zakhaev from the top
floor of a hotel in his left shoulder, which fails to kill him but leaves him one-armed
(Infinity Ward, 2007). Thus, it is explained to the player that the vendetta between
Zakhaev and Captain Price is an old one and almost a personal issue.

Figure 5.19: Starting the mission "One Shot, One Kill" in Pripyat, Ukraine 1996,
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Source: Infinity Ward, 2007. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, in the other hand, the entire story is a flashback.
The game starts with an introduction cinematic in which the Prince is narrating a story
(Ubisoft Montreal & Mechner, 2003) as follows:

“Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have
seen the face of time, and I can tell you: they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm. You may
wonder who I am or why I say this. Sit down and I will tell you a tale
like none you have ever heard.”

91
Players do not know to whom he tells the story until the end, therefore, we enact the
entire story in the role of Prince in a flashback as the Prince tells his past adventure,
sometimes commenting and narrating over our in-game actions. Jordan Mechner (2010,
pp. 115-116), the creator of the original Prince of Persia and the designer of the Prince
of Persia: The Sands of Time explains their design decision as follows:

“One of the classiest aspects of the 1940 Thief of Baghdad (another source of inspiration for
the original Prince of Persia) is that it starts out with the hero telling his story to a mysterious
woman in flashback. As he finishes his tale, we realize that the villain has been listening
behind a curtain the whole time. Nesting stories within stories in this fashion is a signature
device of the 1001 Nights - the collection of medieval Islamic folk tales that is the ur-source
material for Thief of Baghdad and Prince of Persia.

To our knowledge, voice-over narration as a framing device had yet to be tried in a video
game. We decided to push the device to its limit by making the entire game a flashback,
narrated by the hero in the past tense. […]So, we open the game with the Prince telling his
story, in flashback, to a person we don’t see. Only at the end of the game is it revealed who this
person is. The narration had to be crafted to work on two levels: It must make sense both the
first time through the game, and then in retrospect, when the player knows who the Prince is
actually telling his story to and why.”

Both in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,
flashbacks are interactive, which means they are enacted by the player. In many
examples, however, flashbacks can be done in noninteractive forms such as cutscenes,
in-game artifacts, pre-scripted dialogues, etc. As cited by Reynolds (2013, p.56) Juul
states, “an interactive flashback leads to the time machine problem: the player’s actions
in the past may suddenly render the present impossible. This is the reason why time in
games is almost always chronological” (2011).

In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, however, this time machine problem is solved
with the sands of time. At the beginning of the game, the Prince obtains the Dagger of
Time, an artifact which enables its holder to rewind or slowdown the time when its
tanks are filled with the sands of time. When the player makes an illegal move such as
dying on a trap or jumping to his death, they can rewind back to their last advantageous
position, without interrupting the story time, game progression time or impromptu. As

92
seen in Figure 5.20, the Prince [1] is caught to a spike trap in the level The Drawbridge
[2]. Then he rewinds the time with his dagger, using the sands of time [3], and passes
the traps by performing a wallrun [4].

The creative director of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time team calls this coping
mechanism justification (Désilets, 2013). When there are no sands left in the dagger and
the Prince makes an illegal move, the game justifies the time machine problem making
use of the very voice-over narration that the game settles on. If the Prince is dead, the
game pauses with a game over screen, and the narrator Prince hastily corrects himself:
“Wait, what did I just say? That didn’t happen. Let me back up a bit.” Then the story
continues from the last checkpoint (Mechner, 2007).

Figure 5.20: The Prince trying to avoid the traps in the level "The Drawbridge"

Source: Ubisoft Montreal & Mechner, 2003. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Assassin’s Creed series is another example to video games in which the most of the
game storyline happens in a flashback. In Assassin’s Creed, a fictional device called

93
Animus allows the characters to revisit their ancestors’ memories which are fictionally
encoded in their DNA (Ubisoft Montreal, 2007). Figure 5.21 shows Desmond Miles, the
main character visiting the fictional city of Monteriggioni, Italy as his ancestor Ezio
Auditore da Firenze in 1476 via Animus, and as himself in real life in 2012 in story
time.

Figure 5.21: The character is able to revisit his ancestor's memories with Animus.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2010. Assassin’s Creed II. & Ubisoft Montreal, 2011. Assassin’s Creed:
Brotherhood.

94
Being developed by the same creative team as Price of Persia: The Sands of Time,
Assassin’s Creed series justifies the time machine problem of the interactive flashback
via the mechanism that the game settles on: the Animus. The character’s interaction with
the Animus relies on his synchronization with his ancestors. If he does something they
did not do in the past, such as dying, killing a civilian, the character simply
desynchronizes from the memory and starts replaying the memory from the last
checkpoint.

FLASH-FORWARD

Flash-forwards are not as common as the flashbacks as a temporal manipulation

mechanism in video game narratives. Wei et al. cites that (2010, p.5) a 2002 study
which analyzed 130 video games resulted that %6 of the investigated games use
flashbacks, where only %2 use flash-forwards (Brand, Knight, & Majewski, 2013).

Figure 5.22: The Prince foreseeing how to solve a puzzle in the level "The
Drawbridge"

Source: Ubisoft Montreal & Mechner, 2003. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is a game based on spatial puzzles, players need to
open doors and lower the bridges by activating certain mechanism with your movement
abilities to proceed to the next level. The magical sands of time and the dagger of time
enable the Prince to use the power of prophecy and see visions on the save game points.

95
At the beginning of some levels, he sees visions of the future in which he takes a quick
glimpse at the key points of the current level. It is a mutual revelation for both Prince
and the player. The tips in visions do not spoil the game as the player has not seen the
puzzle yet, but the player may recall the moments when they see it. Figure 5.22 shows
the Prince seeing a vision of how to activate a mechanism under the influence of the
power of prophecy, and then activating the mechanism in operational story time the
same way. When players see the vision at the beginning of the level The Drawbridge,
we do not even know where the shown fence gate is. When players discover the gate,
we see that it is shut down, but there is a narrow gap caused by the rocks on the floor.
Being slimmer than the Prince, Farah the NPC companion can crawl under the gate and
activate the mechanism next-door.

In Assassin’s Creed III, Minerva, a member of the First Civilization shows visions of
future to Desmond, called calculations, and tries to convince him not to activate the
Eye, a device constructed by the First Civilization which would activate a global aurora
borealis to shield the Earth from the fatal solar radiation caused by the coronal mass
ejection on 21 December 2012. In the calculations, Desmond sees that if he activates the
Eye by sacrificing his own life, the Earth will be saved from the disaster, but Juno’s
digitized consciousness (another First Civilization member whose who is looking for
vengeance from the humanity) would be free. If he would not activate the Eye, however,
Juno’s consciousness would stay imprisoned but the cataclysm would destroy the most
of the humanity. Then the survivors would restart the civilization; Desmond would be
the leader of them, and his messages would be misinterpreted after his death, rendering
him as a prophet or deity. After seeing both future scenarios as flash-forwards in these
calculations, Desmond decides that the humanity deserves to live and try its chance to
struggle with Juno, and sacrifices his life to activate the Eye (Ubisoft Montreal, 2012).

In these two examples from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Assassin’s Creed
III, flash-forwards occur in non-interactive forms, such as cutscenes and scripted
dialogues, as opposed to the flashbacks in the same series.

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 ACHRONY

Achronic events usually appear as side missions in video games. The side missions are
used to extend the duration of gameplay, increase the challenge, create a variety in the
gameplay and give second options to the players who want to take a break from the
main storyline. If the side missions are achronic, they do not conflict with the events of
the main storyline, no matter in which order these events occur.

For example in Assassin's Creed II, the main character Ezio’s younger brother Petruccio
asks him to collect him eagle feathers from the rooftops in a mission, in 1476. When
Ezio asks what he is going to do with them, he just says it is a secret (Ubisoft Montreal,
2010). After Petruccio’s unexpected death, collecting the feathers become an achronic
side mission, which will have no effect on the main story progression. Game rewards 50
feathers with Condottiero War Hammer, a weapon which the character can use in his
fights, and 100 feathers are rewarded with the Auditore Cape apparel. Both items are
optional, can be achieved any time in the storyline, or might not be obtained at all. As
seen on Figure 5.23, players can collect the total of 100 feathers any time in the story
time, which spans from 1476 to 1499.

The creative director of the series, Patrice Désilets says that 32 they were happy that most
of the players keep collecting feathers, which shows that they managed to create an
emotional link between the character and the player.

NARRATIVE
SPEED

Manipulating how the story unfolds, temporal order strongly affects the mental
reconstruction of the events in the player’s mind, therefore, is a very fundamental
element of the storytelling.

32
Patrice Désilets (personal communication, November 2, 2013)

97
Figure 5.23: Ezio collects eagle feathers for his brother Petruccio, for 23 years.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2010. Assassin’s Creed II.

SCENE

In first-person shooters and action-adventure games, almost all the action sequences
happen in scene speed. When a player shoots something down, chases something, races
from point A to point B etc., they usually play in the scene narrative speed.

SUMMARY

Summary is best observed in real-time strategy games, such as Civilization and Age of
Empires series, in which the player plays as the ruler or the god of a nation. While a unit
like barracks is built within seconds in the game, it actually represents weeks or months
in the justified story time. Figure 5.24 shows the night Ezio spends with his love interest
in Assassin’s Creed II, where we see the night turning to day with a nice panaromic
view of 15th century Florence, from outside the Casa di Vespucci within eight seconds.

98
Figure 5.24: Ezio spending a romantic night with Cristina Vespucci.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2010. Assassin’s Creed II.

STRETCH

Stretch also became popular in film industry thanks to the high-speed cameras and CGI.
A very common example of stretch is “bullet time”, which gained popularity with the
Matrix movies, and used as the main gameplay mechanism in Max Payne series.

Figure 5.25: An example of "stretch", or "bullet time", from Max Payne 3.

Source: Rockstar Games, 2012. Max Payne 3.

99
In video games, stretch is not only a visual effect but a gameplay element because of the
video games’ interactive nature. Figure 5.25 shows Max Payne shooting an enemy in
the head while sliding from a roof. If stretch was not used, the player most porbably
would not be able to aim accurately. Same mechanism is also used in Call of Duty:
Modern Warfare series and Fallout 3, which allows the player to aim at different targets
within a few seconds. In other examples, such as Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed,
stretch is used to aesthetize a combat scene like a dance choreography by making use of
the slow motion.

ELLIPSIS

Similar to summary, ellipsis is a tempus that speeds up the narrative. The difference is,
in summary the progression in the story time is shown quickly, while in ellipsis, some
events are being skipped, and the story continues from a farther point. In both ellipsis
and summary, filling the temporal gap is left to the player’s imagination.

Ellipsis also happens to be a part of a spatial navigation device, when the character
teleports from one location to another.

Figure 5.26: Haytham Kenway's journey to the New World from London.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2013. Assassin’s Creed III.

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In Assassin’s Creed III, Haytham Kenway’s journey from Britain to the New World
takes 72 days, while players only play the events of days 2, 28, 33 and 72. The day
numbers are shown on the screen at the starting of that day’s events in a journal like
fashion (see Figure 5.26). On the dawn of Day 72, players see Boston Harbor on the
horizon.

PAUSE

A pause occurs commonly when a new mission is starting, and the objectives of the new
mission are being explained to the player as shown in Figure 5.27 in Assassin’s Creed:
Brotherhood.
Pauses are also used when the player is introduced to a new spatial setting, such as a
map being shown. In Prince of Persia: Sands of Time trilogy, and successorly
Assassin’s Creed series, when the player encounters a platforming puzzle, a pause
happens and a quick overview of the level is shown to the player in a cut-scene as a
player revelation. In Assassin’s Creed II and the following titles, the Animus has a
database of information on the game locations. When the character sees a location for
the first time, the player can optionally press on Tab key (on PC), which pauses the
game and shows the entry in the Animus database as a player revelation 33 (Figure 5.28).

Figure 5.27: Objectives appear on the screen before every mission.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2011. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

33
What is seen in Assassin’s Creed series during the ancestor memories is actually what Desmond sees in
Animus interface. If we only consider Ezio as the character, this is a player revelation. But considering
that Desmond is also a character, some of the player revelations in AC are actually mutual revelations.

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Figure 5.28: Ezio sees the Arch of Constantin, with a database notification.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2011. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

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 FREQUENCY

Frequency improves the narrative power of the video games, and also is used as a tool
to manipulate the gameplay.

SINGULAR

Singular temporality is very common in video games. All the key events and cut-scenes
which happen only once in the game are singular. However, an event that is singular in
story time and impromptu might not be singular in playing time if the player repeats the
level.

ITERATIVE

Iteration is useful to give a succinct idea about a recurring event in the story. For
example, in Assassin’s Creed II, after his father and brothers are executed iniquitously
in Florence, Ezio takes shelter in Villa Auditore owned by his uncle Mario Auditore in
Monteriggioni. Seeking for revenge, Ezio is taught how to fight and defend himself by
Mario and the mercenaries in Villa Auditore’s courtyard. It is also a tutorial for the
player to learn the combat moves and get used to the controls. After the player’s tutorial
to each fight move is completed, an ellipsis happens and implies that Ezio has been
training there for many days.

REPETITIVE

Interactive repetition mostly happens when the player fails a level or mission. Then the
player continues from the last checkpoint and repeats everything. Alternatively, the
player might choose to repeat a mission, as agent’s choice to score higher, try
something different, etc. These types of repetitions are excluded from the story time
since they are meant never to happen. Another type of interactive repetition is a

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combination of fail and player’s choice: the ability to reverse time. As explained before,
in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, rewinding is both a temporal device and a
gameplay mechanic. If the players die or decide to undo their last steps in the game,
they can rewind the time.
In video games, also non-interactive repetitions are inevitable in environments and the
Artificial Intelligence units. Crowds and vendors who use the same animations and lines
in the loop in Assassin’s Creed series are a good example of it.

MULTIPLE

In Assassin’s Creed III, Hatyham Kenway’s journey from Britain to the New World
takes 72 days in story time, while players only play four days of it. At the night of each
day, Haytham goes back to his cabin, examines the Grand Temple Key and writes to his
journal. Players assume that it is a multiple event, and Haytham had been keeping a
journal for 72 days (see Figure 5.29).

Figure 5.29: Haytham writing to his journal in his cabin on Day 28.

Source: Ubisoft Montreal, 2013. Assassin’s Creed III.

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 STORYTELLING

Different types of storytelling structures are seen in the narrative of all video games.
They create a variety in the narrative and increase agency. They also provide alternative
gameplays and increase player interactivity.

LINEAR BRANCHING FOLDBACK EMERGENT

Linear is the most common storytelling structure. According to Adams, it is the

emotionally most powerful one (Adams, 2010b). Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
has a linear story. Branching storytelling requires different results for different
decisions of the player, therefore, requires multiple endings. Silent Hill 2, for instance,
was revolutionary for its time with its six different endings, based on the actions of the
player. Many games, including Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and Far Cry 3, also
featured multiple endings. They had branching elements in their storytelling structure,
but they cannot be considered fully branching. Foldback storytelling is between linear
and branching, it gives the player to choose between different options, but all
possibilities fold back to one inevitable key event. The Walking Dead had foldback
elements with an addition of some branching opportunities. Emergent storytelling
requires a vast game space with indefinite possibilities. Today, MMO games such as
World of Warcraft and League of Legends enable a level of emergent storytelling,
owing to the agency and participation of multiple players in the same storyline.
Developing open world games, such as Grand Theft Auto 5, and Watch Dogs, which
was to be released when this thesis was printed, might increase the level of emergent
storytelling by virtue of the possibility of multiplayer participation while playing in the
story mode.

The framework is evaluated and illustrated with examples. Table 5.1 and Table 5.2
show a summary of the spatial and temporal characteristics of the developed
framework.

105
 Examples cited Function in gameplay Function in game narrative

PATHS &
Prince of Persia: The Sands of TRAILS
Time (2003)

Assassin’s Creed II (2010) Affects motions and operations

ZONES &
Affects the story structure.
Portal 2 (2011) Defines the orientation in the space PLATFORMS
SPATIAL

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

STRUCTURES

(2012)
RHIZOMES &
NETWORKS

106
SPATIAL
REPULSION

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Helps to create navigation patterns

Define the spatial effects,
Time (2003)
Shapes the operational relationships SPATIAL
Alters the emotional experience
Portal (2007) APPEAL
SPATIAL

Encourages the exploration of the

Attributes meanings to the spaces
Assassin’s Creed II (2010) spaces
Table 5.1: Summary of the spatial characteristics of the framework.

FUNCTIONALITY

SPATIAL
PUZZLE

Prince of Persia: The Sands of CHARACTER

Time (2003) Increases the level of agency INTERACTION
Assassin’s Creed (2007) Creates new operational possibilities
Enriches the story universe
Intensifies the gameplay
Prince of Persia series Develops the stories OBJECT
Assassin’s Creed series INTERACTION
STRUCTURE

Shapes the orientation patterns of the

INTERACTIVE

levels
Prince of Persia (2008) Defines the location of the story
Locates the gameplay elements in the NAVIGATION
Crysis 2 (2011) Increases the player’s agency
game space
Creates variety in gameplay

Defines the gameplay rules and Helps to create the plot

mechanics Increases the level of agency OBJECTIVES &
-
Creates variation in the gameplay Alters the emotional experience CHALLENGES
Creates the navigation patterns Attributes meanings to the spaces
Enables emphatic insideness
Call of Duty series
Defines the player’s field of vision Defines the agency level of the player
Prince of Persia: The Sands of PERSPECTIVE &
Ensures the continuity of the space Alters the emotional experience
Time (2003) CAMERA
Guides the player through the game Enrich the story universe
Assassin’s Creed II (2010)
space

Prince of Persia: The Sands of

Time (2003) Sets the mood COLOR
Prince of Persia: Alters the emotional experience
Shows the hostility of the environment
Warrior Within (2004) Increases the level of reality
Guides the player through challenges
Assassin’s Creed (2007) Enrich the story universe
Creates the navigation patterns
SENSOUSNESS

Prince of Persia (2008) Defines the chronologic context

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations Increases the effect of synesthesia MATERIALITY
(2012)

Sets the mood

Gives hints about the environment
Alters the emotional experience
Shows the hostility of the environment
- Increases the level of reality SOUND
Guides the player
Enrich the story universe
Keeps the player interested
Verbal storytelling

Assassin’s Creed (2007) Creates the link between the player

Increases the level of agency CONTROLS &
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and the in-game character
Provides interactivity BODY MOVEMENT
(2012) Defines allowed motions and actions

Sets the camera angles

Helps to customize controls and
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood configuration Provides information INTERFACES
Provides essential gameplay
information
 Function in game
Examples cited Function in gameplay Main forms in games
narrative

Grand Theft Auto:

Increases the player’s Choosing between various AGENT’S
Vice City (2002) Increases player interaction
agency objectives CHOICE
Assassin’s Creed II (2010)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of

Time (2003) Provides information Dialogue, Cutscene,
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Gameplay mechanic Creates variety in narrative Subtitles, Screen caption, FLASHBACK
(2007) Expressive storytelling In-game texts, Direct cut
Assassin’s Creed series

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Provides information Dialogue, Cutscene,

FLASH-
Time (2003) Gameplay mechanic Creates variety in narrative Subtitles, Screen caption,
SEQUENCE ORDER

Assassin’s Creed III (2013) Expressive storytelling Direct cut

FORWARD

107
Providses side missions Choosing the order of side
Develops the story
Assassin’s Creed II (2010) Alternative gameplay missions ACHRONY
Increases agency
elements Skips

Increases the level of reality Increases the level of reality

- Realtime mode SCENE
Immersive gameplay Immersive storytelling

Cutscene
Voice-over
Table 5.2: Summary of the temporal characteristics of the framework.

Assassin’s Creed II (2010) Keeps the player interested Succint storytelling SUMMARY
Subtitle
Direct cut

Prince of Persia series

Assassin’s Creed series Cutscene
Gameplay mechanic Creates variety in narrative STRETCH
NARRATIVE SPEED

Fallout 3 (2008) Slow motion

Max Payne 3 (2012)

Cutscene
Voice-over
Assassin’s Creed II (2010) Keeps the player interested Succint storytelling ELLIPSIS
Subtitle
Direct cut
Helps to customize controls
and configuration Tutorial
Assassin’s Creed:
Provides essential gameplay - Cutscene PAUSE
Brotherhood (2011)
information Pause menu
Pauses the game

- Keeps the player interested Strong narrative Event happens once SINGULAR

Recurring events shown

Assassin’s Creed II (2010) Keeps the player interested Strong narrative ITERATIVE
once
FREQUENCY

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Repetetion after illegal

Practices a gameplay motif
Time (2003) Creates variety in narrative move or death REPETITIVE
Progresses the player’s skills
Assassin’s Creed series Replaying the game

Practices a gameplay motif

Assassin’s Creed III (2013) Creates variety in narrative Repeating gameplay motif MULTIPLE
Progresses the player’s skills

There is only one single

Prince of Persia: The Sands of
story and the player’s LINEAR
Time (2003)
effect on the plot is limited

Strong narrative
Silent Hill 2 (2001)
Player’s different choices
Prince of Persia:
Develops the story develops the plot in BRANCHING
Warrior Within (2004) Increases the player
different directions
Far Cry 3 (2013) interaction
Creates variety in narrative
Provides alternative Player’s agency changes
STORYTELLING

Expressive storytelling
gameplays the direction of thestory,
The Walking Dead (2012) FOLDBACK
but they fall back to
Increases the player’s
inevitable key events
agency
World of Warcraft (2004)
The player’s agency can
League of Legends (2009)
emerge unlimited EMERGENT
Grand Theft Auto 5 (2013)
storytelling possibilities
Watch Dogs (2014)
5.2. ANALYSIS OF SELECTED CASE STUDIES

In this section, two levels have been analyzed as case studies using the framework,
namely At Last We’re Here from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Prince’s
Banquet from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

In the second chapter, architecture's creation of the spatiotemporal context was

classified in three categories as: the existing architecture being implemented in a story,
and fiction creating its own architecture. The first one makes a call for the history and
mythology; the second one takes its roots from the existing knowledge of architecture
and creates a utopia, eutopia or dystopia. The same rule also applies for the diegetic
dimension of the narratives as well. The story can follow the patterns of existing stories,
create its own utopic realm, or focus on the act of creating a story which is called
metafiction.

Prince of Persia series is an example to historical and mythical video games. The story
takes place in the ancient Middle East, making use of the Middle Eastern myths and
stories. The creator of the series also says “1001 Nights - the collection of medieval
Islamic folk tales that is the ur-source material for Prince of Persia” (Mechner, 2007).
In the story of PoP, there are magical items like the hourglass and the dagger of time,
royal people, a heroic protagonist who acquires the magical items to fight for the good,
a cunning antagonist, and a damsel in distress who needs to be saved.

Assassin's Creed series brings together the mythology and the dystopia in a world of
alternative reality. The story starts with the First Civilization, those who came before
the humans, had advanced in technology, and genetically crafted the humans from their
DNA as an inferior slave race. Then they extinct because of a natural disaster in 75,000
BC (Ubisoft Montreal, 2012). This truth has been kept secret and embedded in the
motifs of religion and mythology for thousands of years by two enemy factions:
Assasssins and Templars. The Templars believe that the eternal peace can only be
obtained by the New World Order, the ultimate supervision and control of the Templars.
The Assassins, on the other hand, believe that such peace can be attained using free will,
they fight for free will, and there arises an eternal and unending war between Assassins

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and Templars. In the 20th century, humankind was finally able to construct an
operational virtual reality machine called Animus, which allows them to relive the
memories of their ancestors in the historical settings, and they start to investigate the
truth about humankind’s creation. Designed with the motto "history is our playground,"
the video game manipulates the human history, retells some myths and stories, and
implants an alternative creation story to the humankind, which creates its own past
utopia for the epoch of the First Civilization.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is an action-adventure game that takes place in a
closed ancient Persian palace, and the ultimate aim of the game is to reach the highest
tower of the palace. On the other hands, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is an open-world
game, and includes a simulation of the city of Constantinople in 1511. Both games are
in historical fiction genre as explained above. In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,
manipulation of the time with the magical sand powers is not only a narrative element
but also a gameplay dynamic, the Prince can rewind or slowdown the time. In
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, most of the story takes place in a flashback as a narrative
element. The primary in-game character Desmond is reliving the memories of the
secondary in-game character Ezio via the Animus. The players enact the historical
events and can repeat the memories, but time cannot be manipulated in the gameplay.
As a result, levels from these two games selected because of the difference in their
spatial and temporal characteristics.

5.2.1. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, At Last We’re Here

King Sharaman, the Persian king, conquers a kingdom in India with the inside help of
the Maharajah’s Vizier. The son of Sharaman, the Prince, seeking for a trophy for their
victory in his first war, goes to investigate the treasures of the palace. He finds the
Sands of Time, the Hourglass and the Dagger of Time. He asks his father to keep the
dagger. The Persians collect all the spoils of war; including many treasures, slaves,
concubines, and the Maharajah’s daughter Farah. They visit the ally Persian kingdom
of Azad, and gift the Sands of Time and Hourglass to the Sultan of Azad, wishing the
friendship of their kingdoms endure as long as time itself. All the Vizier who once
betrayed the Maharajah wants is the Sands of Time to become an immortal god and

109
have control over the time. He tricks the Prince to open the Hourglass with his dagger.
When he does, the Sands of Time gets released; a sandstorm starts to destroy the
kingdom and every living thing turns into sand creatures. Only the Prince, the Vizier
and Farah remains unchanged since they carry the relics of time: the dagger, the staff
and the medallion of time. Scattered by the sand storm, the Prince and Farah team up to
find the Hourglass, which is moved to the Tower of Dawn, the highest tower of the
palace of Azad, and use the dagger to return the Sands of Time to the Hourglass.The
Prince and Farah fight with the sand creatures, walk through many puzzling and
trapped rooms of the palace, and make their way to the Hourglass. In the level At Last
We’re Here, the Prince and Farah is at the entrance of the Tower of Dawn.

Figure 5.33 shows the operational map of the level. Table 5.3 and Table 5.4 show the
analysis of this level with the framework. Figure 5.34 and Figure 5.35 show the
thumbnails from the video analysis.

Figure 5.30: Operational map of the level "At Last We’re Here".

110
Table 5.3: Analysis of the spatial characteristics of the level "At Last We’re Here"
from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with the framework.

The main setting of the level is the courtyard linked to the Tower of Dawn with a bridge. The courtyard
is an example of ZONES AND PLATFORMS.
STRUCTURES
SPATIAL

The linking bridge and the stairs are an example of PATHS AND TRAILS.

The raising platform in the Tower of Dawn also matches with ZONES AND PLATFORMS.

When combined, the general layout of the Palace of Azad has the typology of RHIZOMES AND
NETWORKS.
FUNCTIONALITY

SPATIAL REPULSION is not very strong in this level’s locations.

SPATIAL

Locations of the buttons that activate the gates have SPATIAL APPEAL.

The gameplay and level structure is primarily based on SPATIAL PUZZLE. The Prince has to activate
certain mechanisms in a logical order to open the gates and proceed to the next location.

Only CHARACTER INTERACTION with a human is with Farah. The second instance of CHARACTER
INTERACTION happens when the Prince fights with the sand creatures.
INTERACTIVE
STRUCTURE

Grabbed ledges, elevating platforms, buttons, gates, and the box dragged to activate the gates are the
OBJECT INTERACTIONS.

Main goal of the NAVIGATION throughout the game is to reach the Hourglass in the chamber on the
top floor of the Tower of Dawn, which is at last clearly visible in this level.

OBJECTIVE of the level is to reach the Tower of Dawn. The CHALLENGE is the puzzles, and the sand
creatures who attack to the Prince and Farah on their way to the Tower of Dawn.

The game enables the player to change between three different PERSPECTIVE AND CAMERA modes:
Third-person view, first-person view, and alternative overall view.

COLORS and MATERIALITY of the level set a mood and represent the environment in the ancient
Persia. Environmental colors are warm and bright, in contrary with the pastel and cold color of the
sand creatures. The Magic Fountains that Prince can never be sure if they are real or he just dreams
of them, are emphasised with their contrast to the color scheme of the rest of the game. They have
SENSOUSNESS

cold and bright colors with illumination in an arabesque blue and dark environment.

Use of SOUND in verbal narration, soundtrack and ambiance sets the mood and provides an
immersive narrative experience. Voiceovers of the Prince narrating the story is an essential element
in this game, since the game starts with Prince telling a story to someone who is revealed at the end
of the game.

BODY MOVEMENT abilities of the Prince was quite wide and innovative in its age, with his freerunning
skills. CONTROLS consist of movement controls, combat controls and magical sand powers.

INTERFACES consist of a HUD, on which the health, available Sand Tanks, and rewind duration meter
are shown. There is also a pause menu in which Prince asks, “Do you wish me to leave before
finishing my story?” if you quit the game.

111
Table 5.4: Analysis of the temporal characteristics of the level "At Last We’re
Here" from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with the framework.

FLASHBACK is used as a gameplay mechanic in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The Prince can
rewind time if he makes an illegal movement.
SEQUENCE
ORDER

FLASH-FORWARDS are seen as visions at the save game points, where the Prince sees a foresight of
the upcoming level.

ACHRONY and AGENT’S CHOICE is not available in this game, since there is a very LINEAR and direct
storytelling.

Most of the narrative, navigation and combat actions of the game happen in SCENE speed.

SUMMARY happens in the visions at the save game points.

NARRATIVE SPEED

STRETCH is used to aesthetize a combat movements in slow motion. Also, the Prince can
slow down the time with magical sand powers, this way he can move faster than the
mechanisms in the game or fight the enemies effectively. Therefore, the game uses
STRETCH as a gameplay mechanic, rather than a cosmetic property.

ELLIPSIS happens when players skip a cutscene.

PAUSE happens when the player pauses the game to customize settings, to take a break.

Most of the events of the game happen in SINGULAR frequency.

FREQUENCY

REPETITION happens when the player rewinds the time, or dies and restarts the level. A
major REPETITION will happen in the final of the game, where Prince rewinds all the events
of the game.
STORYTELLING

The gameplay during this level is primarily LINEAR.

112
Figure 5.31: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level "At Last We’re Here"
from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with the framework, part 1

113
Figure 5.32: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level "At Last We’re Here"
from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with the framework, part 2

114
5.2.2. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, The Prince’s Banquet

The company of Abstergo, the corporation branch of the Templar Order, invents the
Animus: a fictional virtual reality simulator that allows people to revisit their ancestors’
memories which are fictionally encoded in their DNA. Abstergo is looking for the
artifacts called Apples of Eden; which, in fact, is an advanced scientific device
constructed by the First Civilization, stores their advanced technologic knowledge and
capable of controlling the human minds. The Templar Order has the record that the last
human who has seen the Apple of Eden they are looking for is Altaïr who lived in 1191,
in Masyaf, Syria, and happens to be a member of the Assassin Order, the enemy faction
to Templar Order since the beginning of the civilization.

The primary in-game character Desmond Miles is a descendant of Altaïr. Thus, he was
kidnapped by Abstergo to relive Altaïr’s memories and show them the location of the
Apple of Eden. This is the plot of the first Assassin’s Creed game. When the Templars
are done with Desmond, they decide to kill him (Ubisoft Montreal, 2007), at which
point luckily modern branch of the Assassins help him to escape, and the events of
Assassin’s Creed II starts.

They take Desmond to the hideout of the Assassins in Florence, and reveal that he has
another important Assassin in his bloodline: Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Assassins advise
Desmond to relive Ezio’s memories that he can be trained as an Assassin in a short time
(Ubisoft Montreal, 2010). In Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Desmond keeps reliving
Ezio’s memories when he becomes a Master Assassin and rebuilds the Assassin
Brotherhood in Rome. However, too much exposure to the Animus starts showing ill
effects on Desmond (Ubisoft Montreal, 2011). Eventually, Desmond fells into a coma
and his friends keep him in Animus to keep his mental state stable.

Here starts the events of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Animus is unable to support
Desmond and puts him in the Black Room, the safe mode of the Animus. Here, Desmond
learns that his consciousness and the memories of his ancestors are all mixed up and
Animus is what still keeps his consciousness intact. Desmond has to experience all the

115
genetic memories with nothing left to observe, in order to separate the fragmented
layers of his mind from the lives of his ancestors and leave the Animus.
In the remaining memories, Ezio is in his early fifties, and leaves Italy on the on the trail
of the Assassin Mentor Altaïr, who supposedly left invaluable knowledge in a library
beneath the Assassin fortress in Masyaf, Syria. In Masyaf, he finds that the library is
locked only to be unlocked by the Memory Seals of Altaïr, the keys which he finds out
to be hidden in Constantinople. He travels to Constantinople in 1511, welcomed by the
Ottoman Assassins, Ezio keeps searching for the keys of Masyaf library (Ubisoft
Montreal, 2011).

At the beginning of the memory sequence 34 The Prince’s Banquet, Yusuf Tazim, the
leader of the Ottoman Assassins, tells Ezio that the Prince Suleiman is back from his
hajj. He is celebrating it by organizing a public banquet in Topkapi Palace, and the
Assassins received the information that Templars are planning to assassinate him in the
banquet. Assassins will stealthily attend the event and protect the Prince from any
possible attacks. Ezio thinks that it can be a way to communicate with Suleiman for his
investigation of the Masyaf Keys and offers to help them.

They race on the rooftops from the Hippodrome to the Topkapi Palace. There, they see
that Italian minstrels are hired as entertainers. The Assassins knock them out and hide
their bodies, don their outfits, and infiltrate the banquet without looking suspicious to
the guards. While in the courtyards, Ezio uses his Eagle Vision 35 to detect the Templars
and distracts the crowds by playing lute while the Assassins take down the suspects. At
the end of the memory sequence, Janissaries spot one of the dead bodies and alert
everyone the Assassins are there. Taking the advantage of the chaos, a Templar attempts
to kill Suleiman and gets killed by Ezio with the broken fingerboard of his lute.
Thankful for his help, Prince Suleiman tells Ezio to see him after he changes his outfits.

34
Levels are called memory sequences in Assassin’s Creed, since they are relived memories in Animus.
35
Eagle vision is an advanced skill of sixth sense which is usually seen in the descendants of the First
Civilization, which allows one to identify whether people are friends or foes or intuitively figure out how
to utilize the objects.

116
Figure 5.30 shows the operational map of the level. Table 5.5 and Table 5.6 show the
analysis of this level with the framework. Figure 5.31 and Figure 5.32 show the
thumbnails from the video analysis.

Figure 5.33: Operational map of the level "The Prince's Banquet" from Assassin’s
Creed: Revelations

117
Table 5.5: Analysis of the spatial characteristics of the level "The Prince's
Banquet" from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations with the framework

The level starts with Ezio and Ottoman Assassins racing from the Hippodrome of Constantinople to
the South Gate of the Topkapi Palace. The Hippodrome is an example of ZONES AND PLATFORMS
with its arena-like structure.
STRUCTURES

The race to the palace follows a path on the rooftops of Constantinople, which matches PATHS AND
SPATIAL

TRAILS typology.

The closed compound of Topkapi matches the definition of RHIZOMES AND NETWORKS, consisting of
courtyards and gardens which are ZONES.

In larger scale, the city of Constantinople itself is an example of RHIZOMES AND NETWORKS,
containing many PATHS AND TRAILS and ZONES AND PLATFORMS.

During the race to Topkapi, Ezio and Assassins use the rooftops because of its SPATIAL APPEAL.
FUNCTIONALITY
SPATIAL

While knocking out minstrels, Assassins avoid being seen by the Janissaries. Therefore, the front of
the Janissaries create SPATIAL REPULSION.

There is no intense SPATIAL PUZZLE in this level, yet the path Ezio chooses during the race, utilizing
the chimneys, roofs, and ziplines can be considered a minor spatial puzzle to be solved.

All fights with the soldiers, talks and races with the other Assassin’s, knocking out the minstrels,
blending in the crowds, identifying the Templars, saving Prince Suleiman from the assassination, and
the conversation with Suleiman are CHARACTER INTERACTION.

Grabbing the buildings while freerunning, using weapons, performing a leap of faith to haystacks, and
playing the lute are OBJECT INTERACTION.
INTERACTIVE
STRUCTURE

Racing to Topkapi, locating the minstrels, avoiding being seen by the Janissaries, and locating the
Templars are NAVIGATION actions.

OBJECTIVES of the level: The Templars are planning to assassinate Prince Suleiman on the banquet
he organizes to celebrate his return from his hajj. Ezio should infiltrate the palace, don the outfits of
Italian minstrels to look unsuspicious, locate the Templars, distract the crowd while the Assassins
take the Templars down, and kill the Templar who attacks Suleiman in the end. CHALLENGES are to
beat Yusuf on the race to Topkapi, and remain undetected by the Templars while knocking out the
Italian Minstrels.
Primary PERSPECTIVE during the gameplay is third person view, changing to predetermined
CAMERAS during the cutscenes.

Use of COLOR is very prominent in Eagle Vision, which shows the enemies, allies, and objectives
highlighted with certain colors.

MATERIALITY change is best observed between the ancestor memories in Constantinople (natural, old
SENSOUSNESS

and physical), and the Memory Corridor of the Animus menu (digital and immaterial).

Use of SOUND in verbal narration, soundtrack and ambiance sets the mood and provides an
immersive narrative experience.

BODY MOVEMENT range of Ezio is quite wide, he can perform freerunning, perform leap of faith from
heights if there is a soft spot like a haystack to land to name a few. CONTROLS are based on the Head
– Armed Hand – Empty Hand – Legs tetrad, each being controlled by a button. Actions have high
profile and low profile options (e.g. walking vs. running, jumping vs. performing a leap of faith).

INTERFACES are provided by the Animus, shows objectives, the mini-map, synch level, controls, and
weapons on the HUD. The last three is turned off in the demo.

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Table 5.6: Analysis of the temporal characteristics of the level "The Prince's
Banquet" from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations with the framework.

The player is free to choose when to play a memory of Ezio, it is up to the AGENT’S CHOICE.
SEQUENCE
ORDER

The story itself takes place in a FLASHBACK, since Desmond is reliving the memories of his ancestor
Ezio through the Animus.

Side missions in the city, for example, the fight before talking to Yusuf Tazim is an ACHRONIC event.

Most of the story events and gameplay happens in SCENE speed.

NARRATIVE SPEED

When Ezio kills a guard with a combo movement, STRETCH is used to aesthetize the combat
scenes like dance choreography in slow motion.

ELLIPSIS is used after Ezio talks with Yusuf Tazim, after getting the minstrels’ clothes to
wait for the banquet, and when Ezio says he will talk to Suleiman after changing the
minstrel outfits.

PAUSE happens when a new objective is explained, or when the player pauses the game to
reach the inventory, to customize settings, to take a break.

Most of the events of the game happen in SINGULAR frequency.

FREQUENCY

REPETITION happens when the player is desynchronized and has to repeat the memory.

MULTIPLE frequency is seen during the repeating gameplay motif of knocking out the
minstrels, locating the Templars, and distracting the crowd with the lute while the Assassins
take the Templars down.
STORYTELLING

The gameplay during this level is primarily LINEAR.

Throughout the game, some FOLDBACK storytelling elements can also be seen.

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Figure 5.34: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level "The Prince's
Banquet" from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations with the framework, part 1

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Figure 5.35: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level "The Prince's
Banquet" from Assassin’s Creed: Revelations with the framework, part 2

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5.3. USE OF THE FRAMEWORK IN VIDEO GAME DESIGN

The framework has been used as an analysis tool so far. However, the framework is
intended to be not only an analysis framework but also a design tool. To illustrate what
would it look like to use the framework as a design and representation tool, a sample
level was designed for the THROWN video game project of the author. Some
visualizations of the level were used in Chapter 4 to explain spatial structures (see
Figure 4.2 to 4.5). Figure 5.36 shows the spatial characteristics of the framework
applied to the sample level with pictograms on the design phase.

Figure 5.36: Spatial functionality shown in the sample video game level.

6
2

4
5
3

The objective of this level is to escape the chamber from the exit door [1] up the stairs.
The door is not reachable because of the gap between the platforms. From the endless
pool, it seems that the chamber is settled on a deep reservoir or sea. The player needs to

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raise the bridge lift [2] to create a bridge to the exit door. There is a sign on the wall,
telling, “Lifts are operated remotely from the operator rooms.” The switch which
activates the lift is in the Operator Room I [3]. There is a hostile guard in the Operator
Room I and the in-game character are unarmed. However, he stands on a mossy lift
which looks similar to the lift which the persona needs to activate. There must be other
operator rooms, which activate the lift on which the guard stands. There is a corridor
ahead [4]. On the left end of it, there is a hidden room [5] with a bonus item in it. The
persona needs to move a box out of his way to reach the item. On the right end, there is
another hidden room, which is the Operator Room II [6]. The sign on Operator Room II
verifies that the switch “Activates the Sea Lift in Operator Room I”.

In order to escape the level, the players need to figure out this puzzle with the visual and
spatial hints, and the signs on the walls. They should find the Operator Room II without
being seen by the guard, activate the sea lift to throw the enemy to the sea, go to the
Operator Room I, activate the bridge lift, climb the stairs, and exit the room. Optionally
they can collect the bonus item in the hidden room at any point in the level.

Figure 5.37 shows the elements of sensuousness in the sample level. Figure 5.38 and
Figure 5.39 shows the thumbnails from the video analysis of the level with the spatial
characteristics of the framework.

Figure 5.37: Elements of sensuousness shown in the sample video game level.

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Figure 5.38: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level designed with the
framework for THROWN, part 1

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Figure 5.39: Thumbnails from the video analysis of the level designed with the
framework for THROWN, part 2

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 6. CONCLUSION

Video games bring many disciplines together. Architecture is a leading one of those
many disciplines work together to construct the fictional space opportunities of the
video games.

Space is the shared field of interest of architecture and video games; thus, it is useful to
make a definition of the space. Space can be defined as the milieu in which the life takes
place. The definition of space requires a living inside it, and a being to experience it.
Therefore, the space is defined by experience and perception. From this perspective, a
definition of architecture might be the design and production of space, which does not
limit the architecture to the act of building.

Video games tell stories not only to be listened or watched, but also to be lived,
perceived and experienced by people. Being based on human experience, fundamental
bases of a video game is space and time, which work as a spatiotemporal complex in
video games. Thus, the design of video game is a question of designing space and time.
Telling their stories embedded in the designed environment; architecture and video
games, in a way, walk arm in arm.

Role of architecture in video games has been discussed throughout the thesis. Another
question is what architects can learn from the video games. How can the insights of the
developed framework inspire the architects to shape the future of spatial environments
with developing digital technologies?

This thesis attempted to propose an analytical framework for the spatial and temporal
characteristics in video games. The temporal characteristics in this study are essentially
based on the narrative theory; they require a level of manipulation of time which seems
to be out of the humankind’s abilities for now. The spatial characteristics, on the other
hand, take their roots from the theory of architecture, perception, and phenomenology.
In this perspective, the framework considers spatial structures to consist of zones as
nodes, paths connecting the nodes, and a resulting network created by these nodes and

126
paths. These structures have symbolic and functional meanings, and can be perceived as
repulsive, appealing, or puzzling by the observer. All the interactions with and within
the spaces are embedded to be disclosed by the observers. The atmosphere of the space
is also enhanced with sensuous elements, such as color, light, materiality, sound,
smells 36, etc. Approaching the architecture from this perspective of designing a space of
emotional and operational experience might reveal new perspectives that are otherwise
goes unnoticed with functional approaches. In this scope, the spatial part of this
framework can be adapted to a design and mapping tool for teleological spaces and
memory spaces, such as the Jewish Museum Berlin by Daniel Liebeskind.

In the proposed framework, spatial functionality and interactive structure turn the static
spatial structures into a dynamic component. With the sensuousness inputs, the game
space is experienced immersively via personas. Storytelling structure adjusts the level
of the player’s agency in the plot. Sequence order, narrative speed and frequency create
expressive storytelling and variety in narrative.

The next question is how this framework can be useful for video game designers. The
framework was intended to be both an analysis and design tool. In the scope of this
thesis, due to the time limitations, the framework was applied on single levels as case
studies. If games are analyzed as a whole, and the pictographic pattern outputs of the
analysis of different games are compared, the framework can illustrate repeating
narrative and gameplay motifs visually. Such output can provide feedback for the
designers. Shared motifs and patterns in the video games that are considered popular or
successful can be analyzed, although the new designs will not be a mere recollection of
these patterns, the patterns to be used as a reference in video game design such as the
pattern language of Christopher Alexander.

Alternatively, as seen in the example of THROWN, the framework can be used in the
design process as a tool to visualize spatial characteristics of a space to emphasize the
narrative and gameplay elements better.

36
Smells are unfortunately not available in video games due technologic limitations.

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The sensuousness category of the framework just names the sensuous components of
the spatial experience; these categories need to be further elaborated with the help of
various disciplines, including cinema and architecture. Also, Genette’s narrative theory
is insufficient to analyze the complex and flexible temporality of the video games. In
this thesis, four temporal modes were introduced to stabilize and adapt Genette’s model.
However, the temporal structure of video games requires a brand new conception of
narrative time.

The analysis videos, as seen in Chapter 5, show the pictograms being used as an
interface. For future studies, the framework can be developed to be a complete design
and visualization tool, supported by software.

The feedback of video games on the visual and representational language of architecture
could also be a good field of research based upon this thesis.

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