articles by Antranig Sarian
This article looks at how games created with the ChoiceScript authoring tool create a situation i... more This article looks at how games created with the ChoiceScript authoring tool create a situation in which players construct a sense of self using the developer's assumptions hidden within the code. Some interactive narratives use statistics (also called 'alignment systems') to keep track of player choices, saving them in the form of character descriptions such as 'Good', 'Humanity' or 'Booksmarts'. ChoiceScript is an authoring tool designed to encourage the creation of text-based interactive narratives that heavily revolve around such stats and the prominent display of a 'Show Stats' page. This article explores how many ChoiceScript games use the procedural enthymeme to embed the developer's assumptions into their stats. Many ChoiceScript games also have a structure that is evocative of pop culture personality tests. These two elements-the procedural enthymeme and a pop culture personality test structure-combine to generate an experience of developer-mediated self-curation.
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Cultural Science Journal, 2019
This article argues that multiple endings and narrative memory within interactive narratives can ... more This article argues that multiple endings and narrative memory within interactive narratives can engender ethical self-reflection in relationship with broader discourses surrounding controversial issues. It introduces the term 'expressed self' to describe this process. The expressed self is how an interactive text 'sees' the player-through either their alignment, faction favour, flags, etc-and is used to generate a personalised response to the player through their unlocked ending. This concept is then applied to a close analysis of Papers, Please by juxtaposing the 'Antegrian Husband and Wife' choice with the 'Snowier Pastures' ending. The manner in which this process takes place has implications for the ways in which videogames and interactive narratives engage with open literacy.
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Thesis Chapters by Antranig Sarian
Monash University, 2019
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Conference Presentations by Antranig Sarian
Frankenstein: Two Hundred Years of Monsters, 2018
This paper is a comparative analysis of Shelley Jackson’s critically acclaimed hypertext novel Pa... more This paper is a comparative analysis of Shelley Jackson’s critically acclaimed hypertext novel Patchwork Girl (1995) and the critically panned action video game Shadow the Hedgehog (2005). Despite their differences in both time and quality, both communicate the personal conflict of their respective protagonists in the same way. They feature artificially created monsters who must grapple with their identity, and present this conflict via a branching narrative – with different branches depicting different sides of their respective existential division.
Patchwork Girl explores the resurrected female counterpart to Frankenstein’s Monster as she grapples with her identity. The multi-linear, network structure of the text acts as a metaphor for her body, for the genre of hypertext fiction, and the internal conflict regarding her identity. Shadow The Hedgehog uses a simpler branching tree-narrative, but communicates the same basic concept as Patchwork Girl. In it the artificially created Shadow must struggle with his meaning in life, and the branching paths of the game symbolise his two-sided conflict.
The use of an interactive narrative to communicate the fragmented nature of each text’s Monster can be seen in a number of shared narrative devices. This paper explores both text’s use of an internally inconsistent fabula, user-driven choices, and a pervading sense of exploration anxiety in order to communicate a theme common to the Frankenstein myth – that of the monster’s struggle for meaning and its constructed nature.
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Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference, 2016
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Papers by Antranig Sarian
Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, May 1, 2023
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Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture
Since the release of The Walking Dead in 2012, the "Telltale Model" of interactive narr... more Since the release of The Walking Dead in 2012, the "Telltale Model" of interactive narrative has attracted a lot of criticism for providing choices that 'don't matter'. This paper is a response to this discussion taking place both in academia and popular games culture. While Telltale's choices indeed 'don't matter' this overlooks the ways in which they actually function. The Telltale Model works in a way that is analogous to the philosophical thought experiment. It presents a sequential series of moral dilemmas that all communicate a common theme. The penultimate choice in The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 5: No Going Back (2013) performs as a final lesson - testing the player to see if they have properly internalised the themes of the series. It then responds not to the accumulated memory of their choices, but to how they respond to the final 'test' that bookends the series’ many ethical dilemmas. Telltale's choices may not have any...
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Interactive choices have become popular in today's games and stories. But how do choices work... more Interactive choices have become popular in today's games and stories. But how do choices work? This thesis examines the 'choice' as a form of expression. Some choices are like a quiz - they have a right answer. Others exist to help you explore a story from different sides. However both of these underutilise the choice. This thesis argues that the best way to use the choice is as a tool for self-reflection. By saving a person's set of choices, a game or story can respond to them in a way that's unique and helps them to grow as a person.
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Games and Culture
The Stanley Parable uses metafiction and elements borrowed from the “Theatre of the Absurd” to re... more The Stanley Parable uses metafiction and elements borrowed from the “Theatre of the Absurd” to reveal a didactic, pedagogical, and despotic voice that lies below many of the choices found within gamebooks, literary games, and interactive narratives. The satirical character of the “narrator,” coupled with the game’s use of paradoxes, makes choosers aware of the catechistic structure that many didactic choices employ. This pedagogic choice structure has its roots in the TutorText series of programmed learning novels—a structure repeated (and hidden) by the Choose Your Own Adventure-style gamebooks that followed and that is subsequently parodied in The Stanley Parable. The Stanley Parable itself provides players with choices that lack a solution, with choices such as the “two doors” embodying a juxtaposition between the closed choices of TutorText and the open choices presented by the game.
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Cultural Science Journal
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articles by Antranig Sarian
Thesis Chapters by Antranig Sarian
Conference Presentations by Antranig Sarian
Patchwork Girl explores the resurrected female counterpart to Frankenstein’s Monster as she grapples with her identity. The multi-linear, network structure of the text acts as a metaphor for her body, for the genre of hypertext fiction, and the internal conflict regarding her identity. Shadow The Hedgehog uses a simpler branching tree-narrative, but communicates the same basic concept as Patchwork Girl. In it the artificially created Shadow must struggle with his meaning in life, and the branching paths of the game symbolise his two-sided conflict.
The use of an interactive narrative to communicate the fragmented nature of each text’s Monster can be seen in a number of shared narrative devices. This paper explores both text’s use of an internally inconsistent fabula, user-driven choices, and a pervading sense of exploration anxiety in order to communicate a theme common to the Frankenstein myth – that of the monster’s struggle for meaning and its constructed nature.
Papers by Antranig Sarian
Patchwork Girl explores the resurrected female counterpart to Frankenstein’s Monster as she grapples with her identity. The multi-linear, network structure of the text acts as a metaphor for her body, for the genre of hypertext fiction, and the internal conflict regarding her identity. Shadow The Hedgehog uses a simpler branching tree-narrative, but communicates the same basic concept as Patchwork Girl. In it the artificially created Shadow must struggle with his meaning in life, and the branching paths of the game symbolise his two-sided conflict.
The use of an interactive narrative to communicate the fragmented nature of each text’s Monster can be seen in a number of shared narrative devices. This paper explores both text’s use of an internally inconsistent fabula, user-driven choices, and a pervading sense of exploration anxiety in order to communicate a theme common to the Frankenstein myth – that of the monster’s struggle for meaning and its constructed nature.