#ludonarrative consonance

[triflesandparsnips]

An abbreviated list of the many, many reasons I love that the season 2 OFMD episodes are being released more closely to a regular television schedule than a single huge binge drop:

1. It allows for this cumulative building wave of meta and art and conversation to develop between episodes, growing higher and higher, yes, but also wider, broader, bringing in people who might have otherwise been missed in some big there-and-gone surge, creating (when in any fandom where new canon drives enormous fan engagement and creativity) an experience that I consider to be the greatest benefit of being in a live, active fandom: immersive fannish compersion.

2. It gives time for people to come up with theories based on one ep, and then have those theories absolutely smashed with the next (an important part of learning to play in the tidepool of media analysis rather than making oneself stationed there).

3. It gives time for us to literally feel time-- as Stede and Ed must spend time apart in the narrative, we must spend time watching them apart in real life, providing an element of emotional consonance that heightens our understanding of the characters and our engagement with the text. (In game design theory this is called ludonarrative consonance, btw, and it's fucking fascinating.)

4. And relating all this together, the slower release helps with the long tail effect, where the longer OFMD is out there and being actively engaged with, the longer there's space for new fans to enter into the fandom while fan activity is at its most FOMO height-- thereby increasing the show's overall reach (in terms of accessibility to new viewers through word of mouth and shared experience) and depth (through fan engagement and iteration on the canon and one another's work).

[katherinecrighton]

Reading, performance, and fixing links

[frozenbasalt]

Forever obsessed about Undertale’s ingenuity of the secret genocide route as a narrative foil to the pacifist route. It says loud and clear “as you could choose extreme compassion, you could have chosen extreme violence.” First fucking game that made me think my choices really do matter.

[officialralsei]

*we're* never going to forget you, of course. undertale essentially redefined video game storytelling. it successfully pulled off the sort of mechanical ludonarrative consonance that bioshock failed horribly at, and it will always be remembered as one of the pioneers of telling stories that no other medium could tell. and with coattails like those, you'll be remembered too

Yes, that's right. You'll always be there, long after the legend reaches its conclusion, remembering all the times I performed for you. It's good that I remind you of a world you already love, isn't it? It means that I can never leave your memories.

[belladonicbloodsucker]

do you guys remember disco elysium. queen of ludonarrative consonance.

[delusionalinsecurewreckpiningphd]

Dark Souls 2 is the Half Life 1 of ludonarrative consonance

[laudogen]

the Tsukuyomi fight in ffxiv was amazing… the way the gameplay reinforces the narrative… whew

[blazehedgehog]

You know how Sonic is characterized as basically unstoppable because no matter what, he always gets back up with his resolve intact? It just occurred to me that this mirrors the series' gameplay mechanics: Sonic is nigh invulnerable as long as he can keep picking up at least one ring. There is no chipping away at him; he can theoretically tank an infinite number of hits as long as he's quick enough to grab that ring. I guess that's what the cool kids would call ludonarrative consonance?

It would be if it manifested in his personality more, I guess. Instead, we get Sonic Forces, where Sonic gets gently slapped a couple times and that’s all it takes for people to presume he’s dead. 

Game-Sonic has been less cocky and more snarky. When he manifests confidence, it feels less like “I think I can do anything, even if I can’t” and more “I’m the hero and this is what heroes say to put people at ease.”

The whole “Sonic thinks he’s unstoppable” is more something I personally imprint on the character and would like to see explored more. It’s technically something that came from the older shows, like the Saturday Morning cartoon, too, where Princess Sally was always about taking time to build a plan, but Sonic was about diving head first in to every problem.

But, really, this is just the mess called The Sonic the Hedgehog Franchise.

[xadnem]

Something something English is a dumpster fire language or whatever but I have an idea.

I think English may be an extremely thematically consistent language, if only in certain aspects of its building blocks and structure. Like Ludonarrative harmony, but for abstract concepts rather than narrative. Ludofunctional harmony? Whatever.

This is a half-baked idea at best because it's near 4 am but hear me out.

English is an inflective language, but not in the same way some east-Asian and south-Asian languages are, because rather than altering the specific meaning of a word, inflection alters the affect, the tone, the contextual vibe of the word. And that's to say nothing of the importance of emphasis.

When I say thematically consistent though I mean getting the general vibe or affect is vague and difficult, like modulating tone, and can vary from person to person based on anything from natural vocal pitch to how dry their throat is on a given day.

Less vague but still kinda vague are vowels. Lots of different English-speakers pronounce vowels lots of different ways, and while that does carry with it some information (what region you're from, your socioeconomic background, etc.), that information's still kinda fuzzy, and doesn't completely prevent people from understanding you. A person from Chicago can completely butcher the word "bagel" and I still know they mean a bread torus.

But consonants in english are not so fuzzy. They're more rigid and people notice more when you get them wrong. If you pronounce "about" like "a boat" people in america think you're Canadian and people in Canada think you're american pretending to be Canadian. But if you say "free" instead of "three" people see it as a speech impediment. The information conveyed by consonants is textual, while the information conveyed by vowels is sometimes subtextual, and the information conveyed by inflection is almost always subtextual.

Inflection is still a huge part of english as a language, it's just unwritten because the function it serves is too fuzzy to nail down to a rigid set of rules without hampering its function, like trying to define art so it adheres to a strict set of guidelines, or trying to break down morality to a set of rules which can exist without context.

[henlp]

Reminded by a discussion on ludonarrative dissonance in games

Lemme share a factoid which I realized last year about Final Fantasy, and specifically, Aerith’s death in FF7, that while likely not new, might blow some minds: Take a Phoenix Down. What does its description in almost every single game say? "Revives one KO'd ally". What does KO stand for? "Knocked-out". What does this mean? In gameplay, it means that when an ALLY uses a Phoenix Down on another ALLY, they are bringing a knocked-out character back to consciousness. This is why a TPKO entails game over; because there is no one to bring the characters back to consciousness, and it follows that whatever you're fighting (or even if you're dying of a status ailment) will just pulverize your fallen party members. Or eat them.

So what does this mean for Aerith? A Phoenix Down can't bring someone back from the dead, therefore, when Flower Girl gets fucking skewered by Sephiroth's longman sword... she's dead. She's fucking dead. Not knocked out, she's bleeding out from what is likely a mortal wound through her spine and organs. The restorative items in Final Fantasy, and most RPGs, are generally just a patch-up (hence why some of them are food), and the ludonarrative consonance, the thematic consistency, is in fact maintained!

Especially in FF7, what with all the juicy murders committed at Shinra HQ, why would they really care Sephiroth might be back and butchering them, when they're so rich and high in numbers? Because they can't just buy Phoenix Downs to bring people back from the dead, the item does not have that function.

[marxism-leninism-utenaism]

im inventing the concept of “ludonarrative consonance”. its the opposite of ludonarrative dissonance (a term i hate because it sucks), and a good example is how kassandra from assassin’s creed can’t die from fall damage

[geardrops]

New patreon update! I recently beat Silent Hill 2 and I wrote about it :)

Some folks may think 2500 words on an eighteen-year-old video game might be excessive, but anyone who knows me knows that I was really holding myself back on this :)

[spankymerve]

ludonarrative consonance ludonarrative concordance ludonarrative euphoria

[itsanonagon]

A Response to SolePorpoise on the topic of Ludonarrative Dissonance

I just watched a video by a YouTuber by the name of SolePorpoise (great name, btw) about what he perceives to be the misuse of the term Ludonarrative Dissonance in games journalism/criticism (linked at the bottom). While it was a very well made and presented video, and while I much sympathize with his complaints regarding low-quality buzzword soup games journalism, I disagree with his core argument and thought a proper response deserved more than a Youtube comment. So here I am resurrecting my Tumblr to write one. I guess this is a games criticism blog now.

As I understand it, SolePorpoise’s definition of Ludonarrative Dissonance requires two things that most common uses of the phrase lack:

1. That the gameplay allows meaningful engagement with its narrative themes (e.g. Little Sisters in Bioshock) 2. That the narrative contradicts those themes in a way that insults the player’s suspension of disbelief. (e.g. the “Would You Kindly” twist)

SolePorpoise states (somewhat incorrectly, but we’ll get to that) that these two things are fundamental to the original conception of the term in Clint Hocking's blogpost on Bioshock. (also linked at the bottom) 

The first of those two requirements bugged me as soon as I heard it. To me it read as this: “If your game does not making a meaningful attempt to connect the gameplay to the themes, it is free from criticism about how its gameplay and narrative/themes don’t line up”. Essentially its a free pass for lazy developers, and the axe for developers who try but miss the mark. I’m sure SolePorpoise didn’t intend it in such a harsh manner, but its the logical conclusion of his argument. There should not be a “trigger” for ludonarrative dissonance or consonance to happen, because all games with a narrative have the potential for it, regardless of an attempt by the developers (or lack thereof) to connect the themes of its gameplay to those of its narrative. The only “trigger” is having themes at all, and all games have themes and messages in their gameplay. 

Take for example a highly abstract game like Tetris. Despite the complete lack of contextualization for its gameplay, Tetris sends some pretty clear messages: Last as long as you can. Keep things orderly. If you wanted to, you could interpret Tetris as a meditation on a good work ethic, of keeping your to-do list cleared so as not to be overwhelmed. These themes may be unintentional, but they are there. If you were to hypothetically retrofit a narrative around Tetris, its entirely possible that narrative conflicts with the themes of Tetris’ gameplay, even if there was no attempt to have those themes connect.

This isn’t to say that its not important when a game allows engagement between its gameplay and the narrative themes, of course. There’s a reason Clint Hocking brought up the Little Sisters in the first place. The Little Sisters are not a “trigger” for ludonarrative dissonance to happen in the first place, but rather a cue for the players to pay attention to the relationship between the two disparate parts of the game, which serves to make the dissonance obvious.

The problem with the second requirement is less severe, but still important - the ludonarrative dissonance in Bioshock exists without the twist. Clint Hocking himself declares the dissonance between gameplay and narrative themes before even bringing up the twist. The way that Bioshock insults the player’s suspension of disbelief is only tangential to the presence of ludonarrative dissonance - it is the thing that turns the dissonance from “disturbing” to “insulting”.

Perhaps there should be a term to describe the twist in Bioshock, the moment where suspension of disbelief is vitiated, but its clear ludonarrative dissonance is not that term. Its obvious in its etymology. The actual requirements for ludonarrative dissonance, as far as I’m concerned, are:

1. Game has a contextualizing narrative. 2. The major themes/messages of the gameplay and of the narrative contradict one another.

This is, unfortunately, just the kind of broad term SolePorpoise wishes it wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean its without use. While its clearly incorrectly used when applied to a game like Uncharted, (or really any time the “they kill people but aren’t a sociopath?!?” argument is given) there have been some really great applications of the term in modern games criticism. One example is Joseph Anderson’s video on Tomb Raider 2013 (linked at the bottom). In it he notes a dissonance between the positioning of the narrative as an origin story, themed around Lara’s growth from a vulnerable girl into a brutal survivor, and the lack of a significant difference in how it feels to control Lara from the beginning of the game to the end. While he doesn’t actually use the term, ludonarrative dissonance is exactly what it is. Its not the most significant example, but it is one, and pointing it out is valuable for the game developers of the future.

Also important to note is that despite the connotation of the word “dissonance”, ludonarrative dissonance is not a universally negative thing. There can be value in it, both as a #deep meta-commentary thing where its obvious and intentional, and as a minor thing where the developer accepts a bit of dissonance to make the gameplay and/or narrative a smoother or more fun experience. The prior example of Tomb Raider could be an example of the later - the developers may have considered having Lara “nerfed” at the beginning of the game, and decided against it to have the gameplay be more immediately fun.

So yeah, that’s that, I guess. SolePorpoise said at the end of his video that he’s working on a video about Nier: Automata and the ludonarrative dissonance he perceives in it. I haven’t played that game yet, but I guess I have to now, because I do want to see if Nier has it, or if it has the vitiation of engagement Bioshock does, or both, and I also want to see if a second good example can make SolePorpoise’s argument make more sense.

SolePorpoise’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8PAWO4Y_rY Clint Hocking's blogpost: http://clicknothing.typepad.com/click_nothing/2007/10/ludonarrative-d.html Joseph Anderson’s Tomb Raider Critique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CkUxBwPd_0