Astrid Ensslin

Playing with rather than by the rules: metaludicity, allusive fallacy and illusory agency in The Path

The Path by Tale of Tales (2009) is an art game that remediates the Perrauldian tale of 'Little Red Riding Hood'. It replaces the linear plot of the original folk narrative with a gameworld placed in a contemporary gothic setting and increases the original character repository by introducing six female protagonists at different stages of adolescence, thereby conveying a postmodern pluralistic approach to victimised female identity. The game thus situates itself firmly in the creative and critical canon surrounding its urtext, and in particular its much debated sexual connotations, psychoanalytical interpretations and feminist concerns (Dundes 1989, Zipes 1993).

The paper begins by examining literary aspects of fictionality that are exhibited within the game, and which underscore its hybrid status between art game and digital literary narrative (cf. Ensslin, forthcoming 2011; 2012). In doing so, the analysis is positioned within the broad trajectory of functional ludo-narrativism (Ryan 2006: 203), which aims to examine how elements of game design, gameplay, narrative and textuality concur to evoke distinctive receptive and interactive experiences. The second part of the paper offers a ludo-narratological reading of The Path. It is informed theoretically by the Situationist concept of détournement, which combines processes of aesthetic appropriation and subversion '[u]sing play as a practice to transcend rigid forms and to break constraints' (Dragona 2010: 27). In particular, the analysis will take into account three etymological variants of playfulness: (1) metaludicity, i.e. the ways in which The Path thematises and problematises game mechanic features typically occurring in commercial blockbusters, such as high-speed action, navigability, achievement and reward; (2) allusive fallacy in the sense of design features that use intertextuality, pro- and analepsis as disconcerting rather than cohesive narrative devices; and (3) illusory agency, which refers to projecting false impressions of player freedom and impact (MacCallum-Stewart and Parsler 2007).


References

Dragona, D. (2010) "From Parasitism to Institutionalism: Risks and Tactics for Game-based Art," in R. Catlow et al. (eds) Artists Re:thinking Games, Liverpool: FACT, 26-32.

Dundes, A. (ed.) (1989) Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Ensslin, A. (forthcoming, 2011) The Language of Gaming. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ensslin, A. (forthcoming, 2012) 'Computer Gaming', in. J. Bray et al. (eds) Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature. New York: Routledge.

MacCallum-Stewart, E. and Parsler, J. (2007) 'Illusory Agency in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines', dichtung-digital, 37, http://www.brown.edu/Research/dichtung-digital/2007/Stewart%26Parsler/maccallumstewart_parsler.htm (accessed 6 January 2011).

Ryan, M.-L. (2006) Avatars of Story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Tale of Tales (2009) The Path. http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/downloads.html (accessed 25 July 2010).

Zipes, J. (ed.) (1993) The Trials & Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.