Da solo, al buio. Pratiche narrative ed esperienze videoludiche della paura = Alone, in the dark. Narrative practices and videogame experiences of fear

Abstract

Alone, in the dark. Narrative practices and videogame experiences of fear. In contemporary mediascape, video games represent the only narrative medium where the danger for the fate of the protagonist represents an ordinary event. However, this is not an intrinsic bias of the game form, but a potentially problematic convention inherited from an era related to the early days of gaming, where it made sense to look at games from a perspective based on basic rules such as "try again" (James Paul Gee, 2005). I propose to examine the cybernetic interaction between player and machine, where the digital figure - simulating autonomous action - makes the boundaries between the game object and interactive subjectivity blurred. Analyzing the genre called "survival horror", I want to draw a parallel between the architectures of videogames with those of literature and genre cinematography