Unreliable Narrator
Exploring stories in games and the art of telling tales
SAM BARLOW
A way from home, I have been playing Super Mario World with my son online. I’ve also been giving a lot of Zoom talks. These activities synaptically sparked off each other when after one talk I was asked to explain a throwaway line. I had justified my games’ lack of interest in traditional game narrative frameworks and stated that players ‘are more interested in the why than the what if?’ Whereas most games tout their possibility spaces – the way in which their narratives might open up at the player’s touch –I felt that a good narrative benefited from an inward, not outward, focus. Being fully immersed in Super Mario World, I defended my thought by suggesting that we should approach Story Games in the same way we do Jumping Games. How would the purity of focus of Mario translate into the world of interactive narrative? Narrative not as a wrapper or content, but as the core.