Digital Games Research Association Conference, 2020
This article draws on sociological and anthropological theories relating to cultural construction... more This article draws on sociological and anthropological theories relating to cultural constructions of the figure of 'the child' to determine whether Detroit: Become Human by Quantic Dream affirms or subverts ideological beliefs about children. It argues that much of the backlash Quantic Dream experienced following the premiere of the game's trailer, which featured a scene of child abuse, can be understood part of a broader moral performance that relies on the sanctity of 'the child' to function as a touchstone for the modern Western society. It concludes that far from challenging dominant narratives about the moral value of 'the child', Detroit: Become Human replicates a conservative, reactionary, paternalistic view of children's position within society.
Typologies and Features of Play in Mobile Games for Mental Wellbeing
Simulation & Gaming
Background The smartphone market is saturated with apps and games purporting to promote mental we... more Background The smartphone market is saturated with apps and games purporting to promote mental wellness. There has been a significant number of studies assessing the impact of these digital interventions. Motivation The majority of review papers solely focussed on the impact of strict rules and award systems of the apps. There is comparatively little attention paid to other game techniques designed to encourage creativity, a lusory attitude, and playful experiences. Results This gap is addressed in this paper in a consideration and analysis of a purposive selection of six mobile games marketed for wellbeing, our focus is on both external and internal motivations that these games offer. Our specific interest is how these games balance rule-based play with creativity. We find that ludic play is a highly-structured, rule-bound, goal-oriented play, in contrast to paedic play which a freeform, imaginative, and expressive. We argue that while ludic play is purposed towards the promotion o...
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Jun 1, 2020
This article combines critical theory from children’s literature studies with research methods fr... more This article combines critical theory from children’s literature studies with research methods from games studies to explore the connection between silence and childhood in two digital texts. Little Nightmares (2017) and INSIDE (2016) are wordless video games that feature nameless, faceless children as their avatars. Weak and weaponless, the children must avoid detection and stay silent if they are to survive. By slinking and skulking, crouching and cowering, the children navigate their way through vast, brutal adult environments in order to reach safety – or so the player thinks. Both games, in fact, end in shocking, unexpected ways, prompting the disturbing realisation that silent children have secrets of their own. The games use scale, perspective, and sound to encourage close identification between the player and avatar, and position the silent, blank-faced child as a cipher onto which the player can project their own feelings of fear, dread, and vulnerability. The child-character’s quiet compliance with the player’s commands also situates the player as an anxious parent, orbiting, assisting, and protecting a dependent child as it moves through a dangerous world. For both subject positions, the child-character’s silence closes the distance between the player and avatar. However, when it is revealed that the child-characters have hidden, unknowable, and potentially sinister motivations, the meaning of their silence is wholly transformed. Using aetonormative theory (Nikolajeva; Beauvais; Gubar) in conjunction with studies of ideologies surrounding childhood (Jenks; Kincaid; Meyer; Balanzategui; Stockton; Lury), this article examines the extent to which these digital texts affirm or subvert cultural constructions of “the Child.” It employs a close reading approach proposed by games scholar Diane Carr to argue that the player-avatar relationships in these games shed new light on some of the fundamental contradictions that characterise adult normativity and child alterity, and concludes by suggesting some ways in which video games might productively expand and disrupt conceptions of aetonormative power relations.
This chapter takes the puzzle-platform game UNRAVEL as a case study to explore how the 'haptic-pa... more This chapter takes the puzzle-platform game UNRAVEL as a case study to explore how the 'haptic-panoptic' 1 quality of digital toys can locate players in the liminal space between material reality and immaterial imaginings. Drawing across Zoe Jaques' 2 theorization of the 'spectrality' of stuffed animals and Katriina Heljakka's 3 examination of toys as avatars, I argue that toylike protagonists in video games are intuitive vehicles to shuttle players between the realms of the physical and the digital. I suggest that since digital toys occupy an intermedial space between sensory planes, they can simultaneously elicit an intense sense of presentness and a profound sense of absence. I consider the paradox of manipulability and intangibility through the lenses of nostalgia and tactile memories, making connections between UNRAVEL's core mechanic of 'dis-membering' the protagonist and 're-membering' the past. I posit that the subject position available to players in UNRAVEL is that of 'ghost,' haunting the playspace and possessing the doll-like
Videogames as an ‘Unheroic’ Medium: The Child Hero's Journey
Games and Culture
In this article, I examine two contemporary videogames that engage critically and imaginatively w... more In this article, I examine two contemporary videogames that engage critically and imaginatively with conventional definitions of heroism. In Röki (Polygon Treehouse) and Knights and Bikes (Foam Sword Games), the child-avatars loosen the connection between maturity and self-reliance by framing interdependence as both an inevitable and a desirable condition of human society. Furthermore, by emphasizing children's supposed malleability, these games insist on the relationality of identities: they suggest that one's identity depends on the interactions one has with individuals and institutions. I suggest that by centering cooperation, these games destabilize myths of independence and autonomy that surround the lone hero of hyper-individualism and thereby challenge assumptions about the kinds of heroism videogames can portray.
Cute, cuddly and completely crushable: Plushies as avatars in video games
Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 2021
This article examines video game avatars that are designed to resemble toys. It names this trope ... more This article examines video game avatars that are designed to resemble toys. It names this trope the ‘Blithe Child’ to capture the carefree, careless and childlike interactions this avatar invites. This article argues that the connection between the Blithe Child and traditional toys functions to express and explain non-violent game mechanics, to shape sentimental player–avatar relationships, to create cosy, snug playspaces and to encourage pro-social, creative and self-expressive playstyles. However, the Blithe Child inherits some of the more sinister dynamics latent in human–toy relationships, namely the desire to humiliate and mutilate the cute object and anxieties about what it means to be ‘real’ – to be an independent, agential subject rather than a passive, manipulated, othered object. Drawing on theories derived from cuteness studies and toy studies, this article uses a close reading approach to critique the age-based hierarchies that underpin this trope.
This article combines critical theory from children’s literature studies with research methods fr... more This article combines critical theory from children’s literature studies with research methods from games studies to explore the connection between silence and childhood in two digital texts. Little Nightmares (2017) and INSIDE (2016) are wordless video games that feature nameless, faceless children as their avatars. Weak and weaponless, the children must avoid detection and stay silent if they are to survive. By slinking and skulking, crouching and cowering, the children navigate their way through vast, brutal adult environments in order to reach safety – or so the player thinks. Both games, in fact, end in shocking, unexpected ways, prompting the disturbing realisation that silent children have secrets of their own. The games use scale, perspective, and sound to encourage close identification between the player and avatar, and position the silent, blank-faced child as a cipher onto which the player can project their own feelings of fear, dread, and vulnerability. The child-charact...
The absence of children’s texts and ludic texts from traditional literary canons, curricula, jour... more The absence of children’s texts and ludic texts from traditional literary canons, curricula, journals, and conferences might appear obvious, practical, and natural—a straightforward reflection of theoretical and methodological divergence, and of the way texts are grouped outside of academic study. However, these seemingly self-evident explanations do not hold up under scrutiny. In this article, I posit that the omission of children’s texts and ludic texts from well-developed scholarly contexts is partly rooted in the ideological collocation of “children,” “play,” and “low culture.” I compare the strategies used by children’s literature studies and games studies to manage their marginalization and conclude that irrespective of the quality, the variety, the relevance, and the impact of research conducted within these two disciplines, neither will find a permanent home in the serious, sophisticated, “adults-only” space of the literature faculty. I ask whether this is necessarily a prob...
2017) return to their family homes, they are confronted with the frailty and fallibility of their... more 2017) return to their family homes, they are confronted with the frailty and fallibility of their parents. Photo albums they were never meant to find, letters they were not supposed to read, and receipts that tell uncomfortable stories reveal to the teen protagonists the secret, and sometimes sordid, lives that their parents have kept hidden from them. In this article, I argue that the 'exploration' game mechanic in both of these texts equates the strategic need to examine a puzzle from multiple angles with a cumulative sense of wholistic, interpersonal understanding required for successfully challenging adult hegemony and bringing about intergenerational reconciliation. I posit that these games present cross-generational empathy not as an end-state to attain, but as a ludic skill that precipitates action, meaningful consequence, and structural change. In other words, these video games connect empathy to agency, positioning it as a tool for problem-solving, sense-making, and intervention. This article responds directly to Bonnie Ruberg's call to "end the reign of empathy" in the critical and commercial discourses surrounding video games, and follows her precedent of unpacking the ambivalence and complexities of 'playing-at-empathising' in order to identify counter-normative models of connection and intersubjectivity present in these texts.
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Papers by Emma Reay