Exploring the effect of textual and non-textual narrative on player experience in first-person horror video games

Abstract

This paper reports an experimental analysis that explores the influence of textual and non-textual narrative on the experience of players in first-person horror video games (FPHGs). Textual narrative (traditional narrative media) uses textual debriefing to directly tell the story to players, and the non-textual narrative (environmental storytelling) refers to players realizing a game story from the game environment, such as objects, sounds, lights, and characters, and avoid using textual debriefing to tell the story. Some underlying ideas of these two different narratives were revealed by previous studies and several findings point out that the attributes and features of non-textual narrative (environmental storytelling) can provide a better experience for players than textual narrative (traditional narrative media). Nevertheless, an experimental exploration for this phenomenon is lacking, and the purpose of this study is to fulfill this gap and explore the influence of these two narratives on player experience further. Specifically, I recruit 19 participants to play both The Beast Inside (textual narrative) and Visage (non-textual narrative). To measure the impacts of these two narratives on player experience, validated surveys that identify the effect on each factor of player experience are used. The results will (1) show the influence of these two narratives on player experience in FPHGs and (2) help designers of games in balancing textual debriefing in FPHGs to effectively convey story and narrative.--Author's abstract