Narrative videogame: types of verbal communication

Abstract

The present investigation is dedicated to studying different types of communication represented in videogames. The topicality of this research follows from the urgency of all lingual papers in the field of digital studies, on the one hand, and is stressed by the necessity to determine the role of verbal elements in computer games. The work is based on The Talos Principle, one of the most popular videogames of all times (as claimed by a wide number of ratings). The main objective of the paper is to single out the peculiarities of different communication types in the game studied. Thus, it presupposes setting the following tasks: considering the specific features of videogames as a type of human activity, contrasting them with films and literature, analysing the type and the idea of The Talos Principle game, distinguishing its genre and revealing the types of communication presented in it, together with their frequency and their importance for game-playing and its ludonarrative. The script of the game analysed counts over 14 thousand words, the game lasts about 5 hours. Having worked out a new taxonomy of videogames, the author argues that The Talos Principle belongs to narrative games, i.e. those telling a story, and classifies it as a game of mixed type from the point of view of its interactivity. The game story depends on the protagonist’s physical movements and activities, though they only help realise the goal of the game and solve puzzles. As any other game, The Talos Principle offers a gamer a new existence in a world built up by both verbal and non-verbal elements. A conclusion is made as to the equal shares by them and following from the nature of narrative videogames in general. Verbal elements in the game are represented by mono- and dialogical speech excerpts, letters and QR-codes. Non-verbal elements fall into sounds (soundtracks and sound imitation) and images; within the latter dynamic and static elements are singled out. The carried out investigation allows making a conclusion about information significance as a factor influencing the frequency of a certain type of message. Hence, as it is from the archives letters that the gamer gets the most important information for the game progress, this type of ranks first (23%) amongst other types of verbal communication.