Game On!

Game On! is a full semester unit of English studies with a twist: instead of focussing on novels, or even films, we're using computer games as fully-functioning literary texts in their own right.

On this site you will find full units of work for the following games:

• Never Alone

• Papers, Please

• This War of Mine

• That Dragon, Cancer

• The Beginner's Guide

As well as focus information on how to write journalistic styled articles based on video games.

Why wouldn't you want to investigate the ways in which games function as vehicles for narrative and thematic studies? Video games are an inherently interactive narrative experience. Through video games, players are encouraged to examine dilemmas, concepts, cultures, historical events and more through their own perspectives, and through the perspectives of the developers. The nature of games means that often a combination of these perspectives is experienced by the player.

This unit examines the ways in which narrative games use content, structure and voice to shape the experience and opinions of the player, ensuring that players have the knowledge required to not be passive consumers throughout the experience.

Games that tell stories use a variety of narrative techniques, with the building of tension and empathy being just as important as in many films and novels. Chekov’s gun is just as effective in Halo as it is in Raymond Chandler and David Malouf’s writing, and we're going to find out why.

• Authorial intent/auteur theory/death of the author

• Cinematic technique

• Didacticism

• Literary technique

• Multiliteracy

• Multimodal texts

• Player perspective

• User interface

• Visual literacy