DOUBLE GAME: SELF-REFLEXIVE CONFIGURATION STRATEGIES AS THE SUBJECT OF A CRITICAL TEXTUAL PRACTICE OF DIGITAL GAMES

Andreas Weidlich

Buy This Book

---

Digital games—so goes the central thesis of this work—create a novel form of textuality: their hybrid character allows for the original (re)combination of media elements, producing an audiovisually presented (hyper)text that evokes pleasurable engagement with technology and media.

The recourse to the concept of text as a configurative practice serves to legitimize an engagement with the game that is oriented as closely as possible to concrete works. Digital games are viewed as configurative practices that not only shape their own mediality but also comment on and reflect upon it. Through the conscious design of configurative text practices, games play with the expectations of the players, creating a dual game that is both pleasurably immersive and unsettling, as well as disorienting and shattering of illusions for the recipients.

While a comprehensive first part establishes the validity of such a non-essential view of digital games as texts, the second part of the book invites in-depth textual analysis by developing detailed analyses of Vagrant Story, Dark Souls III, and Horizon: Zero Dawn. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of medial self-references, through which the works manage to simultaneously trigger surprisingly complex reflections on their own mediality during the act of playing.

---

PUBLICATION DETAILS

LANGUAGE	BINDING	EDITION	ISBN	YEAR	PAGES
German	Paperback		9783864881978	2024	202

OTHER NAMES

Double game Self-reflexive configuration strategies as the subject of a critical textual practice of digital games Analyses and interpretations of Vagrant Story , Dark Souls III and Horizon: Zero Dawn

Selbstreflexive Konfigurationsstrategien als Gegenstand einer kritischen Textpraxis digitaler Spiele Analysen und Interpretationen zu Vagrant Story, Dark Souls III und Horizon: Zero Dawn

---

TAGS

Authors: #AndreasWeidlich

Publishers: #VerlagWernerHülsbusch (Verlag Werner Hülsbusch)

Languages: #German

Format: #Paperback

Accessibility: N/A

Year: #Year2024

Genres: #GameStudies

Companies:

N/A

Public Figures:

N/A

Games:

#DarkSouls (Dark Souls III)

#Horizon (Horizon: Zero Dawn)

#VagrantStory (Vagrant Story)

Misc:

#VWHGameStudies (VWH Game Studies)