Examples
Evocative Spaces: Black Myth: Wukong
The story prototype for this action game is the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. The game’s protagonist walks the exact paths and encounters the very monsters that the novel’s original protagonist once did. If players are familiar with the novel, seeing these elements will evoke memories of its brilliant moments, allowing them to project this “halo” (or aura) onto the game’s narrative.
Enacting Stories: Detroit: Become Human
This is a highly classic “interactive movie” where the player personally experiences every node of the story and makes crucial choices; this “sense of real-time participation” is the key to enacting. Beneath the main storyline, the player’s spatial exploration in various scenes (such as an abandoned amusement park) also drives the plot trajectory of its micronarratives.
Embedded Narratives: Disco Elysium
The surface story of this game is “a police officer solving a murder case,” but the deep, underlying story is “the history of a city,” with the latter being realized through embedded narrative design. For example, bullet holes in the walls imply that a “great revolution” once took place there; the graffiti seen everywhere showcases the ideologies of different residents.
Emergent Narratives: Cultist Simulator
In this game, the player assumes the role of a secret cult leader. The game has no pre-determined story; the player can commit all kinds of evil or choose to only do good deeds; they can seek “ascension” or pursue romance. The game’s writing is full of a mystical atmosphere and is deliberately vague in many places—but this is precisely what provides the space for users to mentally construct and flesh out a story of their own.
