The hero of prophecy is a construction that seems more at home in fantasy than science fiction. And yet, many of digital gaming’s most popular sci-fi gameworlds cannot escape it. Interestingly, however, they try to hide the fact. Convoluted explanations, usually involving genetics, are deployed to maintain the pretence of reason in a decidedly fantastical heroic construction. I explore how and why this occurs through two examples: the allohistorical Assassin’s Creed (2007–2025) and Horizon series (2017–2024). Both series’ science-fiction settings find themselves at pains to rationally explain how their central heroes are not incidental but fated, one through genetic lineage the other through cloning. This is a trend observed in videogames more broadly (Jennings, 2022). I analyse these series heroes through mytholudics (Ford, 2025), a method for understanding games as and through contemporary myth: both how they are influenced by myth, but also operate as mythic gameworlds themselves. Through this, I argue that we can understand these examples as fundamentally fantastical heroes in a ‘scientised’ setting. I ask what we can learn from this tension between the magical and the rational and the role of heroism in supposedly disenchanted settings.

Some games were never meant to be played. So far, these have mostly been looked at as fictional games, but this workshop broadens the scope to include similar kinds of games: fake, nonexistent, nonactual, imaginary, impossible, and unplayable games. Though these categories overlap, they also have meaningful differences worth exploring. This discussion-based workshop will feature plenary discussions of key concepts and split participants in small groups to examine themes like the boundaries of the concepts of 'games' and 'play,' the significance of fictional games in the real world, and their place in game studies. The purpose is to establish links between the burgeoning study of fictional games and other fields and sites of enquiry, such as media studies, narratology, philosophy of fiction and imagination, literary theory, and speculative design. Additionally, we will explore potential next steps, including the possibility of an edited volume to which participants will be invited to contribute.

It’s a utopian vision for games: endlessly talk to nonplayers characters (NPCs), freely, about anything, and have them respond in-character directly to your specific utterance, unshackled from the limitations of a script. Such a vision is closer to reality, some believe, with the help of recent advances in large language models (LLMs), exemplified in applications like ChatGPT. Andrea L. Guzman and Seth C. Lewis call applications like ChatGPT communicative AI, AIs “designed to carry out specific tasks within the communication process that were formerly associated with humans” (2020, 72).

Much of the critical academic research focus has been on the impacts of communicative AIs in other communicative arenas, such as higher education (Playfoot, Quigley, and Thomas 2024), public health (Biswas 2023) and dating (Hou, Leach, and Huang 2024). So far, less research has focused critically on the role of communicative AIs in digital games. The research that exists (see Sweetser 2024) is primarily focused on technical and design challenges, even within game narrative and NPC dialogue. Little research has considered the critical or theoretical implications of communicative AI in game design, even in its most prominent sphere of use: NPC dialogue. Andreas Hepp et al. argue that, in principle, communicative AI:

(1) is based on various forms of automation designed for the central purpose of communication, (2) is embedded within digital infrastructures, and (3) is entangled with human practices. (2023, 48)

When research does not thoroughly engage with especially that third point, how it is entangled with human practices, then we miss a vital aspect: “the processing of these systems cannot be understood beyond human practice” (Hepp et al. 2023, 49). Entanglement here refers to Karen Barad: “individuals do not pre-exist their interactions; rather, individuals emerge through and as part of their entangled intra-relating” (2006, ix). Communicative AI is entangled in both use and production, as LLMs are trained on real human communication. Therefore, we should not consider these as novel, separate technologies, but as developments deeply intertwined with our past and present communication. Hepp et al. argue that this is how we avoid buying into the hype of generative AI ourselves: “we should take note of the hype insofar as it may stand for a fundamental change in the ways we all communicate” (Hepp et al. 2023, 53). I argue that the use of communicative AI in NPC dialogue may constitute such a fundamental change, and so deserves critical attention.

Here, then, I map the current state of the field both in terms of research and applications. What has been done, what are researchers writing about it, and what are they not writing about it? Then I briefly lay out a potential fruitful area of theoretical discussion: the philosophy of fiction. I show how we can draw on critical insights from existing research on AI in other domains. I end with a call for further critical, theoretical research coming from the our various disciplines and intersections within game studies on this topic.

Communicative AI for NPCs is not new. Perhaps the earliest example was Façade (Mateas and Stern 2005), which uses natural language processing in conjunction with a “drama manager” that manages story beats (Mateas and Stern 2003, 7). But, by their own admission, Façade is “a 20 minute one-act play replayable 6 or 7 times before it is exhausted” (2003, 4). More recent applications using newer LLM technology boast loftier ambitions. A popular mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios 2011), Mantella, promises to “bring every NPC to life with AI” (ArtFromTheMachine 2023). Inworld Origins (Inworld AI 2023), a tech demo, puts AI NPCs at the core of the game as witnesses that the player, as a detective, can question. Or consider AI Dungeon (Latitude 2019), which uses GPT-3 (originally GPT-2) to generate a text adventure roleplaying game. These three examples constitute three important use cases for communicative AI. Mantella demonstrates AI’s addition to an older game via mods; Inworld Origins is a demo game intended to show the power of the technology with AI NPCs at the core of the game; and AI Dungeon is a retail game for which the entire gameworld, including NPCs, is generated.

These three examples could point to fundamental shifts regarding how we communicate with gameworlds and NPCs, such that they pose new challenges to existing theory. For instance, the philosophy of fiction and its application to digital games. As an example, Nele Van de Mosselaer and Stefano Gualeni (2023) introduce the implied designer, a “conceptualization of a designer that the player constructs” to whom “the player ascribes all the intentions that they think underpin the creation of that particular game” (2023, 76). Players make sense of gameworlds at least in part based on what intentions they perceive as being behind their artificial construction. How do AI-generated NPC dialogues affect this? On the one hand, far from making the gameworld “come alive”, it could kill it by removing or at least clouding that aspect of intentionality that is crucial to our making sense of it. On the other hand, we may just need to better conceptualise what specific role the AI is playing. In a forthcoming paper, Yuqian Sun and Stefano Gualeni (Forthcoming) use the metaphors of puppet and actor, arguing that while they attribute more agency to AI actors in general, even in the metaphor of a puppet we can see the intentionality of the puppet master behind it. That is, we may still see the salient intentionality in the restrictions, affordances and guardrails of any given communicative AI model, even if human intentionality is a step further removed.

Further critical and theoretical research in this vein is needed if we are to understand how the experience of playing games shapes and is shaped by advances in communicative AI technology. Industry giants like Ubisoft have already shown great interest in the technology, so it is only a matter of time before such NPCs are commonplace in mainstream digital games. Let’s not wait until the horse has bolted.

Cambridge-based developer Jagex released Old School RuneScape (OSRS) in 2013, following years of backlash to the direction of the long-running MMORPG RuneScape (2001). OSRS opened its servers alongside the main game based on a 2007 backup, effectively removing six years of updates. OSRS overtook the average player count of RuneScape in 2016 and has the gap has only increased in the years since. But the game has not remained stagnant. Indeed, OSRS has now had more years of development (2013–2025) than RuneScape had had up until the 2007 backup (2001–2007).

To try to maintain the ‘old school spirit’ of the game – and in response to a lack of trust in Jagex that had led to the dissatisfaction in the main game in the first place – OSRS is updated according to an unusual form of player democracy. Jagex propose updates and players vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to their implementation. A proposed update requires a supermajority of ‘yes’ votes (75% until 2022, 70% thereafter) to be implemented. This means that both developers and players alike actively campaign for or against proposed or potential updates to the game.

I examine player attitudes towards OSRS’ voting system and what this may entail for the potential future of player democracy in other contexts. I do this via a qualitative content analysis following Udo Kuckartz and Stefan Rädiker (2023). I will scrape the comment trees of 20 relevant threads in the game’s quasi-official forum, the subreddit /r/2007scape, and inductively code the posts. This will establish a number of themes, strands of thinking regarding how players perceive the voting system and how they negotiate their position in the player democracy. The data will be gathered and coded in February and March 2025. The presentation will then consist of my preliminary analyses, broader theoretical considerations and the potential benefits and problems with player democracy more widely applied.

Player democracy is rare in digital games – certainly on the scale of OSRS. The intuitive reason why it is not common is the risk of developer work being ‘wasted’ after failure to secure player approval. The Sailing skill was an example of this, being proposed in 2015, developed fairly extensively, only to receive 68% ‘yes’ votes – an over-two-thirds majority, yet still not reaching the threshold. The skill was scrapped, and only reemerged as a serious proposal in 2023, totally redesigned. On the other hand, I hypothesise that a meaningful player democracy makes for a playerbase that feels more engaged and invested in and more valued by the game’s development.

There is little research into this kind of player democracy. A closely related topic would be co-creation in digital games, “the change of the design of existing games through participation in the production of the game by players” (Prax 2016, 36). OSRS’ voting system could constitute co-creation under Prax’s definition, However, so far, research in this area has focused on player co-creation in the form of mods (Reisinho, Raposo, and Zagalo 2024), in-game tools to produce new content (Kohler et al. 2011) or in the design of a game prior to release (De Jans et al. 2017). OSRS offers a model for a different kind of co-creation, if player democracy is to be understood as a kind of co-creation.

Studying player democracy may also help to better understand how players understand and relate to their position as players, fans, community members and consumers. This is because discussions surrounding polling appear to often become meta-discussions about what the core philosophy of the game is or should be (‘old school-ness’), how Jagex can build and maintain trust with the community, what the point of the polling system is, its benefits and drawbacks, and the practicalities of game development.

I will also consider the specifics of OSRS and its position as a long-running MMORPG that created a ‘classic’ version, akin to the later World of Warcraft Classic (Blizzard Entertainment 2019). OSRS was one of the first MMORPGs in what has become a trend. Research has so far focused on World of Warcraft Classic and on the concept of nostalgia (Robinson and Bowman 2022; Toft-Nielsen 2019). The aspect of nostalgia may also apply here in the perceived need to define and vociferously protect ‘old school-ness’, making it a more emotionally charged subject or making ‘old school-ness’ more dependent on one’s own nostalgia for the RuneScape-that-was prior to OSRS.

The presentation will therefore focus on a preliminary theoretical situating of the coded dataset through the lenses of co-creation in the broad sense, and of ‘classic’ MMORPGs more specifically. This will help to better understand what aspects of OSRS’ player democracy can and cannot be potentially extrapolated to wider game design practices.

Games make meaning both as myth and through myth. Mytholudics is a framework for analysing games in this way. Myth is a term with a storied history. Here, I understand it through Roland Barthes’ assertion that myth is not a thing, an object, or a genre of story, but a way of expressing meaning. This allows us to see how discourse everywhere – not just in narratives – and everywhen – not only in ancient times as something we have ‘moved beyond’ – operates mythically.

Mytholudics couples this with Frog’s mythic discourse analysis, a modern folklore approach to laying out more concretely how “integers” of mythic discourse amongst a group come together in a particular time. The result is something which can account for stories, but also more disconnected, dispersed and fragmentary, but no less important, mythic constructions, like singular events, superstitions, taboos, social relations, and so on. “When myths are defined as stories, we may see stories where there are none,” Frog warns (2018, p. 10). Instead, we should see myths as models for understand the world and things in it.

Mytholudics adapts mythic discourse analysis for the study of games, taking into account games’ virtuality – that they are neither real nor wholly fictional, but worlds be can act within – nonlinearity – that games are often experienced nonlinearly and nonprescriptively both in terms of space and time – and performativity – that games are played and so approaching them as a static artefact is not enough, we must also approach them as performances. Because gameworlds are emulated worlds, they produce meaning both through myth, in that they inevitably draw on ‘real-world’ myths in their constructions, and as myth, in that they are worlds in themselves with their own internal logics, relations, histories and meanings.

In this keynote, I lay out what mytholudics is and how you can use it. I do this through examples of how Victorian and American myths inform and constitute the gameworlds we inhabit.

Cities: Skylines (Colossal Order, 2015) took the city-builder throne from Maxis’ SimCity series (1989–2014) after the disastrous launch of the fifth SimCity (Maxis Emeryville, 2013). But history may be repeating itself, as developers Colossal Order and publishers Paradox Interactive are facing a backlash to the launch of the hotly anticipated Cities: Skylines II (2023).

While studies have been conducted into games which had poor launches, like No Man’s Sky (Hello Games, 2016; see Chien et al., 2020) and Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red, 2020; see Siuda et al., 2023), these focus on the games’ celebrated turnarounds, rather than on the period of the launch itself. The extensive cost of game development means a single failure can be catastrophic, as evidenced by SimCity developer Maxis Emeryville being shut down as a consequence of the poor launch. Yet these events seem to be becoming an increasingly common occurrence.

Here, I analyse a snapshot of player reaction and discourse to Cities II’s launch. 30 threads have been scraped from the subreddit /r/CitiesSkylines2 and coded using an open coding approach based on grounded theory (Gibbs, 2018, p. 67) to build a picture of themes of player speculation regarding why the launch was poor.

Cities: Skylines (Colossal Order, 2015) took the city-builder throne from Maxis’ SimCity series (1989–2014) after the disastrous launch of the fifth SimCity (Maxis Emeryville, 2013). But history may be repeating itself, as developers Colossal Order and publishers Paradox Interactive are facing a backlash to the launch of the hotly anticipated Cities: Skylines II (2023). Apologetic forum posts from CEO Mariina Hallikainen, promised features significantly delayed, a slew of poor reviews and a rapidly dwindling playerbase all plague a game which was meant to consolidate Colossal Order’s rule over the genre.

Digital games are a notoriously complex and opaque creative industry. Developers have complained that players are “disconnected … from the realities of game development, and yet they speak with complete authority” (Pagliarulo, 2023) and others have observed tension between the mystification of games as an artistic practice on one hand and the slew of technical and financial restraints on the other (Bycer, 2019). Recent books such as Brendan Keogh’s show that we still struggle to grasp what game development entails and the “complex picture of numerous, diffuse sites of videogame production” (2023, p. 152). Players’ grasp of this is not helped by the industry’s “secretive and … closed-source culture” (Politowski et al., 2021, p. 1), as anyone who has asked a game developer acquaintance what they are working on will attest.

The often-extensive cost of game development—both financial and temporal—means that a single failure can be catastrophic, sometimes leading to the closure of even well-established studios, such as Maxis Emeryville. No developer or publisher aims for a disastrous launch. But, lauded turnarounds like that of No Man’s Sky (Hello Games, 2016, 2018; see: Chien et al., 2020) and Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red, 2020; see: Siuda et al., 2023) suggest that this need not be the end of Skylines II. Community management could be crucial in recovering from a disappointing launch. As such, more research is needed into how players understand and respond to poor launches, which could inform how to better manage these unhappy occurrences.

To do this, I will scrape the comments of the top 50 posts from the game’s dedicated Reddit forum, /r/CitiesSkylines2. A sample of the 100 longest comments, chosen on the basis that they are more likely to have a fleshed-out and coherent argument with necessary context, will be used to inductively develop open, preliminary codes (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003). These codes will then be applied to the rest of the corpus, being modified as necessary. The codes will be developed on the basis of players’ perceived reasons for why the launch of Cities II struggled. Analysis of the resulting dataset, aided by the qualitative analysis software 4CAT (Peeters & Hagen, 2022), will help to lay out and better understand the predominant strands of players’ views of poor launches, and whether they align with the realities of game development and the perceptions of disgruntled developers.

Studies such as those cited of No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 are important for analysing player receptions to ‘salvaged’ games. But, so far, little research has looked at the phenomenon of the poor launch itself and how players understand and respond to it. This research may also help to inform work on community churn (Bergstrom & Poor, 2021, 2022)—especially as the long, spirited discussions surrounding a poor launch may tie into an increased sense of community when a game is perceived to be in a state of crisis (cf. Xu, 2018)—and research on negative digital game community dynamics (Hodgdon, 2018). Better knowledge in this domain could also inform community management practices for game launches.

I consider Kerstin Radde-Antweiler’s updated concept of gamevironments through the lens of community. I introduce two key theories of community and consider how gamevironments relates to them. In particular, I point out that the theoretical links between actants may not be experienced as connections at all, let alone as communities. This raises the question of when and why the connections that gamevironments reveals are experience. Building from Benedict Anderson’s notion of the imagined community, I ask which communities must be unimagined in order to sustain unsustainable or deleterious systems, such as the cobalt miners who make electronic devices possible and their working conditions that make those devices economical. I then turn to datafication, relating it to deep mediatisation and deep gametisation, and consider why the hyperconnectivity on the internet seems to have exacerbated rather than resolved loneliness and alienation. I use a Marxist conception of alienation to show that datafication is fundamentally alienating, and that this impacts on how actant networks are experienced. The implications for gamevironments are that the nuances of different digital infrastructures must be taken into account in any gamevironment, in particular the kinds of connections that are and are not afforded between actants.

Digital games are often understood in terms of escapism, the avoidance of everyday, ‘real’ life. But are gameworlds necessarily escapist? I argue that this escapist paradigm reveals an underlying assumption that gameworlds are separate from the ‘real world’. Instead, I propose that we can better understand gameworlds and their role in our lives and in society through the concept of otherworlding (Frog, 2020).

Otherworld describes a variety of usually spiritual and/or geographic places which are in some way separate from the ‘ordinary’ world. The afterlives in various religions, for instance, overlapping spirit realms, fairyland in English and Scottish folklore. However, Frog observes issues with the term in that what makes an otherworld ‘other’ “is invariably linked to a perspective of what is ‘not other’” (2020, p. 455). Imposing inherent qualities such as ‘supernatural’ flattens the role an otherworld plays in its society.

Instead, Frog suggests we turn our attention to otherworlding as a process “of othering linked to places and spaces, contrasting ‘ours’ or ‘the familiar’ with ‘other’ … the familiar or recognizable forms a frame of reference against which fractions of difference become emphasized” (2020, p. 458), drawing on concepts of othering (from, e.g., de Beauvoir, 1949/2011; Irvine & Gal, 2000). Otherworlding allows us to avoid false binaries, and instead focus on processes and the dynamics of power and control that determine the construction of places. Who or what is being othered, by whom, on what basis, and to what end? What is ‘normal’ in contrast to which this world is other?

Otherworlding can in this way be applied to gameworlds too. Doing so allows us to see past the notion that gameworlds are fundamentally separate from the ‘real world’, to which players can ‘escape’. This distinction has long been challenged in game studies (Klastrup & Tosca, 2004; Mortensen, 2018; Radde-Antweiler et al., 2014; Taylor, 2009), and is also implicitly challenged by frameworks beyond game studies such as deep mediatisation, which stresses the fundamental technological interrelatedness of media (Couldry & Hepp, 2017, pp. 54–55). But while these perspectives are vital for understanding that gameworlds are inseparable from wider society, otherworlding recognises that there is in fact an intention to separate gameworlds, to construe them as an otherworld.

I argue that otherworlding is a valuable way to view gameworlds as separated spaces without buying into the asserted disconnection from society. This helps us to grasp both what the construction of a gameworld as a whole says about the society from which it emerged, but also how the persistence and proliferation of particular gameworlds may impact back on society at large. And it enables us to show how gameworlds are not homogenous in construction and impact, but are fluid, porous and constantly negotiated spaces.

To exemplify how gameworlds can be analysed through otherworlding, I will present an analysis of the popular fantasy action roleplaying game Elden Ring (FromSoftware, 2022) and its surrounding community, which is well-known both for its dedication to and passion for the game and FromSoftware’s other titles, but is also embroiled in controversial discussions surrounding exclusionary community practices (Orme, 2022). With this example, we can explore otherworlding both through the creation of and investment in a fantastical fictional world, but also the way in which players form a community surrounding that world, demarcating digital spaces in which different social rules, structures and relations apply.

City-builder games allow the player to “build your dream city” (SimCity BuildIt, 2023) where “you’re only limited by your imagination” (Paradox Interactive, n.d.). Of course, those are marketing statements, but most titles emphasise a large degree of creative freedom. Players generally understand that their virtual city is, in fact, limited. Computational power, assets included in the game, gameplay mechanics. But less acknowledged is the degree to which city builders limit the imagination too. The hidden choices—conscious or not—regarding what is and is not possible in gameplay also limit the imagination. Outside of the game too, I argue, these game design decisions play a role in limiting the imagination for what cities can be in general.

It is important that city-builder game developers consider the theoretical ramifications and possibilities of their design choices. Likewise, it is important that researchers consider carefully what conceptions of the city these games construct, particularly as they advocate for city builders within the contexts of education and activism.

Here, I apply a mythological approach to game analysis (Ford, 2022). This approach is based on Roland Barthes’ Mythologies (1972/2009) and Frog’s mythic discourse analysis (2021).

With this grounding, mythology is approached as a way of expressing meaning rather than a kind of object (in contrast to, e.g., narrative, structuralist or Jungian approaches). Frog sees mythologies as “models for knowing the world” (2021, p. 161). A mythological approach to gameworlds here entails examining the gameworld’s model of the world.

As simulations, the model of city management instantiated by these games reveals a particular set of assumptions regarding how cities function and can be managed. The choices regarding what is simulated (and how) and what is not shows us the limits to the imagination. Examples of these choices have been raised before: the role of the ‘player-mayor’ in SimCity (Maxis, 1989) (Friedman, 1999); the need for cities in SimCity (Maxis Emeryville, 2013) to be profitable (Kłosiński, 2016); the way the SimCity games force the player into creating a car-centric, North American-style metropolis (Pedercini, 2017).

The need for further study of city builders in this way is twofold.

First, the vast majority of research into city builders focuses on the SimCity series. Of course, the genre has always been much broader, and many have not considered SimCity to be the standard-bearer of the genre since the disastrous release of SimCity (2013) and the subsequent release of Cities: Skylines (Colossal Order, 2015) (see Livingston, 2015). In this context, it is important to examine to what extent analyses of SimCity can be taken as paradigmatic.

Second, city builders (and, again, SimCity in particular) continue to be of interest for game-based learning (e.g., Adams, 1998; Andreoletti & Cappello, 2013; Arnold et al., 2019; Glasslab Games, 2013; Khan & Zhao, 2021; Kim & Shin, 2016; Manocchia, 1999; Minnery & Searle, 2014; Woessner, 2015). Many of these works do encourage educators to approach the games critically as limited simulations that make assumptions. Nonetheless, it is important to arm future pedagogical approaches with robust arguments that lay out those implicit assumptions. In particular—relating to the first point—arguments that pertain to the genre as a whole are almost nonexistent (with notable exceptions, such as Bereitschaft, 2015).

I provide an overview of the city builder genre, identifying mythologies shared across the genre. I also acknowledge the exceptions, such as Terra Nil (Free Lives, 2023), arguing that we need more of those to expand our imaginings of city design and management. Crucially, I argue that these exceptions demonstrate that innovative city builder games can expand our imaginative horizons for what cities can and should be.

The late 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Anderson 1996) and Daniel Mullins Games’ recent roguelike deck-building digital game Inscryption (2021) have in common the narrative frame of a game. In this paper, we examine these as examples of the very concept of the ‘magic circle’ of games being used to evoke dread, horror or uncanniness. In both examples, the protagonists are trapped within a game and forced to play. Crucially, the rules of these games are enforced and adhered to strictly by the antagonists, even though in their roles as game masters they could easily tip the scales in their favour.

This can also be seen in many other popular media, such as Tron (Lisberger 1982), Battle Royale (Fukasaku 2000), the Saw franchise (2004–2023) and Squid Game (Dong-hyuk 2021). However, the reason behind choosing these examples is (a) to explore an as-yet little-researched but critically acclaimed game, Inscryption, (b) to link it to much longer-running traditions and techniques via Gawain, and (c) to show by way of comparison the particular role that digital games can play in using the ‘magic prison’.

Gawain begins on New Year’s Eve when a mysterious green knight enters Arthur’s court and presents a strange challenge: any knight present can strike a blow on him, provided that the knight may return the blow a year and one day later. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge with a cunning idea: behead the knight and he will not be able to return the blow. However, the decapitated green knight picks up his head and leaves the court, reminding Gawain of his agreement.

In the beginning of Inscryption, the player-character appears to be trapped in a cabin with a shadowy card dealer called Leshy. Though the player may move around the cabin freely, they may not leave. Eventually, they must play a roguelike deck-builder game, for which Leshy is the game master. Leshy upholds the rules of the game rigorously. Even if the player has acquired a card from the cabin, Leshy frustratedly allows the player to play with it on the basis that now that it is in their deck, it is valid. The game becomes increasingly metafictional, and through found footage we understand that a vlogger named Luke Carder has come into possession of a seemingly cursed game disk, but to defeat the curse he must play the game to its conclusion.

In both examples, we see an oddly strict adherence to arbitrary and not-fully-explained game rules, despite the stakes in both being literally life and death. This turns the ‘magic circle’ into a ‘magic prison’, whereby the notion of voluntary, rule-bound, separated play becomes threatening. The two examples are also linked by a number of parallels which may be fruitful to explore. For instance, both the green knight and Leshy have some close connection with nature, and this link juxtaposes with the arbitrariness of bounded play. Both antagonists also shapeshift or roleplay as gamemasters, assuming the roles of the other characters we meet.

The magic circle is a concept briefly described by Johan Huizinga ([1938] 2014), but primarily developed by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2003) where the term entered game studies in earnest. Salen and Zimmerman use the term to describe how voluntarily beginning a game creates a ‘magic circle’, separated from ordinary life and in which players agree to play by arbitrary rules and assign special meaning to game pieces. The concept has been vigorously discussed and criticized within the field since. Most commonly critiqued is the degree of separation from ordinary life (e.g., Consalvo 2009; Pargman and Jakobsson 2008), but also arguments regarding the computational nature of digital games compared with nondigital games (Liebe 2008). However, others have defended the concept, arguing that its detractors take the metaphor too literally—what Jaakko Stenros calls the “strong boundary hypothesis” (2012, 4).

The point here is that examples such as Inscryption and Gawain evoke the notion of the magic circle but subvert it. Both show a warped sense of voluntariness. In Inscryption, while the player may not leave and must eventually play with Leshy, they may freely walk around the cabin and choose when to play and when to get up from the table and pause play. Gawain is bound only by honour to uphold his end of the bargain. This quasi-voluntariness problematizes the boundary between game and ordinary life. By raising the stakes of the game to life and death, the boundedness of the magic circle becomes a prison in which the player is forced to pseudo-voluntarily engage in the game. The juxtaposition between the arbitrariness and lusory attitude of adhering to the game rules combined with the involuntariness and fatal consequences is the engine for dread in these works.

We explore the implications that these examples have on conceptions of the magic circle and how the conventions of games can become the focus for a specific type of horror or dread.

What is 'old school' about Old School RuneScape? In this presentation, I discuss the history of the MMORPG RuneScape and the steps that led to Jagex in 2013 releasing a version of the game from 2007, titled Old School RuneScape, alongside their flagship iteration of the MMO, RuneScape 3. Through a lens of myth, I argue that a communal process of mythmaking is at the heart of Old School as players debate with each other and with the developers over the correct way to retrive the nostalgic object and lost time of RuneScape circa 2007.

The long-lost, ancient civilisation that somehow had technology that far surpasses the current level is a common trope in videogames that feature large, open worlds. The Mass Effect trilogy (2007; 2010; 2012) features the Protheans, whose unparalleled feats of technology and engineering such as the mass relays laid the foundations for the galaxy Shepard steps into. Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) explores a primitive world littered with technological marvels left by the Old Ones. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) is centred around the Ancient Sheikah society, who 10,000 years prior to the game’s setting had developed teleportation between towers and shrines, powerful runes, and even a motorbike. Their technology was later used to build the giant mechanical Divine Beasts and Guardians. All this while the warriors of the day are still using steel swords. In this paper, I explore the reasons for and the effect of this trope in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, particularly how it changes the configuration of the gameworld, and how the player’s experience is shaped by it. My examination is framed around five intertwined terms and their theoretical context: Hauntology, presence, absence, lost futures, and nostalgia.

In How To Do Things With Videogames, Ian Bogost argues that videogames offer “an experience of the ‘space between points’ that had been reduced or eliminated by the transportation technologies that began with the train” (2011, 49). But when we watch a speedrun of a game such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo EAD 1998), what we instead see is a player determined to destroy as much of that ‘space between points’ as possible. It is a game that takes most players tens of hours to complete, but is finished in just over 17 minutes by the best speedrunners, utilizing glitches that manipulate the game’s code to skip enormous chunks of both the narrative and the gameworld. Once an underground hobby conducted between users swapping footage on obscure internet forums, speedrunning has shot into the mainstream in recent years following the rise of livestreaming platforms and livestreamed events such as Games Done Quick and the European Speedsters Assembly. So what does speedrunning mean as a mode of play, and what can it reveal about the relationship between player and gameworld? This paper examines speedrunning as a transgressive mode of play. Building on previous work on this topic by scholars such as Rainforest Scully-Blaker, I first aim to define speedrunning as a practice and then to explore its relationship with the space in the gameworld, the game’s narrative, and with the ideological and representational implications that arise from them. To do this, I bring in spatial, digital and videogame theorists such as Paul Virilio, Tom Apperley and Espen Aarseth, as well as work on other transgressive spatial practices such as parkour in order to see if and how they relate.