Antimimetic Rereading and Defamiliarization in Save the Date

Abstract

In repeat experiences of story-focused games or interactive stories, players tend to expect to experience something different in each play session. At the same time, they usually expect that each play session will be self-contained, in the sense that there are no explicit, diegetic references to earlier play sessions. Through a close reading of the visual novel Save the Date, I argue that breaking this expectation of self-contained play sessions creates a sense of defamiliarization, disrupting the mimetic nature of the work at the level of the individual play session and foregrounding the process of rereading, resulting in poetic gameplay. I suggest that such antimimetic interactive stories or story-focused games render the acts of reading and rereading unfamiliar, drawing attention to the act of rereading and encouraging players to think about the process of rereading in new ways.