Stepping Back: Players as Active Participators

Abstract

Instead of confining the player to a single role, the active participator model positions the player in a more flexible position towards the fictional gameworld: involved and immersed in its various events without being limited to one role. The research project Common Tales explores this model in a serial game structure that stages the flexible relationship between the two game heroes. Players can change controls from one character to the other, guiding them through their adventures, and shaping their relationship with each other. Enabled through interactive functionality and expressed though cinematic mediation and spatial organisation, the character-driven gameworld engages the player as the central addressee and originator at the same time.