Thinking out of the box (and back in the plane). Concepts of space and spatial representation in two classic adventure games.

Authors

  • Connie Veugen
  • Felipe Quérette

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/23.5983

Abstract

In this article we examine location, space and spatial representation in two classic adventure games belonging to the same game series: Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers, a one screen at a time point-and-click adventure and Gabriel Knight Blood of the Sacred Blood of the Damned, a 3D game. Our aim was to see if the changes in the audiovisual representation of the gamespace in the 3D game would affect gameplay or whether gameplay and representation are independent entities, as some researches have proposed. What we found was that location and space are experienced differently in the 3D game. Furthermore we found that players of the game series had to learn a new visual grammar to bring the 3D game to a successful end. We will therefore propose that gameplay and the representation of gamespace are linked; perhaps even to such an extent that some types of games benefit from a particular audiovisual representation.

 

Author Biographies

Connie Veugen

Connie Veugen lectures on computer game studies; high/low art and digital media; inter- and intramediality and comparative arts and media studies at the Faculty of Arts of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Felipe Quérette

 Felipe Quérette is a graphic designer, graduated from CEFET PE in Recife, Brazil, and studies Artistic Education at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE) also in Recife. In 2007 he completed an exchange program at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Besides computer games, he's interested in art criticism and cognitive psychology.

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Published

2008-09-21

How to Cite

Veugen, C. and Quérette, F. (2008) “ Concepts of space and spatial representation in two classic adventure games”., Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, 2(2), pp. 215–239. doi: 10.7557/23.5983.

Issue

Section

Articles