Comparative Analysis of the Perception of the Game World in Narrative Games through Interaction in Virtual Reality and on a Flat Screen

This paper proposes a comparative framework for understanding how players perceive narrative game worlds when experiencing them through virtual reality versus a traditional flat screen. It argues that immersion is multidimensional, and that VR's effects on narrative engagement may involve more than increased perceptual intensity. The author focuses on modality-specific affordances such as embodied interaction, diegetic interface integration, feedback coherence, and world reactivity, and considers how these shape representational coherence, meaning construction, and emotional challenge. The work is positioned within game studies and human-computer interaction and is framed around four research questions addressing how modality influences story interpretation, which design features best support presence and coherence, whether VR qualitatively alters emotional appraisal, and which aspects of narrative perception remain stable across formats.

The current stage is literature-driven and analytical. It synthesizes prior comparative studies, which generally report that VR increases presence, flow, sensory immersion, and affective arousal relative to desktop play, while noting that outcomes vary across implementations and that some competence and challenge measures show little modality effect. Illustrative evidence comes from a comparative case study of commercial titles, including Fallout 4 VR, Skyrim VR, Subnautica, and Resident Evil 7, coded across six affordance dimensions. The author also outlines a planned three-stage methodology: comparative design coding of commercial games, computational annotation of player reviews with human validation, and a controlled dual-mode study using Radiance, a Unity-based narrative horror prototype. No new experimental data are reported yet.

The paper acknowledges clear limitations, including reliance on literature and illustrative case examples rather than empirical results, dependence on the selection and consistency of VR ports, and potential demographic and self-selection bias in review-based analysis. The proposed contribution is a repeatable coding matrix and a triangulation pipeline intended to guide future empirical work and to offer practical design guidance for coherent cross-platform narrative experiences.