Revisiting the Aura of Token in Museological Puzzle Adventure Gamebook Migong

This paper examines the Migong series of puzzle adventure gamebooks published by the Forbidden City Publishing House, focusing on how historically themed physical tokens function as game items that evoke what Walter Benjamin termed "aura." The authors argue that these replicated artifacts, such as Qing court paintings, a Qianlong Tongbao coin, and Yanpi Xuan paper, invite players to observe, touch, place, and manipulate objects in ritualistic puzzle-solving, producing a sense of "here and now" immediacy that analog play can restore even within a mechanically reproduced medium. The paper frames this as a counterpoint to digital environments, where authenticity is often diminished.

The study reports the commercial performance of the first title, Migong: Ruyi Linlang Tuji, which was crowdfunded in October 2018 with a goal of 100,000 RMB, ultimately raising 20.2 million RMB and pre-selling 122,000 copies by late November of that year. The authors note that the series has since produced three gamebooks and achieved sales in China and through cross-border e-commerce platforms. The paper situates this success within the history of gamebooks, from the 1940s and their late-1970s peak through Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy, and through Chinese paratextual forms of the 2000s.

The authors attribute the series' popularity to two factors: the familiarization of audiences with interactive gameplay through visual novel mobile games and the rise of Jubensha stores after 2015, and the broader Guochao aesthetic trend, particularly Palace Museum cultural merchandise. Drawing on Iwabuchi's notion of "cultural fragrance," they position Chineseness as the series' central appeal.

The methodology is primarily analytical and theoretical, drawing on concepts from Benjamin, Groys, Aarseth's cybertext theory, and Bolter et al., rather than on empirical player data, survey samples, or quantitative user studies. The conclusions therefore rest on interpretive argument, with the claim that analogue games can revive an aesthetic experience of aura remaining a proposition supported by conceptual reasoning rather than measured audience response.