Planescape: Torment

Textuality and Videogames: Interactivity, Narrative Space and Role Play

Textuality and Videogames is an interdisciplinary academic study that interrogates whether videogames, particularly Role Play Games, can be understood as narrative forms.

• Games incorporate narrative elements players genuinely value, but the authors argue they are not inherently narrative media, since real-time play unfolds as events rather than fixed sequences.
• Player agency disrupts the linear structures that narratological theorists such as Chatman describe, challenging the application of traditional narrative theory to games.
• Based on a two-year research project (2001–2003) at the Institute of Education, University of London, the study combines textual analysis, video recordings of players in domestic settings, and interviews with players and developers.