Syntactic resources and metafiction in digital games

Abstract

This article presents and discusses the evident or veiled syntactic resources that establish interactions between the structures of computer media and the audiovisual narrative that make up digital games, these resources being elements and aspects of hardware, software and interface that structure digital games. Thus, the interference of the mechanisms of digital media in the fictional, interactive and audiovisual dynamics of games is indicated as a ludo-narrative possibility. These types of games are defined as metafictional games; that is, games that, instead of aiming for a high level of player immersion in its fiction, draws the player's attention to the artificial nature of their universes, revealing their ludo-narrative structure at least in part during the course of gameplay. As examples, the original versions of the games Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club! are examined, selected due to the presence of multiple of these previously mentioned syntactic resources. The content of this article is based on the results of a qualitative and descriptive research that was developed in the following stages: exploratory, theoretical-bibliographical, documentary and descriptive-interpretative. The main theoretical argument extends the concept of syntax, which is usually associated with Linguistics studies, but also applies to audiovisual processes and products in the form of digital games. The more specific result indicates the main syntactic and metafictional resources that interfere in a ludic and creative way in the narrative-interactive paths of the games mentioned above, opening the possibility of future studies in examining other digital games that use similar syntactic resources.