Interactive Narrative - Gameplay (GRIM FANDANGO)

Week 6 - Day 3

This week we'll be addressing question 1. As the player, do you interact with a character or an avatar and how does this affect your involvement in the narrative? for the game; Grim Fandango.

The definition of character and avatar is interchangeable; you are playing an avatar, a representation of self, but you are also playing as the character themselves from an omnipresent point of view, like a consciousness hovering over their shoulder helping them make decisions or choices within the game narrative. During gameplay, I gain maneuverability and control of the character which is now acting as an avatar until we reach the next cutscene in which case I relinquish control of said avatar who then takes over with their distinct personality until the end of the cutscene. The roles between character and avatar switches between myself, as the player, and to the game's narrative to paint a broader picture of the game itself.

And look at this quote I found in this week's reading: Player-operated characters are often referred to interchangeably as “characters” and “avatars.” which handily enough, describes almost exactly what I mentioned in the first half of the previous paragraph.

Everybody within the game, with the exception of Manny Calavera, is a character but of the non-playable variety (as mentioned and described in the Westerado NPCs video on the Interactive Narrative Youtube Channel). I'm free to interact with them with my character/avatar to further develop the game narrative but I am free to ignore developing that narrative if I so choose. I don't think this would affect gameplay too much as I could've gone without speaking with Domino Hurley but then I wouldn't have been to able to see the somewhat passive-aggressive/antagonistic relationship between Manny and Domino.

The game itself is easy enough to understand but the gameplay itself is a little bit harder. I wasn't aware that I had to go outside of the building, go around the building, and go UP the building and into a room to activate the next cutscene and help progress the story until someone told me what to do. Grim Fandango is quite similar to The Wolf Among Us in terms of playing the game by clicking on things, examining it and picking them up to be used later on, but this game is a little less linear and a little bit harder to play through. Grim Fandango does allow you to adventure outside of the game narrative and explore new bits and pieces of the game itself but it's not very clear when you're trying to get from Point A to Point B.