Trigger Happy
169
Some diachronic stories, even in old games, are
very complex, dipping freely into the myth kitty by
basing themselves on Arthurian legend (Excalibur),
Celtic sagas (Tir Na Nog and Dun Darach on the ZX
Spectrum), Norse sagas (Valhalla), or Tolkien’s Middle
Earth (The Hobbit), not to mention science fiction and
fantasy derivatives of these basic templates. But notice
that these kinds of stories are, formally speaking,
mostly more like folktales than novels. And folktales,
according to Russian theorist Vladimir Propp, adhere to
one of a handful of simple formulae. They are highly
plot driven and predicated on strong actions; what there
is of a purely “literary” character can be readily
stripped away. That’s ideal for computers. (It is hardly
surprising, though obscurely disappointing, that no one
has tried to make a videogame out of Nabokov’s
Pale
Fire
.)
But what kinds of synchronic stories do such games
have? Very little to speak of. The “story” of what the
player actually
does
during the game would be merely a
list of movements (up, down, run, shoot, open door,
jump)—hardly something you’d want to sit down and
actually read. At its most sophisticated it will be a
highly skeletal version of a quest narrative. You look
for something; you find it. The situation is
