Digital Storytelling Structure of Adventure Games: A Case Study of Steins; Gate

Abstract

An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration or puzzle-solving. Thanks to their focus on storytelling, they are sometimes referred to as interactive fiction or visual novels in different countries. As some of those games have been nominated or awarded at international game awards in recent years, more attention should be paid to adventure games as digital texts in terms of narratology and literariness. Moreover, this kind of game has gradually been opening up a broad market in China with the development of the female game market. However, Chinese original adventure games still have huge space for improvement in terms of narrative and interactivity, so text analysis of excellent adventure games is quite necessary and valuable. This research, based on Marie-Laure Ryan’s digital narrative theory, analyzes the textual architecture and interactive mode of Steins; Gate, a famous Japanese adventure game, to explore the textual and interactive characteristics of adventure games and promote the advancement of the original adventure games in China. Meanwhile, it is hopeful to lay a foundation for further discussion on whether video games will become another major narrative form after movies and develop their own narrative language in the future.