For verification of this paper, please visit on http://www.socialresearchfoundation.com/anthology.php#8

The interactive nature of video games allows storytelling with a level of immersion seldom seen before, yet by fragility of coherence that is brought about by this nature, we also get to see and question the fundamentals of storytelling, characterization and the position of the protagonist going forward. This paper aims to break down and compartmentalize the idea and execution of the “protagonist” through video-game narratives, and attempts to do so by way of inventing models of narrative structure upon which there can form a basis for literary criticism of the interactive medium, via comparative analysis and observations, in a way akin to a “poetics”. To do this, I have had to define the notion of character, the ingredients that can make a video-game protagonist and, in turn, designate different approaches to the “protagonist”.

The results of the observational analysis revealed that, by incorporating the model of immersion by Marie-Laure Ryan, we can create a spectrum that shows the two styles of characterization for the protagonist that can and has been used so far, a spectrum with Narrative Development on one side and Mechanical Development on the other; Narrative Development focuses on linearity and thus coherency depends on the skill of the writer, while Mechanical Development focuses on interactivity and player agency, therefore crediting the coherence of the narrative to the skills of the game designer.

Based on the Development model, we can also categorize the three main types of protagonists, namely, the Convergent, Divergent and Convergent-Divergent Protagonists, which lay on the Narrative Development end, Mechanical Development end and the middle of the spectrum respectively. Additionally, these approaches each have exhibited certain elements that can be said to be intrinsic to certain parts of the Development spectrum, and when elements belonging to two ends of the spectrum are used to create a singular narrative without diminishing or compromising any of the elements, there is a definite rise in narrative incoherence.

This paper aims to provide a structure of criticism, akin to a “poetics”, for Video Game narratives, which I have approached through comparative analysis and case studies. As such, my aim is to provide an observational understanding of how narrative structures and video game mechanics interconnect to achieve narrative immersion- which I believe can be done by looking at the portrayal of characters and their development in video games, and the issues present around it. To begin, we need to understand how the system of immersion takes place in any form of narrative media.

An Immersive System

By way of interactivity, video-game plots have allowed us to have a more personalized and intimate relationship with the observer, who in turn has become a more active agent in the story, so to speak. This ‘player agency’ has had the effect of assimilating the observer- the player, and the world presented in the game like no other narrative could before. However, we need to understand and establish how we define ‘immersion’?

In the context of narratives, immersion has been described as, “The feeling of being inside a story, completely involved and accepting the world and events of the story as real” (Adams and Rollings, 2006). Narrative immersion is not exclusive to video games, however, as the feeling of being transported to another reality is a fundamental phenomenon arguably necessary for any kind of storytelling; as stories build worlds, the audience, reader or any other form of observer has the feeling of being transported- a phenomenon which is illustrated in the aptly titled ‘Transportation-Imagery Model’, where transportation serves to be a metaphor by Gerrig for the immersive feeling many may get while reading a book. (De Graaf; Anneke; Hustinx, 2015)

The Immersion Model

Literary scholar and narratologist Marie-Laure Ryan underlines the four different forms of immersions that are at play in ‘storyworlds’ and videogames, a model to the extension of which I have created a diagram, in order to visualize and explain (Figure 1.1)-

Spatial Immersion- the immersion of the player with the world of the story. Lying in the foreground, it consists of the immediate world that is perceived by the player, like cities or landscapes. (Ryan, 2009)

Epistemic Immersion- the immersion which appeals to the player’s desire to know. It consists of the world that lies in the background, behind a veil, and presents mysteries that need uncovering. (Ryan, 2009)

Temporal Immersion- Forms the metaphorical boundary of the world presented to the player, this immersion appeals to the players’ anticipation of the consequences of the narrative, i.e., the overall plot that surrounds the world, its people and everything else in it. (Ryan, 2009)

Emotional Immersion- This is the type of immersion that is manifested by the player’s interaction with the characters and/or certain objects that the game presents. (Ryan, 2009)

We can add legitimacy to this by looking at the paper presented by Green and Brock, who in conceptualizing Gerrig’s Transportation-Imagery model, conceive transportation as a convergent process, converging the mental system of the reader’s attention, emotion and imagery. The same mental systems are active in the Epistemic, Emotional and Spatial immersions as a whole, as written by Marie-Laure Ryan. (Green and Brock, 2002)

This system or model of immersion can now be used to analyze the interaction that is present between game mechanics and narratives, and how coherence is maintained in interactive media. To do so, we can look at the ingredients that combine to form a narrative- the world and its characters.

The Many Characters and the One Protagonist

What is character? And how important is it in reality? As mentioned before, in terms of the interactive media that is video games, there is a large variety in which character as an element is approached- Some stories, particularly those which revel in linearity, star characters who have a fixed relationship with the protagonist.

Additionally, to critique video game narratives, we need to analyze the mechanics that goes behind characters, particularly that of the protagonist, as the entirety of the world that is presented to us by video game is interpreted by us mostly through the eyes of a protagonist, who by interacting with the player via game mechanics, is given personality- for example, if a player is tasked to defeat powerful and huge enemies, the protagonist through whom the player achieves this is thus also considered to be very powerful and capable, i.e., we can say that whatever the player is tasked to do, is expected to do, or is additionally capable of doing through game mechanics, ideally, the player’s protagonist is capable of doing as well.

Ingredients of a Character

As established before, Character can be considered to be the most important element of a story, a sort of binding agent, second only to the plot as established by Aristotle himself when he wrote of the 6 elements of tragedy and what he believes to be the hierarchy for an effective tragedy. (Aristotle, Poetics)

Arguably, the most important character of any story is the protagonist. The protagonist is the eyes through which we observe the story, and as such, they act as the central entity around which any story is weaved; As such, the protagonist is the person who stimulates most of our emotions, i.e., catharsis, because all the emotions are channeled through the protagonist; on the basis of which we have genres like tragedies which see the good ‘hero’ fall, the act of which causes us to feel pity or remorse. (Aristotle, Poetics)

This brings into question the mechanics behind the narrative discourse of the more freeform narratives present in RPG games where the protagonist is given shape only by our actions and choices.

A particularly peculiar reasoning we can make from the experiment mentioned earlier, in the introduction, is that the humanization of the shapes is a direct consequence of the shapes performing an action. It would thus be logical to assume that character is a direct result of actions, in other words, actions reveal the character, and that a character which acts like nothing and does nothing essentially becomes nothing- mere shapes on a two-dimensional plane.

However, the relationship between character and action is a bit more complicated than that. Relying on Aristotle for the idea behind the mechanics of a character in a creative expression, we can find that ‘character’ is a qualitative term, and ‘action’ is a more quantitative, as such actions may indicate a character but a character is never completely formed by just action. An example- as Frederic Will writes, “We unthinkingly echo this literary distinction when we say, of the character Oedipus, for instance, that he was irascible, courageous, and honest- that these traits were his qualities—but of the play Oedipus that it concerns a man who killed his father, married his mother, and blinded himself in despair, when he discovered his sins; that is, that it concerns a series of doings which are not in themselves qualities or qualitative”. (Will, 1960)

The essence of a tragedy induced catharsis is thus essentially a pre-established good character giving way to his own flaws- an Achilles’ heel, for the sake of the tragedy. But one can also notice that the flaw itself is pre-established as well, thus can be taken to be part of the ‘character’. This ‘Unity of Character’ is something that is not well illustrated by Aristotle, but plays well into the narrative in allowing it to happen in the first place. (Will, 1960)

But how do we define ‘Unity of Character’? As Frederic Will interprets, “He[Aristotle] considers, the object of the imitation which constitutes plot, neither action nor “character”, but rather something like the “action of characters”…the idea seems to provide a bridge between plot and character”. If we take our own example, we as individuals have our flaws and strengths, and as such we tend to act in accordance to our pre-existing personality or ‘character’. Similarly, Oedipus ends up blinding himself because of his own passion for justice and truth. (Will, 1960)

The Affective Disposition theory attempts to explain the nature of the emotions the reader feels in response to stories. “Only if a reader has either a positive or a negative disposition toward a character, does the reader care what will happen to the character and feels emotions as a result of that character’s experiences.” (Anneke de Graaf and Lettica Hustinx, 2015)

We can work out then that it is this, the cohesion of the pre-existent folly of good men leading to their fall, that ultimately invokes catharsis, that only a tragic character in a tragic setting can invoke strong emotions, whereas a comedic character in a tragic setting will be nothing short of inappropriate, for it won’t satisfy the ‘Unity of Character’, and therefore won’t lead to catharsis.

Ingredients of The Protagonist

Who or What can be considered a protagonist? If characterization can be achieved by the mere effort of associating even a simple shape with simple actions, can the same be done to bring a protagonist into fruition? As established before; the protagonist being the central figure, needs to have certain traits and characteristics that helps the narrative be appealing to the audience, as well as have the potential that allows the audience to relate with them, in order to maximize emotional gratification, or catharsis, once the conclusion of the plot is reached.

So then, if emotional immersion, as per Marie-Laure Ryan, were to be invoked, what are the traits that make an engaging protagonist? If we look back at history, we see an interesting evolution when it came to the central figure of a narrative; we can see that in many pre-modern epic narratives, the word “protagonist” is almost synonymous with “hero” as the protagonist is seen sporting heroic qualities, which makes their characters be something one can strive to be if not relatable from the very beginning. This is a trope that has lost prevalence in the modern fiction, especially after the advent of realist narratives that came about with Modernism, where character flaws take precedence in character portrayal and character development, which serves to connect us, with our own flaws, to that of the character in front of us, as Howard Sklar writes, “We’d have no way of processing a character cognitively if we didn’t have experiences with people outside of the fictional world… The experiences with fictional characters resonate with us because of the fact that we’ve had deep experiences with people throughout our lives.” (Sklar, 2009)

The Development Model

So how does this coalesce with a presentable video game narrative and game mechanics? If a connection, or a bond, is made between the protagonist and the player by way of a foundation based on common experiences or otherwise other commonalities, then the best way to stimulate emotional investment is to produce this as the player is engaging with the gameplay or as they are engaging with the plot. This method is also quite common in storytelling present in non-interactive media, usually done by introducing the world to the audience and the protagonist at the same time. An excellent example of this would be “Altered Carbon”, where the Takeshi Kovacs, the protagonist, is forced to awaken in a world that has changed after hundreds of years- making it as alien to him as it is to any member of the audience, which brings forth the ‘Epistemic Immersion’.

Yet in interactive media such as a video-game, another opportunity is brought forth due to the interactivity itself; through which, in my observation, there are certain ways video games synergize these types of immersion. The format in which the protagonist of a story is introduced to the world for the first time as us ends up combining spatial immersion with epistemic immersion as well as the emotional immersion, since not only is the character discovering the world at the same time, being in the same boat, we end up relating to the protagonist and as a result feel closer to said protagonist. The most fitting example to this would be the game Fallout 4. The protagonist, whom the player gets to create, reappears in the world two hundred years after an apocalypse; with the fully voiced protagonist, we get to sympathize with the character as he rediscovers and reacts to his world after it has been brushed by the aftermath of nuclear warfare.

We can see then, the interactivity provides the player with the opportunity to develop their own view of the world, their own skillset and problem-solving capability to deal with the world, which provides the chance to resonate further with the protagonist through common experience. Due to this being fueled more by the game mechanics rather than the narrative directly, we can contrast it with the other form by way of creating a spectrum consisting two ends, as I have attempted to illustrate via the following diagram (Figure 2.1)-

Narrative Development- This refers to the system of immersive character development that relies heavily on the linear narrative presented by the video games, where new mechanics are added as the story progresses- thereby showcasing character growth while also providing opportunity and even forcing the player to grow alongside the protagonist.

As an example, we can take any conventional story about the hero getting stronger as the story progresses, which enables us to empathize; when this is imported to a video game narrative, we can see an example in Assassin’s Creed II, where as the protagonist, Ezio, goes through the years and gains new skills, the player is forced to use those skills to combat new challenges.

Mechanical Development- This is the system of immersive character development that relies more on player choice, as opposed to the linearity presented by Narrative Development. This non-linearity presents opportunity for more player engagement, alongside providing the feeling of individuality as different players may end up with completely unique configurations of their protagonists.

Mechanical Development is a system that has seen an increase in popularity as it has been implemented in more and more modern video-games. Due to this method’s reliance on player agency and interactivity, narrative incoherence or otherwise overall narrative impact may become compromised if the system is not well designed.

 Chapter 3

The Protagonist is Dead, Long Live the Protagonist.

Through our establishment of the spectrum of character development, we can proceed to critique the protagonists and the otherwise characterizations that are present in video game narratives. With our previous understandings of character, we can assume that for a true catharsis, or a truly emotional story, there needs to exist a consistency which we find through “unity of character”, and we can also infer that the more there is emotions flowing, the more will be the immersion in the narrative. However, this calls into question the narratives where the character of the protagonist has not been set in stone, and instead, has fallen upon the player the responsibility to shape the protagonist to their whim.

A protagonist like that does not have a “unity of character”. However, in order to appeal to the whims of a player, the protagonist of a free form narrative should be able to contradict themselves in order to truly immerse the player, right? It seems that the over-reliance on the Mechanical Development approach leads to incoherency- The issue with some narrative structures that are present in video games is that a lot of freedom is given to the morality and the ethics of the protagonist in order to appeal to the different outlooks players may have about overcoming certain incidents.

An appropriate example of this narrative discrepancy is the character of Kassandra from plot of the video-game, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The first choice presented to the players right as they start the game is whether to mercilessly murder a few guards that were sent to collect her debt. After playing the game for a few hours, the player is then further presented us with a different choice, whether to condemn an entire village to be killed due to the possibility of a plague. Furthermore, another later choice is presented where we have the opportunity to either forgive our father or condemn him to death.

We observe that in this situation thus, the player has the power to crisscross their way across these moral dilemmas. This of course, causes there to be a discontinuity when it comes to the emotional context behind these events, as at any given moment, a player can choose to be good or bad. This particular example is, however, only viable for discrepancy in the writing itself, rather than any that may arise due to conflict between different functions of the game.

In the context of different functions, this form of narrative dissonance can be very commonly found when narrative conflicts with gameplay. Taking the example of the second installment of another popular video game franchise, Watch Dogs 2- the protagonist, Marcus, belongs to a cyber-hacking group that is formed on the basis of freeing people from the tyrannical use of technology, yet, the player is also given the freedom to mass murder civilians for little more than a giggle. On the other side of the coin, in the game Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the protagonist is a Viking in the 9^th century C.E, who is actively discouraged, through penalization, by the game from killing monks in monasteries, which creates an inconsistency by the fact that Vikings had an exceptional skill to kill people of cloth while raiding monasteries.

We can beg for an exception by saying that for the sake of having a fun gameplay, for the sake of interactivity, this cognitive dissonance can be dismissed. However, this discrepancy of what the character stands for and what he ends up doing is, in fact, addressed better in certain games, usually in the form of some sort of consequence for actions, without which I think any protagonist becomes an unfeeling and neutral character.

A character with whom a player can touch both sides of morality, may be considered to be by extension a morally neutral character. Neutrality of a protagonist can have a bad effect on immersion. We can refer to the experiment done by Anneke de Graaf and Lettica Hustinx in order to prove the Affective Disposition Theory.

Anneke De Graaf and Lettica Hustinx’s experiment was to prove the hypothesis theorized by the Affective Disposition Theory; to prove that a protagonist displaying positivity or negativity does a better job at invoking emotional immersion than one displaying neutrality. The experiment presents three variations of the same basic story, and has the protagonist perform positive, negative and neutral actions respectively.

The experiment yielded results which indicated that there was a definite relation to the positive protagonist invoking more empathy than the neutral one, but failed at providing a proof for a negative protagonist doing the same. However, I think the results are satisfactory for the point I am trying to make in this paper. (Anneke de Graaf and Lettica Hustinx, 2015)

The over-emphasis on interactivity and choices in a narrative can almost seem to, therefore, have a counter effect on the immersion the story might be aiming for. However, there are clever ways this can and has been circumvented in video game narratives, before the elaboration of which, we need to categorize the various approaches to protagonists.

The Protagonist Model: Categorizing the Types of Protagonists and their Harmonics

When it comes to video game protagonists, I would like to make the point that there are primarily three different approaches writers can use to approach writing/writing for a protagonist which can be appropriately categorized under the Narrative Development and Mechanical Development model via an illustration (Figure 3.1)-

Divergent Protagonist- I decided to name this the ‘Divergent’ approach, as every player starts at the same beginning, yet as the narrative moves forward the player has the opportunity to create a unique protagonist with unique choices.

In this approach, the writing is done for the choices the protagonist can possibly make but the protagonist is never written for directly, instead, the player is directly given the role of the protagonist, as the ‘protagonist’ in the game is barely more than a mere husk to carry out the whims of the player.

Immersion and storytelling can be, and does in fact, exist in this form- as the narrative focus is shifted from a main character and instead given to the supplementary characters. As the player interacts and invests in the characters around them, a direct connection is formed between the player and the characters, completely ignoring the ‘perspective’ of a protagonist, as the player is directly, for all intents and purposes, the protagonist.

This feeling of directly being the protagonist is further encouraged by the fact that there is no specified backstory given for the player character, as it is left to the player to imagine one up.

Examples of this include most Role-Playing Games (RPGs), where the player is tasked to create his own character from the ground up, and game progression is designed in a way to give player full control over not only when the player character develops skills, but what skills they develop in the first place. The player character is given no personality by the game save for whatever the player can imagine them to have- as such, they lack voiceovers which would otherwise be found in linear narratives.

From this, we can point out some prevalent elements in this approach-

1. Introduction of new mechanics/skills/opportunities of interactivity is done at the behest of the player.
2. Moral choices are non-restricted.
3. High level of character customization. The “Protagonist” is faceless and voiceless and has no predetermined backstory, save whatever the player is capable of imagining up and superimposing.

Convergent Protagonist- I named this the ‘convergent’ approach as the narrative converges into one common ending or a variation of it that is not too different.

It relies on the Narrative Development approach of character development, where we see new opportunities, skills and interactivity being slowly made available to the player as the story goes on. This approach favors a character with a predefined backstory, however, interactivity, while retaining immersion, in the narrative is encouraged by allowing the player to make sensible choices dictated by the ‘character’ of the protagonist.

An example of this would be the protagonist Arthur Morgan from the game Red Dead Redemption II. From the beginning of the story, Arthur is presented as a career criminal who puts his obligation to his gang above any obligation he may have to morality. Keeping that in mind, through the beginning of the story the players are barely given any opportunity to choose- When the gang requires Arthur to rob, kill or collect money as a loan shark. However, near the end of the story, when we find a dying Arthur questioning his loyalty to his gang, we are given choices of taking money by force or giving it away entirely.

In this story, unlike the divergent approach, narrative takes a focus on Arthur as well as the characters surrounding him, and catharsis is achieved at the end of the story with Arthur’s death. The story manages to keep immersion intact as much as it is able to keep ‘Unity of Character’ intact.

As such, some of the prevalent elements in this approach are-

1.     Introduction of new mechanics/skills/opportunities of interactivity spread in a linear and predetermined manner throughout the story.

2.     Limited availability of moral choices/moral choices develops as the protagonist develops throughout the narrative

3.     Low level of character customization/predetermined character with a predetermined backstory and motivations.

Convergent-Divergent Protagonist- There lies another approach which combines both of the above-mentioned approaches and lies in the middle of Narrative Development and Mechanical Development. The best example for this kind of storytelling would be that of the Mass Effect Trilogy.

The Mass Effect Trilogy presents us with the character of Shepard. A husk of a character with no definite backstory apart from whatever the player can imagine it to be. However, Unity of character is maintained through Shepard’s primary motivation- to save planet Earth and humanity as a whole. Any and all choices made by the player is limited to having the consequence be the benefit of humanity in one way or another.

How Shepard behaves is left up to the players; players can choose to be diplomatic as a ‘paragon’ or be cunning and ruthless as a ‘renegade’. The player is encouraged to either be paragon or renegade at any given point, as being a paragon will lead to other future paragon options being unlocked for the player the same way as being a renegade would unlock renegade options, further maintaining ‘Unity of Character’ by way of presenting narrative consequences for choices.

Unlike the ‘Convergent Approach’, there can be multiple endings to the main narratives, or the variations of the endings are different enough to be considered separate endings entirely.

Some elements of this approach can be observed to be-

1. Introduction of new mechanics/skills are sometimes done via the narrative and at other times done by the choice of the player.
2. Moral choices are non-restricted; however, mechanics may be in place to make sure there is coherency. This coherency is enforced further by having them be surface level in comparison to the predetermined underlying motivations of the protagonist.
3. High level of character customization. The protagonist, however, has a definite voice and also has predetermined motivations and a backstory.

Elementality of the Interactive Narrative

By contrasting and categorizing these elements, we can see some elements inherently belong to certain ends of the Development spectrum, for example, high level of character customization would be present towards the Mechanical Development end, as interactivity and mechanics take precedence over having a predetermined character. We also see how, some elements that move from one end of the spectrum to the other get mellowed out, while others get neutralized completely; the element of character customization from the Mechanical Development side is non-existent in the Narrative Development one, while the unrestricted moral choices from the Mechanical Development side get mellowed out and very linear when we find it in the Narrative Development side.

This suggests to us that there is a certain sense of exclusivity as to how these elements interact with each other. For example, a predetermined character with a predetermined backstory, personality and motivations having free reign over moral choices will cause incoherency in the narrative.

This can be seen happening in the aforementioned example of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey in page 9, where the player protagonist, a fixed entity with fixed motivations, is at the hands of a player who has been given full liberty in moral decision-making. The moral bipolarity is not even backed up by a reasonable explanation by the protagonist or by the narrative as reasoning is expected of the player instead of the plot, which can lead to an unreasonable or incoherent story because, coming back to the analysis of what makes a character, a character will act a certain way because they are a certain individual, as defined by their history. Therefore, such a predefined character will not crisscross through moral dilemmas by choosing different answers each time.

Conclusively then, elements that belong on two ends of the spectrum may not be incorporated into the same video-game narrative without diminishing or compromising the facets of either or both elements.

Video game narratives have an immense potential of storytelling by its very nature, yet at the same time, the very fundamental nature of interactivity creates new challenges for would-be video-game writers, as it may get difficult at times to find the correct amount of compromise between game mechanics and game narratives.

The incremental popularity in embracing the Mechanical Development over Narrative Development when it comes to characterization of the protagonist can lead to narrative incoherence; Some choices which many may consider to be fruitful for player engagement may end up having diminishing returns, as contradictions in the character of the protagonist end up taking away the emotional immersion player may have.

As these stories move away from the linearity of the protagonist behaving a certain staple way, we get to re-realize the fundamentals of what makes a protagonist, and how a story is weaved around them to encompass both choices as well as unity, which we can do by compartmentalizing the figure of the protagonist and its approach into distinct categories that can be imposed upon the Developmental model illustrated in the paper.

As such, to maintain coherence, narrative elements that belong to one end of the spectrum have to either be diminished, or compromised in any other way in order to be incorporated at the same time with an element originating from the other end of the spectrum.

1. Ryan, Marie-Laure. “From Narrative Games to Playable Stories: Toward a Poetics of Interactive Narrative.” Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, vol. 1, 2009, pp. 43–59. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25663007. Accessed 18 Aug. 2021.
2. Rose, Frank. “The Art of Immersion: Why Do We Tell Stories?”. Wired, 2011.
   www.wired.com/2011/03/why-do-we-tell-stories. Accessed on 16 August. 2021.
3. Barthes, Roland, and Lionel Duisit. “An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative.” New Literary History, vol. 6, no. 2, 1975, pp. 237–272. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/468419. Accessed 18 Aug. 2021.
4. Will, Frederic. “Aristotle and the Question of Character in Literature.” The Review of Metaphysics, vol. 14, no. 2, 1960, pp. 353–359. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20123824. Accessed 18 Aug. 2021.
5. Sklar, Howard. “Believable Fictions: On the Nature of Emotional Responses to Fictional Characters”. The Electronic Journal of the Department of English at the University of Helsinki, 2009.
   https://blogs.helsinki.fi/hes-eng/volumes/volume-5/believable-fictions-on-the-nature-of-emotional-responses-to-fictional-characters-howard-sklar/. Accessed on 1 May. 2022.
6. De Graaf, Anneke, and Lettica Hustinx. “Transported into a Story World: The Role of the Protagonist.” Texts, Transmissions, Receptions: Modern Approaches to Narratives, edited by André Lardinois et al., Brill, LEIDEN; BOSTON, 2015, pp. 114–132. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctt1w76wgh.11. Accessed 18 Aug. 2021.
7. Aristotle. “Poetics”. Translated by Ingram Bywater. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1920. Printed in Great Britain.
8. Adams, Ernest; Rollings, Andrew. “Fundamentals of game design”. Prentice Hall, 2006. Printed in USA.