Creative processes around playful memory. A study of documentary practices in video games

Abstract

This research is based on the hypothesis that the game-fictional artifact, as an interactive element, can harbor a creation space through an implicit and participating documentary gaze based on the game mechanics and the player's involvement in the ludonarrative ecosystem. An exercise of playful contemplation and active visual participation of the playable space is carried out from the mechanics linked to the sound and photographic record. We approach Season: A Letter to the future (Scavengers Studio, 2023), Dordogne (Un Je Ne Sais Quoi and Umanimation, 2023) and Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid (Toybox and Millennium Kitchen, 2024), video games whose mechanics push the player to document nostalgia and memory through a photographic and sound exercise thanks to the environmental narrative. We adopt a methodology close to game studies and filmic narrative, using the resources provided by ludonarrative analysis and the constructive capacity of the documentary. The results reveal the creative capacity obtained by the player as a narrative construction agent within the story in the ludonarrative world, revealing a unique and irreplicable look within each game in the videoludic object and the documentary experience acquired from the primary mechanics.