| Keywords [eng] |
Video games, Slay the Princess, Visual Novel, Multimodality, Possible Worlds Theory, Player Agency, Interactive Narrative Kompiuteriniai žaidimai, Slay the Princess, vizualinis romanas, multimodalumas, galimų pasaulių teorija, interaktyvus pasakojimas |
| Abstract [eng] |
Nowadays, one is bound to engage with the digital, as the modern world is saturated with electronic media and content. As one of the most popular, and arguably most profitable, forms of entertainment (Witkowski, 2021), video games have become an increasingly significant cultural and narrative medium. However, the question of whether games can be fully described as “narrative” still remains a part of an ongoing academic debate (Planells de la Maza, 2015, p. 291; 2024, p. 67). Therefore, the object of the current thesis is the visual novel Slay the Princess, and the aim is to conduct a qualitative multimodal narratological analysis in order to examine what creates the complex and captivating nature of the object of the current study by analysing its structure, characters, as well as touching upon its visual elements (Kress & van Leewen, 2021). The analysis is conducted with the help of terminology and insights drawn from Possible Worlds Theory (Ryan, 1991; Planells de la Maza, 2015, 2024). The genre of the video game object was chosen in accordance with the lack of narratological research on visual novels, as well as the limited application of Possible Worlds Theory to visual novels. The conclusions show that Slay the Princess expands the conventional branching structure of visual novels by making possible worlds explicit through characters who actively shape the progression of the storyworld together with the player. The findings also demonstrate that the game integrates narrative structure into gameplay mechanics by positioning the player as a co-creator of the Textual Actual World through the navigation of rhizomatic possible worlds. |
