'How Do I Restart This Thing?' Repeat Experience and Resistance to Closure in Rewind Storygames

摘要

Interactive stories are a kaleidoscopic form that both encourages and rewards repeat experience, allowing players to try out different variations of a story or see the story from different perspectives. This may be one reason for the increasing use of rewind game mechanics, where players are required to repeatedly play a storygame before eventually reaching some form of conclusion. While this seems to be playing to the strengths of the medium, what is not clear is how rewind structures can be explained by current models of repeat experience in interactive stories. Through a close reading of the storygame Elsinore, we explore the impact of rewind game mechanics on repeat play, in terms of the player's ability both to determine when the end has been reached, and to subsequently replay beyond closure. Our observations suggest that rewind mechanics may frustrate, rather than support, closure and repeat experience of storygames, and may require a revision of current theories of rereading and repeat experience.