The Walking Dead: Season 1 as Interactive Fiction – When is a game, literature?

Tales of the people returning from the dead to seek out human brains have taken a firm foothold in popular culture with an increasing range of offerings across a variety of entertainment forms. Released in April 2012, The Walking Dead: Season 1, by Telltale Games is an off shoot of the popular comic and television series of the same name. This episodic, adventure game, set in Robert Kirkman’s apocalyptic, zombie infested world, explores the stories of characters who do not appear in either the comic or TV series with the exception of the occasional cameo appearance. The result is a text rich in story telling that engages the player in decision making that drives the outcome of events. The player driven story embodies the key features of interactive fiction; the story driven text would not develop without player input.

Digital literature takes many forms and is an evolving environment. As technology develops and new technology becomes mainstream (Leu et. al., 2011), entrepreneurs, innovators and artists explore new ways to express their ideas and create new modes for the development of literature. While not new, the digital game environment is constantly developing and games increasingly include story driven elements with developers employing teams of writers to ensure the quality of this aspect of their game. The adventure game genre, while always requiring story as central to its gameplay, usually involved little more that some point and click puzzle solving to advance the story. The Walking Dead evolves this proposition into true interactivity with decision making having an impact on the direction of the story.

As literature, The Walking Dead: Season 1 is best described a transmedia text in which the ‘reader’ or in this case the player, becomes the co-constructor of the dynamic narrative leading to active engagement in the story (Hovious, Shinas and Harper, 2020 & Lamb, 2011). The “Walking Dead: Season 1 delivers a linear narrative that progresses as any story would, with the enhancement of player interaction through decision making which customises the experience (ASLA, 2020). While sitting in the game category in your local store, this is pure storytelling. The motivation for the user to continue playing the game is derived from the storytelling and a desire to discover the fate of the characters of which they are one. This aspect of characterisation is developed in games as a unique character for each iteration of the game known as the player/character (Gee, 2003). It is neither the player nor the game character, but a third possibility only created upon playing the game and leads to increased engagement through an investment in the player/character generated through play.

Movement within the game, in general, allows for a free-roaming style of play; however, there are restrictions within the environment and areas that you cannot reach despite being about to see them.  This provides a little frustration as you search for solutions to the challenges you face in this game. The Walking Dead positions the player in a scenario in which they are required to make a series of moral and ethical choices about the situations they are presented with. Some of these decisions are timed, generating a sense of urgency. It is the decision making in the game that drive both the story telling as well as the opportunities for use in education.

Gamification is of learning is gaining increasing acceptance in education. Opportunities to include a variety of game types in curriculum development are sought by many educators and commercial-of-the-shelf games such as The Walking Dead: Season 1 find their place in this movement. Suitable for senior secondary students, this type of situated learning (Andreassen, 2015) provides opportunities for the development of ethical thinking. The unfamiliar and morally ambiguous dilemmas, present situations that require students to think for themselves. This scaffolding of morally ambiguous situations in The Walking Dead: Season 1 provides scaffolding for thinking about a moral framework (Staaby, 2015).

Important to the teaching opportunities provided in The Walking Dead: Season 1 is the summary table of your important choices given at the end of each episode. Collected from the vast community of players as they make their decisions, yours are compared everyone who has played the game and you can see what percentage of players made the same decision and just as importantly, those who different.  Students can then unpack the rights and wrongs of these situations.  Receiving this a the end of the first episode also gives the player pause to consider (along with feedback throughout the game of ho your decisions and responses are viewed by others) how their decisions have effected their game play as well as how they might proceed in the next episode.

The Walking Dead: Season 1 deserves a place in the category of interactive fiction. The story is engaging and consistent with other literature formats in Walking Dead world. The game requires interaction through considered decision making for the story to progress and is adaptable, provides feedback and enjoyment. Its potential for use in an education environment is great with opportunities to explore moral and ethical decision making.

 

References

Andreassen, S. (2015). Zombies in the Classroom: Video games for engagement in a new century of education. http://bora.uib.no/bitstream/handle/1956/9964/133366139.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Gee, J. P. (2003). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Palgrave.

Hovious, A., Shinas, V. H. & Harper, I. (2020). The Compelling Nature of Transmedia Storytelling: Empowering Twenty First-Century Readers and Writers Through Multimodality. Technology, Knowledge and Learning. https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/article/10.1007/s10758-020-09437-7

Lamb, A. (2011). Reading redefined for a transmedia universe. Learning and Leading with Technology, 39(3), 12-17.

Leu, D., McVerry, J. G., O’Byrne, W. I., Killi, C., Zawilinski, L., Everett-Cacopardo, H., Kennedy, C., & Forzani, E. (2011). The new literacies of online reading comprehension: Expanding the literacy and learning curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(1) 5-14, DOI: 10.1598/JAAL.55.1.1

Parrott, K. (2011). 5 Questions to Ask When Evaluating Apps and Ebooks. ALSC. https://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2011/07/5-questions-to-ask-when-evaluating-apps-and-ebooks/

Telltale Games. (2012). The Walking Dead: Season 1. Skybound Games

Staaby, T. (2015). Zombie-based critical learning – teaching moral philosophy with The Walking Dead. DOI: 10.1184/R1/6687023