Mytholudics

Games create worlds made of many different elements, but also of rules, systems and structures for how we act in them. So how can we make sense of them? lays out an approach to understanding games using theories from myth and folklore.

Myth is taken here not as an object but as a process, a of expressing meaning. It works to naturalise arbitrary constellations of signs, to connect things in meaning. Behind the phrase ‘just the way it is’ is a process of mythologization that has cemented it.

lays out how this understanding of myth works for the analysis of games. In two sections each analysing five digital games, it then shows how this approach works in practice: one through the lens of heroism and one through monstrosity. These ask questions such as what heroic mythology is constructed in ? What do the monsters in tell us about the game’s model of the world? How does weave a conflict between Norse and Pictish mythology into one between competing models of seeing mental illness?

This method helps to see games and their worlds in the whole. Stories, gameplay, systems, rules, spatial configurations and art styles can all be considered together as contributing to the meaning of the game.