A Game of Self-Fashioning

This paper is aimed to demonstrate the appropriation of mechanisms of self-fashioning by the medium of video game, where they function as factors structuring the relationship between the player and their avatar. Moreover, the analysis involves the contribution of those factors to the player’s self-reflection stimulated by their oscillation between agency and its regulation, the combination of which is characteristic of the video game experience.
 

Video Games Heteroglossia and Player Situation: Initial Diagnosis

The aim of this paper is to create initial frame for possible translation of Bakhtinian key concept of heteroglossia into video game analysis. Although devised to describe specifics of the novel and tightly-knitted to its material, social and historical aspects, can be also seen as possible framework for description of other non-homogenic texts, such as cinema or, in this case, digital game. The opportunity to employ the concept of heteroglossia is rooted in game studies tradition, very eager to single out various layers, or parts of the game itself. Such perspective not only opens venue for concluding two-decade long quarrel over the importance of various game components for understanding the phenomenon – it can be also instrumental in describing the social background and ideology of gamers, understand as particular culture, and depicting the position and role of the player during the very act of the gameplay. It can be also seen as an introduction to the understanding cultural significance and role of the video game.
 

Agency and Indentity in the Exploration Games

The article focuses on the connection between player’s agency and his identity in the exploration computer games. The aim of the article is to trace down the influence of various tools and interaction mechanics on ways in which players mark their presence in the game and convey their identities. The analysed titles include pure exploration games, like Proteus (Ed Key, David Kanaga, 2013) and MirrorMoon EP (Santa Ragione, 2013), as well as some titles which employ only selected mechanics of exploration games, such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda, 2011). Three main points of interest are examined in the article: 1) interfaces and mechanics in relation to player’s agency 2) tools that enable players to build their own narratives and shape the avatars 3) agency in the context of game goals and tasks assigned to a player by the game itself. The theoretical context of the article is linked to the Giorgio Agamben’s theory of dispositif.

 

Let’s Play Again. Film-like Temporalities in Video Games

The author of the article discusses the problem of time and temporality in video games. Andrzej Pitrus compares recent games with cinema. The problem, raised earlier by other academics, needs revisions because of the new technologies, and new strategies in game design. Video games are getting closer to cinema, not only because of constant improvements of IT, but also because studios are looking for new audiences. Both AAA games and independent productions are discussed.

 

Encounter With the Other: Video Game As a Metaphor Of a Contemporary City Space

The aim of the article is to present the phenomenon of video games as a metaphor of the contemporary social relations. Virtual space of video game is compared to the structure of contemporary city, therefore it enables new perspectives for research. This analysis focuses on the concept of the “other” and its presence in different aspects of the game world. The article emphasises the moment of encounter with the virtual other in the context of single-player game, that unintendedly becomes a metaphor of contemporary social relations.

 

Young man, put your pride on the shelf. Gender Performance, Camp and Ironic Masculinity in Just Dance Game Series

The article concerns the relations between dance games, gender performance and discourses of masculinity. As Miller notes (2014), dance games allow to some extent to experiment with gender performance. In Just Dance game series, there is a specific tendency in design of male avatars – many of them use irony and camp aesthetics. I argue that despite common association of camp with undermining the dominant discourses, in dance games irony and camp aesthetics have a primary purpose of encouraging men to participate in dance activities while maintaining normative masculine identity.

 

The Sims à Rebours. A Game This War of Mine in Perspective of Procedural Rhetoric

The article analyzes a computer game This War of Mine in terms of Ian Bogost’s procedural rhetoric. It reconstructs ideological presumptions of the game, mainly its communitarianism and pacifism.
 

Philosophical Discourse in Video Games. Selected Contexts in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, The Stanley Parable, The Talos Principle

The author of this article discusses the problem of presence of philosophical discourses in modern video games. The author distinguishes three main types of usage of such discourses: the anecdotal representation, the parabolic construction and the affective philosophical exercise. To support his claim the author concentrates on the analysis of three games: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, The Stanley Parable, The Talos Principle, which leads to conclusions on textual mechanisms of implementing philosophical contexts into video games. The article also points out several main philosophical topics that can be effectively undertaken by video games in the context of education.

 

Szymborska Once Again

The review discusses the volume Unthinkable coincidence. On Poetry by Wisława Szymborska edited by Joanna Grądziel-Wójcik and Krzysztof Skibski. In six parts of the book the authors of Unthinkable coincidence… point out nad investigate the most important issues present in the poetic work of the Nobel Prize laureate: the anthropological perspective, the unanthropocentric model of humanity and human condition, existential and metaphysical problems, philosophical contexts, irony, figures of memory, silence, uncertainty and helplessness, models of poetics and metrics of Szymborska’s poems. The last two parts of the volume focus on translations of Szymborska’s poems into English, Bulgarian, Czech and Slovak, on Szymborska’s translations of French baroque poets and on her images in Polish media form 1995 to 2012 and her posthumous traces in German newspapers.
In the conclusion the reviewer describes the volume as the first really significant Polish collection of essays on Szymborska’s poetry since her death in 2012.
 

Dispersed Image

An attempt at Reconstruction is a summary of the scientific conference dedicated to the late work of Tadeusz Rozewicz. The volume consists of texts on various issues, and their authors often speak different critical languages, what determines both the large diversity of the problems and ways of their description. On the basis of individual sketches it is possible to point to a few key research problems a volume, such as the relationship between biography and output of the poet, the characteristics of his late works, the status of Różewicz’s subject in the text, the idea of ​​the “death of art”, a reflection of the poet over the borders of humanity or relations between his output and biographies and works of other artists. From reading An Attempt to Reconstruction does not arise, however, any coherent picture of Tadeusz Różewicz’s late works. The advantage of this book lies rather in the aspect of inventiveness and substantive value of individual sketches.