Digital docu-games, czyli cyfrowe gry dokumentalne

Abstrakt

In this paper, I would like to take a closer look at the hybrid genre of digi­tal documentary (“docu-game”), which is part of a larger group, the so-called “serious games”. Documentary games are both game-specific (rules, levels, op­ponents, measurable progress, rewards, etc.), and are also strongly based on the facts, playing educational and activist roles. They can be available through browsers, similar to hypertext websites, but are often designed for stationary or mobile consoles. In terms of genres, a significant range can also be observed: platform games, like Never Alone (2014, E-Line Media), adventure games: Val­iant Hearts: the Great War (2014: Ubisoft) or 1979 Revolution (2014, N-Fusion), strategic games: This War of Mine (2014, 11bit studios), RPG (educational mode in Assassin’s Creed: Origins [2017] and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey [2018]), or even survival horror: Kholat (2015, IMGN.PRO). The titles I describe present dif­ferent approach to factual sources: they add documentary footage as cutscenes (Never Alone), they build narration around real events and characters, and make the player’s avatar a fictional character (1979 Revolution), they base the game mechanics on the logic of events in well-defined real circumstances (This War of Mine). Since the works based on a genre-specific hybrid strategy occupy an important place in today’s audiovisual landscape, I think it would be worth fur­ther examining this “incompatible” area: a documentary, traditionally combined with truth and seriousness, and digital games, usually associated with fiction and entertainment.