Narratology and Ludology are seen as two schools that are diametrically opposed.

Exercise 1

We need to investigate the terms we are working with and try to gauge what we already know about them

Try to define the terms “Ludology” and “Narratology”. They are both schools of thought within Game Studies. Try to be concise and keep your definition to 1 or 2 sentences. You can discuss the terms with your neighbours but remember not to cloud the issues with trying to incorporate everyone's opinions

• LUDOLOGY

The term narratology had to be invented to unify the works that scholars from different disciplines were doing about narrative. The research about games and play is in a similar situation: the topics have been broadly studied from different disciplines (for example, psychology, anthropology, economy and sociology).

However, these studies are generally independent, focusing on small characteristics and without looking for bigger patterns of understanding. We will propose the term ludology (from ludus, the Latin word for "game"), to refer to the yet non-existent "discipline that studies game and play activities". Just like narratology, ludology should also be independent from the medium that supports the activity.

Gonzalo Frasca, "Ludology Meets Narratology," Parnasso #3, 1999

• LUDOLOGY

Ludology is the discipline that studies games, play, toys and videogames.

http://www.ludology.org/Ludology Blog

• LUDOLOGY

The college students glued to video game consoles today are as likely to be scholars as slackers. More than 100 colleges and universities in North America — up from less than a dozen five years ago — now offer some form of "video game studies," ranging from hard-core computer science to prepare students for game-making careers to critiques of games as cultural artefacts. ... Meanwhile, on the lit-crit front, some scholars have come up with a fancy name for their discipline: ludology, from the Latin ludus (game). Topics range from game philology to the study of virtual economies in EverQuest.

David Kushner, "Xbox U," Technology Review, March 1, 2006

• LUDOLOGY

n. The academic study of videogames. Taking its name from the Latin word for game, and deriving techniques from literary and film theory, ludology analyzes EverQuest as art and Grand Theft Auto as cultural artifact.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.08/start.html?pg=10Wired’s Jargon Watch

• NARRATOLOGY

Narratology examines the ways that narrative structures our perception of both cultural artefacts and the world around us. The study of narrative is particularly important since our ordering of time and space in narrative forms constitutes one of the primary ways we construct meaning in general

http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/narratology/modules/introduction.htmlGeneral Introduction to Narratology

• NARRATOLOGY This rather pretentious label refers to the structuralist study of narrative. The structuralist seeks to understand how recurrent elements, themes, and patterns yield a set of universals that determine the makeup of a story.

http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-921/story.htmNarratology: The Study of Story Structure

• NARRATOLOGY Narratology is the theory and study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways they affect our perception

http://www.reference.com/search?q=Narratology

Alan Hook

a.hook@mmu.ac.uk