Freedom Baird
Non-Linear and Interactive Narrative
Week 12 - May 1, 1996

The Narrative Structure of Games

The game I've chosen for this assignment is Assassin. It's a game that I played often in college, and is a cocktail party version of the one played by MIT students.

The general outline of the game is as follows: A group of people (ideally 8-12 total) sit in a circle. Standard playing cards are distributed, one per player. One of the cards is the Ace of Spades. The player who receives that card is the Assassin. When everyone has turned in their card, the game begins. Everyone must look silently around the circle, making eye contact with all the other players. Hiding one's gaze in one's lap defeats the purpose of the game, and is not an option. The goal of the Assassin is to kill everyone off without being detected. The assassin can kill people by winking at them, or making some other gesture, or by touching them. If a player sees the Assassin's gesture, they have to feign death (dramatically or otherwise) and stay dead 'till the round is over. The goal of all non-assassin players is to stay alive as long as possible, and, if possible, to expose the assassin by catching him/her in the act of killing someone. It's easiest for the Assassin to kill people with gestures when the group is large. A deft assassin will first kill someone theatrical, who's antics distract most of the players, allowing the assassin to kill a few more. When the group gets small, the assassin's best tactic is to kill them all off at once with a sweeping dive-tackle.

Although the assassination metaphor seems quite brutal, this is actually a pretty sensuous and flirtatious game, because it involves a group of people sitting around staring into each others' eyes and making coy little gestures at one another.

Answers to questions:

1. There is a plot to the game, albeit a simple one. The assassin must kill everyone. The other players must survive, and if possible expose the assassin.

2. The characters in the game are the assassin, and the other players who are potential victims/detectives. The game is most entertaining when the players get really involved in playing their roles.

3. This is certainly an adversary game. One player is pitted against the rest of the group, but has the advantage of being the initiator of action.

4. The spatial arrangement of the game is a circle whose size remains fixed. This can make the game difficult for the assassin, especially if s/he has killed off all of the players sitting nearby, and must then kill off the players opposite. This is especially hard, because it's almost impossible to kill them by touch, and because they're all facing the assassin.

5. There is time in the game. Players die on by one, and those who remain alive are very much aware of how long they've survived. A subtle and patient assassin can really draw out the process, making the game long and tense.

6. Players who get killed off during the game are losers. The game's clear end-point arrives when one of two things occurs. Either the assassin can kill everyone, in which case s/he is the winner, or a player can expose the assassin, in which case that player is the winner.

7. The game is meant for repeated play. Every new round is graced by the mystery of not knowing who has drawn the Ace of Spades. Every player inhabits the roles of assassin/victim/detective differently, which adds variety to the game.

8. Assassin is a multiple player game for sure.

9. As I've already described, the game has two roles, that of assassin, and that of victim/detective. The prescribed behaviors of the roles are straightforward, but players are at their liberty to embellish these roles with whatever sorts of dramatics they see fit. Different sorts of skills are rewarded differently in the game. A brazen and quick assassin can kill a whole circle of people with one sweeping hand gesture. A cool and subtle assassin can kill an entire circle off one by one without ever being detected. A watchful detective can appear to be oblivious, then bust the assassin in the act.

10. The events of the game are: (1) the assignment of roles by card drawing, (2) the gestures made by the assassin, (3) the deaths enacted by the victims (4) the expose made by the detective (if any), (4) the constant looking around the circle made by all the players throughout the game. The card-drawing randomizes the role-assignment. Also, there's an element of randomness in the way players' gazes intersect across and bounce around in the circle. The players actions' are constrained physically. They aren't allowed to speak, or get up from their seated positions. In fact, the assassin is the only player allowed to make obvious gestures, which s/he somehow has to conceal from all players except the one for whom they're intended.

11. A move in the game is one act of killing/dying, that involves the assassin and one player. This move is repeated until the assassin wins or is exposed, either of which could also constitute a move. I'd say that all three of these: killing/dying, conquest, and exposure, are very Propp-like morphemes.

12. The ending of the game is extremely satisfying, because ultimately the assassin's identity is revealed, and the other players are either surprised that they didn't guess who it was, or pleased that they knew all along.

13. I love several things about this game. It's extremely sociable, and, as I mentioned, can be quite sensuous. It can also be hilarious when players get into dying with flair (crumpling on the carpet, going limp on the furniture, etc.).

14. I honestly can't remember hating anything about this game. As with any game, it had a certain life span the times that I played it. It usually lasted 3/4ths of an hour or more, and the group of people I played it with liked the game so much that we played it several times a week for a over a month. I'd be curious to play the MIT version of the game, which might be an improvement, because the roles and activities of the players are greatly expanded.

15. Reproducing this version of Assassin for the computer would pretty much be impossible. It's all about eye contact and physical gestures unmediated by any devices or props.

The truth is, all the games I've ever really enjoyed have been highly social (team sports, card and dice games, board games, dictionary, etc.). Although I've tried out scores of arcade and computer games, I've never really enjoyed any of them. I once spent two weeks playing a Sega-like computer game for several hours a day, but I also happened to be feeling depressed and anti-social right around that time. I have, however, spent a good deal of time socializing and role-playing in Lambda MOO, which I really enjoyed. I suppose this is a result of gender and generational influences (it wasn't 'till I was in high school that some of my male peers started playing Space Invaders and Asteroids. I used to like hanging around and watching them play, but never cared to play myself). I worry about the impact on the incoming generation of the anti-social and a-physical nature of contempo-rary computer games.

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baird@media.mit.edu