From immersion to metagaming: Understanding rewind mechanics in interactive storytelling

Highlights

• We present a theoretical framework on the structure of rewinding in narrative games.

• We design and develop an interactive narrative game with two rewind versions.

• The rewind mechanics do not negatively affect player engagement.

Abstract

An increasing number of recent narrative games have incorporated the metagaming elements of rewinding and remaking choices as their core mechanics. Traditionally, narrative game designers were concerned that rewinding would break immersion and negatively affect players’ narrative experience. Although there has been research on metagaming as a whole, relatively little has been focused on the design of the rewinding mechanics and even less on empirical data regarding their impact on players. In this article, we present a theoretical framework on the structure of rewinding in narrative games, consisting of Restricted Rewind, Unrestricted Rewind, and External Rewind. To evaluate the impact of some of the main types of rewind structure, we developed three versions of an interactive narrative game called Rough Draft: a restricted rewind version, a parallel unrestricted rewind version, and a traditional no-rewind version. In a user study (n = 60), we evaluated the player experience of these three versions of Rough Draft in terms of gameplay engagement, narrative engagement, narrative transportation, and overall perceptions. Our results indicate that rewind mechanics do not negatively affect player engagement as previously believed. We also present our reflections and suggest design considerations for narrative games around rewind mechanics.

Introduction

Metagaming, broadly defined as a player using anything that exists outside of the world of the game in order to aid or progress gameplay [1], is a common element of gameplay culture. For instance, in fighting games, players routinely use real-life information about their opponents to choose the most advantageous strategies. In role-playing games, it is common to save the game before a boss fight so that the player may try again with new knowledge if she fails the first time.

For many narrative games, however, incorporating metagaming seems problematic. Successful narrative games traditionally require players to suspend their disbelief and be immersed in a carefully constructed story world. However, metagaming inherently draws players’ attention away from the diegetic world to the gaming interface, technical apparatus, cultural context, or the very idea that the player is interacting with a game. Common game design wisdom dictates that, when this happens, the player cannot suspend her disbelief and be fully immersed in the story world [2].

However, recent years have witnessed a surge of narrative games with metagaming elements as core game mechanics, most notably by allowing the player to rewind the game. Salient examples include, but are not limited to, Save the Date [3], Life is Strange [4], The Stanley Parable [5], Undertale [6], and Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward [7]. In all of these games, a player must rewind the story and remake her prior choices to complete the game. More notably, experimental games such as The Stanley Parable used the metagaming mechanics of rewinding without a diegetic rationale (e.g., time travel) to minimize the conflict between metagaming and narrative immersion.

The critical and commercial success of these games suggests the potential for metagaming in narrative games. With a few exceptions [8], there is a lack of understanding of 1) how to design metagaming-based narrative games, and 2) the impact metagaming core mechanics have on player experience. In this article, we attempt to answer these two questions by focusing on the metagaming core mechanic of rewinding.

In particular, we surveyed related games and developed a taxonomy of the structure of rewind mechanics, including restricted rewind, unrestricted rewind, and external rewind. Based on the insights we gained in our survey, we designed and developed an interactive story game Rough Draft. The game contains three different versions: one with restricted rewind, one with unrestricted rewind, and one with no rewind. Our prior work described the narrative design of Rough Draft [9] and a preliminary analysis of our user study [10]. Extending our prior work, this article present a more developed theoretical framework and an in-depth analysis of our user study results. Results of our mix-methods study (n = 60) show that rewind mechanics do not negatively affect player engagement as previously believed. Additionally, our study helped us to identify several design implications when designing storytelling games around rewind mechanics that have not been sufficiently theorized previously.

Though we surveyed a range of games with rewind mechanics, our empirical work on understanding players’ reaction is limited to different types of rewind mechanics through a text-based game. Further research is needed to investigate more related games and especially games with more graphic presentations.

The rest of the article is organized as follows. We first describe related work in metagaming in general and the use of rewind mechanics in contemporary storytelling games. Next, we present our theoretical framework on the structure of the rewind. We then describe the design rationale of our interactive narrative project Rough Draft and report results from our user study. We conclude the article with discussions and future directions.