Storytelling for Media. Joachim Friedmann

Crush Saga. Bejeweled was a great commercial success and is considered one of the most important pioneers for the casual games. What is the difference between Shariki and Bejeweled, which both follow the same game mechanics? Apart from minor innovations, Bejeweled stands out for its more complex and sophisticated graphics. The pieces now differ not only in color but also in shape. Furthermore, they are not only abstract shapes or orbs, but Bejeweled game pieces are shaped like jewels. Candy Crush Saga continues in the design of the game space and the game objects. The game pieces differ in colour and shape and are based on sweets. Childlike characters in cartoon style, designed like puppets, lead the player through the setting, where places like the “Pastilles Pyramid,” the “Gingerbread Glade” or the “Bubblegum Bridge” are located.

      Tiffi and Mr. Toffee, two of the characters from Candy Crush Saga, with a pot full of jewels. All elements of the game conform to the childlike and colorful design. © Nguyen Hung Vu, 2013 on flickr under CC BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/vuhung/10405325514

      In the course of the game, cut scenes introduce the problems of the inhabitants of the country: a unicorn has lost its horn, Lemonade Lake has dried up, the Yeti has gotten caught in a sticky-sugar mass. In short: all elements of the game space and the associated world, which were not yet present in Shariki or Bejeweled, are consistently committed to a childlike, colourful, innocent design. Here, too, one can speak of a semantic space, even if at first glance no second, complementary semantic space is realized and no border crossing takes place. But in the form of obstacles, which restrict the recipient in the combination of the game pieces, an oppositional principle breaks into the world of the Candy Crush Saga: black liquorice blocks the movements of the players; colourless jelly surrounds the game pieces and makes them immobile; dark brown chocolate appears in the playing field and restricts freedom of movement. The oppositions colourful vs. colourless, mobile vs. static, light vs. dark are realized here. It should be emphasized that Candy Crush Saga does not tell a real story. Nevertheless, many narrative design elements are used, most consistently spatial semantics. It is not conclusive to determine to what extent spatial semantics are responsible for the success of the game. Nevertheless, it is striking that the same game mechanics become more and more popular with increasing semantization.

      In visual narrative media, this semantization can also be applied on a formal level, in which not only the narrated space is designed, but also the space in which the narrative is presented, such as in the first season of the TV series Homecoming. The series takes place on two time levels, in 2018 and four years later, in 2022. In 2022, the protagonist Heidi Bergman has lost her memory and no longer remembers the events of 2018, when she conducted a psychological experiment with war veterans. The two time levels are thus in opposition to knowledge vs. non-knowledge. The formal presentation space is also semanticized because the 2018 story is staged in the conventional 16:9 image format, while the plot in the future is presented in a smaller, square format. Moreover, this time level is desaturated and darker in color. In the 8th episode of the series, Heidi’s memory returns in 2022, followed by a transformational turn (see Chapter 6 Transformation) from non-knowledge to knowledge, which also changes the image format, back to 16:9 as in the past. When Heidi, in the tenth episode in 2018 takes the medicine that caused her to lose her memory, the opposite transformation from knowledge to non-knowledge is realized, thus changing the picture format again from 16:9 to the small, square picture. The different image formats thus not only serve to visually differentiate the time levels but also semanticize the states of knowledge vs. non-knowledge on a formal level.

      The semantization of space as a narrative design strategy can thus take place on many levels and go beyond topographical and topological categories. Therefore, it does not have to be adapted to the reduced specifications of Lotman’s model. Nevertheless, it remains Lotman’s merit to have theoretically grasped and specified narrative spatial design and to have shown that the representation of space in narrative texts is different from that in purely descriptive texts. The semantization of space, one can formulate in relation to Lotman, is a distinct narrative strategy that can be applied transmedially.

      3.3 Hierarchization of Spatial Events

      Actions concerning space and its order obviously have a special meaning in narratives, when Lotman makes a border crossing a definitory prerequisite for the narrative form and the role of the hero. On this basis, the narratologist MICHAEL TITZMANN defines further spatial events and prioritizes them. According to Titzmann, an even higher significance than a border crossing is a so-called border shift. We encounter this motif again in many Westerns and other narratives in the United States that glorify the movement of settlers to the West. There, the white man not only changes the border, but with courage, energy, and determination, also brings law, order, and civilization into a country that was previously described as “uncivilized” – a semantization strategy that many narratives of colonial literature follow. The murder of the indigenous people, which went hand in hand with the moving of the border, was presented as a necessary price to pay for the establishment of the new order. This, of course, is a question of perspective: the rearrangement of the border can also be portrayed as a cruel invasion if it is depicted from the point of view of the indigenous people, as happens in Blue Bird. The myths and stories surrounding the Christian crusades also depict the history of border shifts. From the point of view of the western world, Christianity was brought back to the Holy Land in the course of the border shift, while many modern Muslim stories still portray the trauma caused by the foreign aggressors. But regardless of the reception, the destruction of a border is dramaturgically even more powerful than a shift. Stories that describe the liberation from a tyrannical despot or a totalitarian system often contain the dissolution of a border. Thus the five-part feature film epic Liberation released in 1970 is a dramatized account of the Second World War from a Soviet perspective. At the end of the film, the Soviet soldiers fraternise with German civilians, the political and semantic border that separated the two peoples no longer exists, and the Soviet flag flutters on the Reichstag. Accordingly, the film Good Bye Lenin! (2003) tells the story of the renewed border dissolution after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Protagonist Alexander Kerner’s mother Christiane, a loyal believer in the communist regime, is bedridden with a heart condition, so Alexander and the family try to conceal the fall of the Berlin Wall because Alexander believes that the shock of learning the truth would kill her.

      The most significant event, however, is the extinction of a room: when an entire semantic room is destroyed or disappears. Examples of such events are the sinking of the Titanic, the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars, or the demise of Mordor after the destruction of the One Ring. Mount Doom burns the remaining Nazgûl and covers Mordor with lava with its final eruption. Everything Sauron has built with the power of the One Ring is destroyed, along with its creator. The entire semantic space of tyranny he has erected is destroyed. When socialist rulers, in 1950, demolished the old Berlin City Palace, the resulting worldwide indignation was possibly due to the fact that the destruction of space is perceived as such an important event. The new socialist system, already responsible for a border shift, then destroyed the space of the old order by blowing up an already-damaged building.

       Chapter 3 summary:

      The space in which the actions and events of a story are portrayed is more than just a stage or a container; it carries meaning and contributes to the production of meaning on a semantic level. This was first described systematically by semiotician Juri Lotman. The setting is thus a semantic field divided into two semantically complementary fields separated by a border. Only the hero of the narrative can overcome this boundary. The two semantic spaces are shaped in topological, topographic, and semantic oppositions. However, a crossing of borders is not a compelling characteristic of every story; semantizations can also be realized without crossing borders, for example through colors, language or the activation of narrative scripts. Media scientist Henry Jenkins calls the latter strategy “evocative spaces.” Space events can also be hierarchized. A border shift or border dissolution is perceived as more significant than a border crossing, a maximally significant event is a destruction of space.

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