Playing with Time in Digital Fiction

Abstract

The exceptional quality of digital fictions lies in their inherently dynamic nature, how they may be flexibly programmed to generate new content and alter the already existing contents. This adds a new temporal level, compared to traditional fictions. Digital games, especially, incorporate aspects of simulation and narration in their structure. As interactive and dynamic media form, games are specifically temporal in nature. They offer us the flexibility and preciseness of digital simulations, with the potential of psychologically engaging narrative qualities, which together open up a whole new field of experimenting with temporally dynamic media. Much of the new media fictions partake in a wider transmedia story worlds with temporal implications of their own. In this article the temporal dimension of the digital fictions the Braid (by Jonathan Blow, 2008) and the Spore (by Will Wright for Maxis, 2008) are discussed. We will focus on how these digital fictions, employing aspects of simulation, play and narration, highlight the idea of time as resource.