However, I believe games are the primary (if not the only major) instantiation of the third factor: hypernarratives. The prefix "hyper-" was not chosen arbitrarily; games have a parallel to the standard hierarchy of prefixes, as follows:
- Subnarratives: the various micromotives and the resulting decisions that drive individual scenes of a work
- Narratives: the story of the work, taken as a whole
- Supernarratives: the ideas that underlie and intersect the narrative, refining the context in which the narrative's message is set; the semiotic and conceptual framework within which a narrator is telling the story
- Hypernarratives: the framework, built separately from the narrative by the person to whom the story is being told, that fundamentally changes the nature of the narrative
For instance, Ben from SLRC implemented a hypernarrative experiment in Far Cry 2 (h/t Clint Hocking), exploring the how the narrative is altered by literally changing the rules of the game.
Open-world games, in particular, are conducive to building hypernarratives. The quintessential example of such games is The Elder Scrolls series, especially the most recent two, wherein the so-called "main quest" can be completely ignored and dozens or hundreds of hours of play derived from entirely ancillary quests.
A final note: hypernarratives are not merely designed to make the game harder (c.f. the Nethack challenges). They are designed to add meaning, to enrich the narrative of the game with a narrative of one's own.
Next: Supernarratives and superheroes
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