The Edge of Story

Tynan Sylvester · 30 Apr 2012

Tynan Sylvester did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Narrative is not a real category; it is a cultural label for a cluster of emotional triggers games happen to share with older media.
Mental modelThe map is not the territory

Their wordsThe concept of narrative is not absolute. It is merely a label for a cluster of emotional triggers which games happen to share with certain traditional media.
Our reading
There is no sharp line between a game’s story and its mechanics.

Their wordsThere is no sharp line between fiction, story, narrative, and mechanics.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.