Video Games & Origami Unicorns

In Henry Jenkin's lecture on transmedia, he talks about "the revenge of the origami unicorn". An origami unicorn is a "single element that transforms our understanding of a core narrative." And this element is about "extending meaning, deepening emotional resonance, and transforming the way we see the original."

While this blog does not focus on transmedia, I am using Jenkin's "origami unicorn" idea to emphasize the importance of a game's narrative and player choice. Jenkin's explanation of the origami unicorn and it's expansion of knowledge that pertains to a particular narrative can be used in defense of video games, in that player choice allows for further exploration and discovery of story elements within a game's world and narrative.

Assassin's Creed 2 featured an origami unicorn in the form of an optional objective. Throughout this sandbox game, the player is encouraged to find 20 glyphs throughout the different historical cities he explores. These glyphs lead to puzzles, and once these puzzles are solved the player is rewarded with a video clip. Each clip does not make sense on its own, but once the player has found and deciphered all of the glyphs, the completed video makes sense in the game's world; the video is an elaboration upon the game's story.

Below are a video of a player locating a glyph, and also a video of the puzzle that follows.




The following video is from Mass Effect 2. The video features a side-quest, and this one happens to be a sort of quest that is known as a loyalty quest. Throughout the game the player is given a choice to acquire crew members for his spaceship that will help the player in battle. Once you have acquired the crew member, you have the further option of their loyalty quest which will be beneficial for the player to complete. In Samara's loyalty quest, the player actually has the choice to kill her and choose to have her daughter, Morinth, join the crew instead. There are many choices like this in the game, and each choice affects the player's renegade or paragon levels. If the player's level of renegade or paragon is weighed down on one side more than the other, the player's avatar in the game will change in appearance to look evil or normal. The player's conversation choices are also affected.



The final example of an origami unicorn is from Fallout 3. In this game, the player has emerged from his life in a nuclear fallout shelter and begins to explore the world in 2277, 200 years after the nuclear apocalypse that occurred in Fallout 2. The player has one main quest that he follows, but along the way may do a large number of side quests. One side quest that is easy to miss is a quest where the player can acquire a canine companion, Dogmeat. Once the player beats the quest, Dogmeat will follow him around and help him in battle. If the player did not have the choice of exploration and of so many different quests and objectives, the story of the game would never be expanded upon with the addition of Dogmeat.



All three of these examples are completely optional portions of the games and are not required to "beat" the game. The purpose of these optional quests are to provide deeper narrative and also sometimes provide rewards for the player. Ebert's notion that player choice is the number one reason why games cannot be art is easily refuted based on these examples. If the player did not have the choice to do these side quests, the game narrative would not be extended upon in these specific ways. The fact that there is an option for the gamer to further explore the game's narrative is an example of why games are art, not why they are not.