ABSTRACT
In contrast to the traditional scholarly and literary focus upon geographical, mythopoetic and narrative, aesthetic and architectural, and historical elements of world-building, this essay will aim instead to unpack the value of culture, society, and politics to game world-building. These are dimensions that have been rarely analyzed by scholars or considered fully in literature designed to aid the world-building creator. Nor have they been often examined in behind-the-scenes media relating the process of game design to interested audiences. Nevertheless, they have been an inextricable and essential component of many of the most detailed video game world-building efforts to date, such as the Deus Ex, Bioshock, Command & Conquer, Crusader Kings, and Soulsborne series and games such as Alpha Centauri (1999). However, their lack of physicality or easy presentation when compared to the traditional world-building elements – since political, social, and cultural dimensions of life tend to be complex, diffuse, actively enacted, or embodied – may seem harder to depict in a game than elements such as architecture or geography that are readily visually portrayed and harder to relate in a design context to the interested observer. This essay is therefore designed specifically to unpack these three dimensions of world-building, relate their importance to the consideration of constructing densely detailed video game worlds, and examine how these dimensions are constructed to intersect with gameplay and bring such concerns into the foreground of the player’s experiences. It will do so via a reflexive examination of the author’s own game design efforts on the in-development, Roguelike Ultima Ratio Regum, which has been noted for its objective of becoming the most detailed “culture simulator” yet designed in a game and to depict an in-game world that fundamentally revolves around the cultural practices and interactions of its societies. The essay will analyze the game design focused centrally on these elements, integrating them into gameplay and finding ways to visually and clearly represent these elements to players. In the process, it will draw illustrative comparisons to the series and games mentioned previously, seeking to develop a typology of the methods by which these elements can be shown to the player. Exploring the work and its interweaving of the social, cultural, and political elements of world-building alongside core gameplay objectives, the essay will argue for a renewed interest within game studies in such elements of game design, the potential for new kinds of gameplay that can emerge from a detailed simulation and presentation of these aspects, and their centrality to any comprehensive understanding of world-building in video games.
