ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a series of research steps and sample questions that intermedial scholars will want to pursue to make sense of video games through the lens of their relationship to other media. For simplicity’s sake, we chose to include only single-player games to give prospective intermedial scholars of games a clearer idea of what a basic intermedial analysis of a game might entail. Almost all video games are animated. Whether it is via a sparkling animation of a gemstone or the elaborate motion-captured facial performance of a real actor, the worlds of computer games come alive as a result of the painstaking work of animators. Toonstruck is a graphical adventure game, which is a submedium of the qualified media type we call the video game. One shining example of how computer games adapt the conventions of literature is the textual adventure game 80 Days. 80 Days is an exquisitely crafted piece of playable literature.
