1. The setting-up of space in video games The problem of the setting-up of the space in video games, translated into subjective terms, amounts to the problem of the immersion of the gamer into a vir- tual world. Immersion is the experience of the gamer by E C means of which her/his actions appear to her/him as belonging to an autonomous artistic world, to a virtual nature with its own laws. Not in the sense of intense ab- sorption, but in that of incorporation (Calleja 2007, p. 134). We could consider immersion as characteristic of the virtual world as opposed to identification in traditio- Manic Miner under the Shadow of nal art, because their requisites are different. The tradi- tional work of art offers indeed a physis, a ready-made the Colussus: a Semiotic Analysis world that can only be received. We cannot take part in of the Spatial Dimension in the action of a film, in the structure of a painting, in Platform Video Games the development of a symphony; we can only identify 0 ourselves with a particular inner moment and attend to Joaquìn Siabra-Fraile it in relation with the others within the piece. In this regard the traditional work of art is like an automaton. The video game, however, does require an action by the this indicating, this signalling constituted? The problem of 1 gamer in order to build itself internally . Even though the setting-up of the space is linked, in this way, with the the pair video game-gamer works, truly, also as an au- problem of the intelligibility of the logical space in which tomaton (the video game is programmed), with regards to the game consists8. the gamer the way the virtual world occurs is a particu- 2 lar kind of openness (the video game would be a second 2. The intelligibility of space in video games degree automaton). Put in another way: if we understand If we understand the logical space as a set of possible the video game – as usual – as a kind of interactive film, interdependencies of the objects of the video game (so then (because of that interactivity) it cannot offer us the those objects appear in it as restrictions9 on the action), narrative plot as a mere internal display, but it would previously then the logical space is the form of everything that can have to model the world where that plot can develope. The video occur within the video game. The video game would be game, therefore rather than a work or a text, is the logi- cal space where that work will be built. We will call this the resulting event of the inner relation between the ob- logical space (only in this constructive-lawlike sense) a jects. Each and every one of the objects of a video game virtual world. If this virtual world has to work as such a appears as point in a net of relations, demarcations of world, the artistic mimesis will have to operate at the le- meaning in their mutual interrelation, which direct the vel of the laws of the world. Then the video game does action. But this action actually has no other purpose not imitate things, but the laws that rule the behaviour than to show, to reveal, the mutual interrelation of these of the things (Frasca 2003, pp. 2-4). What really matters objects: when in Silent Hill 2 it is required to combine a is that the work answers to our action. And a meaningful child’s hair with a bent needle in order to obtain a key answer requires to be inserted into an adequate plot that is stuck in a drain (the key is in turn necessary to of relations3. This will be a condition of the semiotic enter a lift), what is demanded is for that mutual rela- analysis. A piece of music, a play, a film are not virtual tion between the objects hair, needle, key to be made clear. worlds in this sense because they do not allow us to get This articulation is the reason of what can and cannot involved in the piece of music, play or film in terms be done in Silent Hill City. Such are the objects with of performativity4. The video game demands an action which the gamer has to deal in the video game; a table, that will change the state of things showed to us5. The a weapon, a corridor are functions in the complete plot, 10 problem could be stated as such: how can we determine possibilities of action . For instance, a building in Silent internally to the video game the actions that make sense Hill Origins is made up of several rooms interconnected and those that are not even seen as possibilities? Or in in various manners by means of closed or locked do- terms of immersion: how do we know what we have to do ors, while a building in Starcraft is part of a particular and how to do it in certain situations set out in the video game?6 technological tree of production. Objects appear in the The answer is broad and we are only considering it in video game, therefore, as signs of a particular function its strict physical or spatial aspect here7. For instance, in (Barthes 1985). And the articulation of those objects- the platform video game Ico a closed door indicates to us signs (of a certain state of things in which we find our- that another way is to be looked for, while in a videoa- selves) is what gives meaning, that is, it is what signals to us dventure such as The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hour Glass what has to be done11. The video game always presents a closed door signals the need of a key to open it. How is a collection of objects defined by what can be done E|C Serie Speciale ISSN (on-line): 1970-7452 © 2009 AISS - Associazione Italiana di Studi Semiotici Anno III, nn. 5, 2009, pp. 67-74 ISSN (print): 1973-2716 T. reg. Trib. di Palermo n. 2 - 17.1.2005 with them. The relations between them limit or allow 3. The ontological status of the virtual object. certain actions that, in turn, change the state of things The object as sign and world as discourse 12 in that virtual world . The interrelation of the objects We go back to the question: how, when faced with a certain of the video game (that is, of the audiovisual signs of situation set out in the video game, do we know what we have to functions), fits the interrelation of the possibility of ac- do and how to do it?19 In other words: how do we know tions in the video game. That is, since the objects-signs what is left to obtain the goal? And in which way is the categorically determine the logical space of actions that goal itself built as such? It only makes sense to speak are possible with them, the possibility of such objects-signs is of expectations, and of the goal associated to such ex- the possibility of meaning. That meaning is what will make pectations, within the game. In the logical space of the it possible to complete the video game13. What has to video game the objects have a meaning because of the be done in a video game is determined by the constitu- regulated use given to them, but the rules are defined tion of objects-signs that appear in it: so the possibilities according to those objects that they regulate. Indeed, in a videoadventure (such as Phoenix Right Ace Attorney or what the objects that appear in the video game are de- Fahrenheit) and in an arcade game (Ninja Gaiden II, Gears pends on their use, and they only appear in the video 20 of Wars) are different, because the objects-signs, always game inasmuch as they have a use . The objects allow the understood as shapers of a logical space around them, actions to be achieved, but there cannot be, in contrast, objects with no reference to the actions in which they are connected in different ways. In the videoadventure a might be involved. In this way a wooden box in a shooter book can be transported, given to someone, read; in an such as Resident Evil 4 hides ammunition (and it can be arcade game it can be destroyed or used as a projectile, destroyed); in a platform video game such as Psychonauts etc. What can be done (the possibilities, and with it the it allows us to reach, by jumping from it, a higher place; meaning of what is shown) is determined as a body of while in a driving game it is an obstacle to avoid (and it possibilities by the way that every sign designates. may or may not be destroyed) as happens in an episo- In this way the concrete actions executed in the video de of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas; in a videoadventure, game are accidental insofar as they are not arranged it prevents us from going through a door (and it can- according to the codetermination of objects (i.e. finding not be destroyed, it acts as a signal: a very much used the broomstick, the string and the paper clip in one se- method to prevent reentering a scenario that has been quential order or other, is indifferent to the fact that completed, like in Rule of Rose). The problem is to deter- they must be combined together, they and no others, which is is mine that use21.