THEORETICAL GROUNDS FOR STUDYING VIDEOGAME PROJECTIONS OF FICTION

Abstract

The interaction of different arts has constantly attracted the attention of artists and scholars since Aristotle’s times. Each epoch offered its vision of the peculiarities of intermedial dialogue, which led to the formation of a separate field of literary comparative studies. The growing popularity of intermedial studies is due to the diversification of forms of inter-artistic interaction and the emergence of new types of media. Such media include videogames that have not yet become the subject of a holistic scientific consideration. At the same time, understanding of the potential of games’ synergy with other arts leads to some shifts in the existing paradigm of intermedial studies, and videogame representations of texts of other arts are gradually attracting the attention of scholars. The purpose of this work is to systematize theoretical data on intermedial relations between literary texts and videogames in order to create the necessary foundation for future studies. Analysis of modern research papers on the topic clarifies the meaning of the concept of ‘intermediality”, determines the role and place of video games in the context of intermedial studies, summarizes existing views on the transformation of verbal coding of fiction into visual-audio coding of video games. Special emphasis is laid on the interactive nature of videogames and the significance of this phenomenon in the inter-artistic transformations. It is noteworthy that modern videogames are perceived as an important media product suitable for serious scientific elaboration in the context of interartistic interaction, translation of literary text into the language of the game is a promising area of intermedial studies. Interactivity as an integral tool of videogames is an important factor that determines the ways of rethinking a literary text, as well as a means of establishing a narrative and ludonarrative basis in video game adaptations. It is obvious that the process of representing literary works by means of videogames is a broad field of studies and requires more careful consideration in both theoretical and practical aspects.