House of Ashes and the mechanics of a horror interactive storytelling

Authors

  • Pedro Sasse Universidade Federal Fluminense

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9826.literartes.2022.198058

Keywords:

horror, videogames, intermedia

Abstract

Born from the literary gothic, horror has, since the 20th century, embraced cinema as one of its central media. In the 21th century, videogames are becoming a new space for the production of frightening narratives, demanding from specialized criticism an effort to understand the new ways of creating horror that emerge from them. In this
way, a specific genre stands out by finding itself in a border position between games and cinema: the interactive storytelling games, in which the player determines, by his actions, the unfold of a narrative mainly presented by cutscenes. By taking as our object the game House of Ashes (2021), by Supermassive Games, we propose here a critical analysis of the mechanics used in this kind of games, bearing in mind their obstacles for the production
of asthetic effects of horror, especially when  compared with the already consolidated survival horror genre.

Author Biography

  • Pedro Sasse, Universidade Federal Fluminense

    Pedro Sasse é doutor em Estudos Literários pela Universidade Federal Fluminense. O presente
    trabalho foi realizado com apoio da Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
    - Brasil (CAPES) - Código de Financiamento 001.

References

BELL, Alice. The Possible Worlds of Hypertext Fiction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

BOTTING, Fred. Gothic. 2ª edição. Londres e Nova York: Routledge, 2013.

BOTVINICK, Matthew; COHEN, Jonathan. “Rubber hands ‘feel’ touch that eyes see”. Nature, vol. 391, 19 fev 1998, p. 756.

CARROLL, Noël. A Filosofia do horror ou paradoxos do coração. Tradução de Roberto Leal Ferreira. Campinas: Papirus Editora, 1999.

ELLESTRÖM, Lars. As modalidades de mídia II: um modelo expandido para compreender as relações intermidiais. Porto Alegre: EdiPUCRS, 2021.

FRANÇA, Júlio (2016). “O Gótico e a presença fantasmagórica do passado”. In: Anais eletrônicos do XV encontro da ABRALIC, v.1. Rio de Janeiro: Dialogarts. p.2492-2502.

GREGERSEN, Andreas; GRODAL, Torben. “Embodiment and Interface.” In PERRON, Bernard; WOLF, Mark J. P. The Video Game Theory Reader 2. Nova York: Routledge, 2009, p. 65–83.

PERRON, Bernard. The World of Scary Videogames: a Study in Videoludic Horror. Nova York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Published

2022-12-30

How to Cite

SASSE, Pedro. House of Ashes and the mechanics of a horror interactive storytelling. Literartes, São Paulo, Brasil, v. 1, n. 16, p. 25–49, 2022. DOI: 10.11606/issn.2316-9826.literartes.2022.198058. Disponível em: https://revistas.usp.br/literartes/article/view/198058.. Acesso em: 26 jun. 2024.