a special relationship to the way that players are forced to accept responsibility for their choices . 1 It should be clear from the outset that when discussing the consequences of choice in video games , the frame of reference is strictly limited to the narrative onscreen . Consequence in this manner always refers to in-game consequence . It is one of the defining features of all games that the consequences of a player ’ s in-game actions are independent of the consequences in the real world . 2 But video games are especially efficient at presenting seemingly significant choices because they can keep track of consequences , enforce resulting changes within the narrative , and present them to the player in a way that is easily accessible .
Until Dawn is one such video game featuring the consequences of choice , but , as an interactive slasher film wherein players become directors , it subverts genre tropes through decisions couched on false premises to create a disconnect between player expectation and player choice . The signs which cue the recognition of a particular film as belonging to a certain genre are many and varied . The visual style of the title graphics , the accompanying music , the cast of the film , its setting , story structure , narrative style including its lighting patterns , color system , types of discourse in the dialogue , emphasized camera shots , can all offer the audience a set of expectations which inform the coding systems brought to the film by the audience . 3 As well as placing a film in a certain genre , it is even possible to position films by raising generic expectations which will not be met , so that the film reacts against 1
Mary Flanagan , Critical Play : Radical Game Design ( Cambridge , MA : MIT Press ,
2009 ), p . 63 . 2 Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman , Rules of Play : Game Design Fundamentals
( Cambridge , MA : MIT Press , 2004 ), p . 460 . 3 Jonathan Bignell , Media Semiotics : An Introduction , Second Edition ( Manchester : Manchester University Press , 2002 ), p . 199 .
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