🎮The Spectrum of Interactivity and Gamification in Digital Theatre

Wayfinding: Taxonomy > Interactive & Gamified Theatre > The Spectrum of Interactivity and Gamification in Digital Theatre

: ludology, or the ‘focus attention on the mechanics of the functions of computer games and reject an analysis of computer games as narratives’; and narratology, or ‘researching aspects of visual representation, the notion of movement, narrative space and time, character narrativity, animation techniques, etc.’ within game-worlds because ‘the most popular ones [games] … have a strong narrative element or share common characteristics with Hollywood blockbusters’. Numerous games, both analogue and digital, combine narrative and ludic elements to tell stories; for gaming, the narrative element is unique, but for theatre productions, adding ludic (or game-like) elements is relatively new.

Digital tools offer more interactive options for theatre makers, which might mean fully gamifying a show, but for many theatre markers during the pandemic and now post-pandemic periods, there were a wider range of interactive options. I have observed in case studies that there is a developing spectrum of interactivity combining ludic or gamified elements; here I have developed four proposed categories (in the following subsections) that are points on this interactivity spectrum, though there may be more.

Figure 14: An illustration of the gamified theatre spectrum I created in Canva.