Jeux de voies et jeux de voix

Abstract

Through a study of the walking simulator genre, this paper focuses on game sound writing. First, Dear Esther: Landmark Edition (DE:LE) is presented as a well-documented example of the walking simulator genre. Then, a sound and semiopragmatic analysis of the first chapter of DE:LE explains how discursive strategies, aimed at subverting the first person shooter genre, are enacted by this game to signify its ludic proposition. Finally, this paper demonstrates how the experiences of DE:LE are framed by the creation of tensions within the acoustic ecology by an acousmatic narrator, which is identified as a genre-defining figure in the sound writing of the walking simulator.

Keywords

• sound writing
• walking simulator
• ludomusicology
• semiopragmatics
• acousmatic narrator
• transdiegeticity