Libraries in digital games : representations and explorations

Abstract

This article explores the representation and spatial configurations of libraries in digital games. It considers their participation in the contemporary (pop-)cultural imaginaries and thematics surrounding the idea of the library, arguing that the libraries represented in games are shaped by the encounter between these broader currents and the digital materiality and design conventions of the medium. The argument draws upon a range of examples across genres, considering the significance accorded to libraries within digital games and taking as its starting-point the representation of print archives and the spaces that contain them, although it will later extend this to include a reflection on digital archives. A set of persistent associations and motifs is identified – such as the forgotten and/or ruined archive, nostalgia, and the library as house of secrets or as repository of history and tradition – and their significance unpacked. In particular, a tension between the archive as a space entrusted with stabilising memory and the archive as precarious is identified. This tension is often accompanied by spatial disorientation, in the ‘puzzling’ architectural layout of the library itself. What emerges, however, is that this inclination towards incoherence is often itself in tension with the driving impetus to ‘solve’ or reconstruct the library-in-pieces, make use of the fragments themselves as clues, or exploit library spaces in goal-oriented ways.