Time for New Terminology? - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 89

into the gameworld. Used as an interface, sound
often takes on a relativistic position where it is
integrated into the gameworld while remaining
part of the game system. Using sound signals that
are based on real world sounds, but which have
been stylized, user interface designers add sounds
that provide the necessary usability information
at the same time as ensuring the sounds seem
natural to the environment of the game. Ekman's
masking sounds are textbook examples of this.
Another example is the response “More work?”
by Warcraft 3' s orc peons. As a verbal statement
produced by a character in the gameworld, it has
a direct link to that gameworld, but at the same
time it is an interface sound produced in response
to player action. However, the sound is not an
actual sound of an event in the gameworld, since
it would make little sense if the peon actually
were talking to the player.

ing that all elements affecting gameplay should
be counted within in the gamespace, regardless
of whether these are part of the original system
or design. From this point of view, gamespace
seems to be equivalent to Grimshaw's and Ber-
ndt's understanding of diegesis, since it includes
external system features relevant for gameplay,
such as voiceovers announcing new players enter-
ing the game. Gamespace is therefore also what
Droumeva (2011) seems to have in mind when
focusing on the importance of live chat and talk
that happens during group play. The gamespace is
thus separated from the gameworld by including
all features that have direct relevance to progress
in the gameworld, be it score music signaling ap-
proaching enemies or add-on software in World of
Warcraft, while the gameworld is the contained
universe or environment designed for play in which
actions and events take place. In this sense, a static
overlay interface of a computer game is part of the
gamespace, even though it may not be part of the
gameworld, while a dynamic integrated interface
would be part of the gameworld.
For clarification, take the screenshot from Dia-
blo II in Figure 1 as an illustration. The right half of
the screen consisting of inventory, the bottom ac-
tion bar including health and mana measurements,
and the upper left icon of the avatar's minion are
all parts of the overlaid interface. These should
not be interpreted as part of the gameworld, which
is represented by the virtual environment on the
left. The interface features are, however, directly
relevant for player progress in the gameworld,
and they are also attributes governed by the game
system. They must therefore be seen as part of the
gamespace; that is, the space of action relevant for
the game progression included within the magic
circle of the game. Now consider the left side of
the screenshot, a screen segment of the gameworld.
One interesting feature in this part of the image is
the small illuminated icon above the avatar's head
which represents a boost to the avatar's stamina. In
terms of transdiegeticity, I would have explained
this feature as internal transdiegetic because, in

Gameworld vs. Gamespace

So far we have seen that game system informa-
tion and game user interface features such as
sound may be more or less integrated into the
gameworld. However, they will also have a spe-
cific relationship to the gamespace of a specific
game. Looking at this relationship may provide
us with clear insights into how gameworlds
work compared to diegeses. Gamespace should
be understood as the conceptual space in which
the game is played (Juul, 2005, p. 167), inde-
pendent of any possible fictional universe used
as a context for it. It is thus the arena on which
gameplay takes place, and includes all elements
relevant for playing the game. According to the
magic circle theory (Huizinga, 1955, p. 10; Salen
& Zimmermann, 2004, pp. 94-95) all games are
seen as a subset of the real world, delimited by a
conceptual boundary that defines what should be
understood as part of the game and not. The magic
circle is what separates the game from the rest of
the world, and defines thus the gamespace (Juul,
2005, pp. 164-167). One may go as far as claim-