Meaning What? - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 144

Table 10.4 Relationships between Signifi ers in Pac-Man

Signifi er Signifi ed

Small and large food dots left in
the level

Records how close, or not, the player is to
fi nishing the level

Pac-Men below game area Number of extra lives left in this level

Position of all the ghosts in relation
to Pac-Man in the playing area

The current threat to Pac-Man and thus to the
player

The fi rst fi ve signs in Tables 10.1
and 10.2 above

Together these signify to us all we know about
Pac-Man: where he is, what he is doing, how
successful he is in the game as a whole, and
how many lives he has left

The big difference of course between fi lm and computer games is that in the latter
the player has some control over the syntagmatic relationships between signifi ers
whereas in a fi lm these relationships are determined by the director when the fi lm
is shot and then edited.
Table 10.4 lists the major synchronic, syntagmatic relationships between signi-
fi ers in Pac-Man and the connotations most of us would attribute to them. Because
these relationships are synchronic they tell us about the state of the game and a
particular level at particular moments in time: the current score, the number of lives
left, the current threat to Pac-Man, and so on.
There are also diachronic, syntagmatic relationships in Pac-Man:

• Ghosts turn from active, to mesmerized, to active, to numbers (points), to pair
of eyes, and so on. What we have here is a sort of life history of an individual
ghost in Pac-Man. We, the players, make the association between a series of
signs from which we construct a particular NPC.
• The relative positions of the ghosts and Pac-Man change as a result of
how the player directs Pac-Man and of the individual behaviors of the
ghosts.
• Cherries and other luxury treats appear and disappear.
• Pac-Man opens and closes his mouth as he moves; at the same time we hear
beeping and chomping noises to correspond with what he is doing.
• The remaining food (state of the level) diminishes as Pac-Man eats his way
through the level.

In computer games, diachronic relationships tell us about the development of
the game, of our successes and failures, of the changing relationships between play-
able characters and NPCs, and the realization of narrative potential. In a simplistic
sense we could characterize gameplay as the diachronic relationship between syn-
tagms. One syntagm—a snapshot of the signifi ers representing the current state of
play—leads us to form the intention to achieve a different, more desirable syntagm.
In a sense all gameplay breaks down to this: just think of attractors and rewards,