Transmedia Pathos and Plot in The Walking Dead - Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games - page 58

elements in combination with interactively generated dynamic components. 35
Both the Walking Dead board games make use of static elements adapted from
the prerequisite text, including the main characters who have to ind supplies
and clear locations of zombie infestation and their encounters with the undead
along the way. he WDGN dynamic component is original to the game; it places
those characters in new situations that further develop the afective relationship
between the player of the game and those characters, transmediating that
text's pathos. In contrast, the WDTV's dynamic component—the situations
that each character/player encounters—mirrors moments from the television
program. he WDTV does not develop its dynamic elements, focusing instead
on relecting the plot of the show.
It is not my intent here to get mired in the “narratologist/ludologist” debate
within game studies, which (in simpliied form) tends to examine games as
either narrative based or play based. 36 Greg Costikyan summarizes this debate
as a “culture class” between those who “view story as perhaps important but
tangential to understanding the nature of games, and those who view it as
essential.” 37 hat said, rather than getting hung up on one way to view games or
another, I agree with Zimmerman—it is not determining whether narrative is part
of a game, but understanding how it interacts with ludism that is important. 38 As
Ryan writes about the transmediation of Star Wars from ilm to game, “its plot
is one of countless stories that tell about a ight between good and evil. What
makes the Star Wars storyworld distinctive is not the plot but the setting.” 39 As
I will show with the Walking Dead board games, such interactions can indicate
either transmediation or adaptation, depending on the relationship between the
game mechanics, character interaction, and appearance of the game.
he Walking Dead zombies and playing Walking Dead
Both the Walking Dead board games approach the interactive, generative
participation of the game players as a constituent part of the ludic experience.
On the surface, it would be relatively easy to ascribe value to one or the other
game—it's a “good” game because it is only sort of like the television show, but
a “bad” game if it is too much like the television show: the “uncanny valley”
of transmediation, or the pejorative “pasted on theme.” Such determinations
might be useful for a critical conversation about ludology and the “ludological
dissonance” that narrative-based games engender. 40 However, it is not my