Abstract

One of the so-called new media with significant interest in academia is video games. This research has seen contributions from the narratological and ludological currents; however, the ludo-narrative approach is one of the most interesting and significant in the area. This approach (which relates to both currents) is uncommon in research, where the narrative analysis of the game appears isolated in the classic criteria of cinema. This essay reviews the ludo-narrative approach in video games, emphasizing time analysis. It summarizes the theoretical contributions around its semiotic implications through an exploratory-descriptive approach applied through generic observation units. The result is an overview of the theory surrounding the study of temporal manipulations in video games and a discussion on the relevance of a chronosemiotics that establishes the ludo-narrative value of these manipulations.