Haolun Sheng
Designing as if writing: Narrative, space and dwelling in video games.
Rel. Antonio Di Campli. Politecnico di Torino, Master of science program in Architecture For Sustainability, 2025
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Abstract
Taking video games as an emerging spatial medium, this paper examines how they reshape contemporary urban planning and design. It traces the shift from two-dimensional interfaces to three-dimensional open worlds and the parallel deepening of their cultural presence, arguing that games have moved from disposable entertainment to a “socio-spatial laboratory” for experimentation and expression. Drawing on game-studies theories, the study takes narrative as its entry point and sorts the generative logic of game worlds into temporal structures (string-of-pearls, branching, theme-park and building-block models) and a spatial paradigm of the open world, focusing on how system design mediates the tension between rules and freedom.
Empirically, the discussion centers on the Chinese open-world game Genshin Impact
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