Secret Games, Puzzle Narratives and Playful Decrypting. Gamified Dissimulations in Contemporary Media Narratives

Il Mulino - Rivisteweb Vincenzo Idone Cassone Secret Games, Puzzle Narratives and Playful Decrypting. Gamified Dissimulations in Contemporary Media Narratives (doi: 10.14649/97034) Versus (ISSN 0393-8255) Fascicolo 1, gennaio-giugno 2020 Ente di afferenza: Università di Torino (unito) Copyright c by Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna. Tutti i diritti sono riservati. Per altre informazioni si veda https://www.rivisteweb.it Licenza d’uso L’articolo è messo a disposizione dell’utente in licenza per uso esclusivamente privato e personale, senza scopo di lucro e senza fini direttamente o indirettamente commerciali. Salvo quanto espressamente previsto dalla licenza d’uso Rivisteweb, è fatto divieto di riprodurre, trasmettere, distribuire o altrimenti utilizzare l’articolo, per qualsiasi scopo o fine. Tutti i diritti sono riservati. VINCENZO IDONE CASSONE Secret Games, Puzzle Narratives and Playful Decrypting Gamified Dissimulations in Contemporary Media Narratives Many scholars have discussed the recent expansion and mixing of Play in our societies, a process generally labelled cultural gamification or ludification. Many cultural phenomena and societal domains are increasingly permeated by ludic elements, metaphors and mindsets. The influence of cultural gamification can also be seen in the media system, through the spread of game-like patterns influencing the narratives and usage of different media. The aim of this paper is to describe the emergence of game-like narratives and interaction in media, focusing on their semiotic dissimulation patterns. More specifically, the following pages will present and analyse recent playful elements and patterns connected to mystery, thriller and similar genres, investigating the ways in which game models interact with other media, and the resulting decrypting and dissimulation effects, both at the textual and at the discoursive level. Keywords: Gamification, Ludification, Media, Mystery, Games, Fandom, Cooperative Interpretation, Dissimulation, Strategy, Hidden Games. Introduction The term gamification has been generally understood as “the use of game design elements in non-game context” (Deterding et al. 2011): a practice which takes inspiration from game mindset and design in order to keep daily activities more engaging and effective. Typical examples of this practice are apps for language learning (Duolingo, Memrise), social network platforms (FourSquare, stackoverflow), marketing initiatives (My Starbuck rewards), systems for work and productivity (SAP community network)1. Furthermore, some scholars suggest that this practice should be considered a part of a deeper and more complex cultural process, which involves the expansion and mixing of the sphere of play in contemporary society. Many societal domains and cultural phenomena are increasingly permeated by elements, metaphors and mindsets connected to play and 1 For a general multi-disciplinary overview of Gamification see Seaborn and Fels (2014), or the recent Azhari (2019). VERSUS 130, 1/2020, 105-120 ISSN 0393-8255 © SOCIETÀ EDITRICE IL MULINO 106 VINCENZO IDONE CASSONE games (see Ortoleva 2012; Raessens 2014, Fuchs et al. 2014). This phenomenon has been labelled in different ways: gamification (Fuchs 2014), ludification (Frissens et al. 2015), ludic century (Ortoleva 2013), gameful world (Walz, Deterding 2015). While researchers have been investigating the spread of ludic elements and mindsets in media and entertainment, few of these studies have analysed specific transmedia gamified trends, or the patterns through which media “assume/inherit” ludic features. For these reasons, the aim of the present paper is to discuss the cultural gamification of the media system through a recent phenomenon: the emergence of game-like narratives and interactions in the media system, and their ludic dissimulation patterns. Most specifically, the following pages will present and analyse recent playful elements and patterns connected to mystery, thriller and other fiction genres, investigating the ways in which game models interact with other media, and the resulting decrypting and dissimulation effects, both at the textual level and at the discursive level. These trends will be presented and analysed according to three different layers: 1) the spread of game-like settings in popular narratives; 2) the diffusion of game-like pattern of textual interpretation and cooperation/competition; 3) the development of gamified social norms for media interaction. 1. Game-Like Worlds: Strategic Competence and Hidden Games 1.1. Contemporary game-like settings Many contemporary popular narratives have been increasingly including explicit game-like settings in their plot. In these narratives, games are not just a central element of the plot, but rather the setting for the story itself. These stories could be perceived as the narration of certain matches of a specific game, with the game elements defining the core objectives, actions and values of the main characters. This is the case with many successful young adult books with movie adaptations: Ender’s Game (1985-99; 2013), The Hunger Games (2008-10; 2012-15), Divergent (2011-13; 2014-16) and Maze Runner (2009-11; 201418) as well as horror, thriller and mystery movies, such as La decima vittima (1965), The Game (1997), and recently, with the Cube (1997-2004), Saw series (2004-17), and Gamer (2009). In the Asian media context, at least since the novel Battle Royale (1999; 2000-2005) there have been many comics, light novels, dramas, and movies featuring game-like setting and challenges, often spreading through the SECRET GAMES, PUZZLE NARRATIVES AND PLAYFUL DECRYPTING 107 media mix strategies of Japanese companies (see Steinberg 2015). To name a few, Tomodachi game (2013-), Kakegurui (2014-), The Kaiji chronicles (19962017), Kokumin Quiz (1994), with the noteworthy mention of Jinrou game (2014-), Judge (1991-97), in addition to many visual-novel games such as the Danganrompa series (2010-2017), the Nonary Games series (2009-2016). These narratives are not completely news: postmodernism in literature (Connor 2004) and authors such as Philip Dick, Jorge Luis Borges or Italo Calvino, to name a few, often relied on the interaction between narratives and games. On the other hand, the spread of these stories in the media system is on a different scale from their 20th century roots and provide significant innovation in relation to the narratives of dissimulation and its cultural role. 1.2. The narrative model of game-like settings From a general perspective, these game-like background result in a set of common semiotic features, which can be exemplified recurring to Greimas semiotic model (1970; 1983). At a discursive level of the generative path (both thematic and figurative) the explicit representation of the narrative as part of a game results in a generalisable dynamics at the semio-narrative level. – First, the Base Narrative Program (BNP) of the subject follows the model of the challenge (Greimas 1980), so that the initial manipulation is tied to the simultaneous acceptation of a specific performance and of a binding set of competence and sanction (i.e. the rules of the game). The BNP and its sub-NP all follow the evaluation and enforcement of specific actor-judges. From this perspective, the narrative schemes are quite close to the features identified by Ferri (2008) in its analysis of the narrativity of digital games. Similarly, in terms of Eco (1979) interpretive narrative model, the possible narrative paths in these stories present a significant degree of openness, within the fixed limits provided by the game rules (see also par. 2.2, below). – However, according to game theory concept, the games represented in those narratives are information-incomplete games. Differently from chess or draught, the actors/players do not know the complete state of the game (i.e. resources or past moves of other players, roles etc.), despite knowing its rules. This result in a double consequence: at the semio-narrative level, the subjects involved possess a competence over their lack of competence. By knowing the rules of the game, they know both the missing information and can infer them according to the limits of the accepted moves. – The BNP thus involves important strategic sub-NP which are connected to the acquisition of missing information (as value object) and to 108 VINCENZO IDONE CASSONE the acquisition of competence required for the general performance. Due to the generally symmetric nature of the players, this NP interact with corresponding anti-NP developed by the anti-subjects, leading to the typical strategic dynamics described in semiotics by Landowski (1996) as well as by Fabbri and Montanari (2004). – The discursivisation of these texts through the enunciative and aspectualising functions (Bertrand 2002: 53-98) generally put a great emphasis on those strategic Performances together with on their effect on the whole story. These characteristics alone may be seen as a significative shifting from most of the common dynamics involving the narrative openness of certain texts (Eco 1979) and the narrative effects involving suspense, mysteries and surprise dynamics (Calabrese 2016; 2018). They add to the patterns of narrative uncertainty a combinatory and strategic uncertainty which, per se, is not framed as mysterious (with an important exception, see 1.3 and 1.4 below). 1.3. Hidden games and dissimulation However, the above-mentioned narratives also share another game-like pattern. While the ludic nature of the setting is recognised and accepted, a core axiological element of these narratives revolves around the crisis of the “fair game” trope. Traditionally, in games of agon and sports, the rules are supposed to create an arena in which players are as equal as possible at the beginning and have equal chances, so as to make even more clear the difference in skills. Games are seen as a fair form of competition, in opposition to the unregulated (unfair nature of societal challenges). On the contrary, those game-like settings, permeated with societal challenges and human fights, embody the paradigmatic landscape for unfairness and inequality; whether due to cheating, different experience, unbalance in money or status, some players have better chances than others. The naïve players soon discover that the game is rigged, embodying a perfect reflection of societies based on inequalities and selfishness. In all the previous narratives the game rules are bent, violated, re-defined or even originally devised in order to produce inequalities and disadvantage among players. More importantly, the game-like setting, which determines the main character’s BNP, is always discovered to be only the visible part of a broader and more complex game-frame. A double game layer is always involved: beyond the explicit game tackled by players there is a secret game: the latter is the result of the implicit social, psychological, historical or economic dynamics that gave origin to the former. While the main characters believe SECRET GAMES, PUZZLE NARRATIVES AND PLAYFUL DECRYPTING 109 themselves to be playing the game, they are being played by a game whose rules are initially unknown and kept secret. The second layer mirrors, alters and influences the first one, in ways which are initially mysterious and unpredictable for the players. While their action may be efficient according to the aims/rules of the first game, they may produce opposite results in the secret game layer (and vice versa). This double-level relationship matches the concept of deep games described by Clifford Geertz (1973). A key transformation in the main character’s behaviour is thus linked to the moment of its Axiological recognition and the resulting Ideological shift; the new set of values provides a different BNP, which involves the simultaneous strategic performance on both those game levels. Initially, the main characters believe that, by knowing the rules of the game, they can predict and govern its results. On the contrary, they realise the necessity to win in two games simultaneously, and their complex interaction. 1.4. The gamer as a trickster In order to participate in two games at the same time, the characters generally end up taking the role of the only type of player who is, traditionally, simultaneously within and outside the game boundaries: the cheater (see Huizinga 1938; Caillois 1958). In the modern acceptation, they become gamers (i.e. those who game the system). Gamers are characters who can be accepted as players even while playing a meta-game in which they search for the loopholes and contradictions in the game rules. For gamers, the true value in the game lies in the existence of a fatal flaw that makes the very system exploitable. From this perspective, cheaters/gamers could be considered as the modern embodiment of the mythic figure of tricksters. All the above-mentioned narratives make the main characters eventually become gamers. 1.5. Gamified narratives and societal dissimulation While only preliminary, these examples show a double process taking place in contemporary popular narratives: 1) an influence of game-like models and mindsets which produces significant shifts in the narrative dynamics involving mysteries, suspense and the implicated dissimulation strategies; 2) an interesting correlation at the Axiological level between certain gamified narrative patterns and the societal representation of inequalities, of rules and of human agency and its strategies. The reciprocal hybridisation of ludic and societal frames (Deterding, Walz 2015) makes the cultural boundaries between games, challenges and competitions more 110 VINCENZO IDONE CASSONE nuanced, while making it possible for ludic elements to be accepted in other media at different levels and layers. 2. Game-Like Narrative Interpretation: Puzzle Texts and Fair Challenges 2.1. Narrative puzzles and engaged readers Another feature of gamified narratives involves the relationships between the diegetic development and the interpretive performance of readers/ viewers/players. As previously noted, by making the narrative development follow the rules of certain games, the dynamics of textual cooperation inscribed in the text are subject to change: the narrative openness connected to the diegetic development is more reliant on the pre-established rules of the game and less on any encyclopaedic and narrative coherence (Eco 1979, 4.6 and 7). As a result, in addition to their game-like setting, these narratives also display game-like patterns in the textual cooperation dynamics involved in the understanding of the narrative development itself. There is an increasing pleasure and interest in contemporary media for those texts which make the reader interact in more direct ways with the narrative development represented in the story. Many movies, such as Inception (2010) or Shutter Island (2012), put the viewers in the position to evaluate and cognitively interact with the development of the plot: the narrative logic behind the story is explained and described for both the characters and the viewers. This tendency is common in recent detective anime and manga: Detective Conan (1994-), Tantei Gakuen Q (2001-2005), Q.E.D (1997-2015) and many others make the readers able to predict the identity of the culprit together with the main characters. This trend is not, per se, new: on the contrary, it could be seen as a specific development of certain narrative mechanics which were, previously, limited to sub-genres such as detective fiction and especially whodunit. For instance, many detective novels were ascribed to the “locked room mysteries” typology (e.g. Murder on the Orient Express, 1934), in which the fixed and limited number of potential suspects make it possible for the reader to at least assume a possible murderer. Another example is the reverse whodunit, such as the TV series Columbo (1968-78), which make viewers witness the crime, giving them a cognitive advantage over the detective himself. The pleasure of Columbo does not lie in discovering the murderers, but in knowing/guessing how Lieutenant Columbo will frame them. However, the most significant predecessors can be found in Ellery Queen’s and John Dickson Carr’s mysteries (e.g. The Greek Coffin mystery, SECRET GAMES, PUZZLE NARRATIVES AND PLAYFUL DECRYPTING 111 1932; The hollow man, 1935) where the readers were not only helped in their interpretation of the plot, they were expected to do so, either because directly challenged by the narrator, or through para-textual elements in the preface or the book cover. While for the authors of Ellery Queen’s mysteries this was more a narrative device designed to increase reader’s engagement, for Carr it resulted from a poetics of intellectual challenge, to which he strictly abided to. In his essay on detective novels (Carr 1946) he described the “fair challenge” issued by the author to the readers as the “grandest game in the world”. 2.2. Game-like interpretive patterns As previously mentioned, both the game-like setting and the narratives connected to mystery may develop game-like dynamics of textual cooperation. On a general level, it can be said that their textual interaction patterns are designed for a specific type of Model reader textual interaction (Eco 1979). The reader takes part in a game of interpreting the textual development, with the aim to guess the narrative development and to uncover the mysteries in the object-text. Due to the game-like nature of the setting, the interpretive efforts of the readers shift from a typical encyclopaedia-based abductive reasoning (i.e. what will those characters do? How coherent is this development?) to a mostly rule-based deductive reasoning (i.e. what actions can be taken according to the rules of the game? How was it possible for this to happen?). These texts thus present many enunciative, aspectual and discursive solutions (see Fontanille 2001; Bertrand 2002) whose general result is to produce a dynamic balance between the diegetic Competence of the Subjects-characters, and the encyclopaedic Competence of the Subject-readers (as the ones challenged by the text). – For instance, these texts operate an enclosure of the narrative boundaries of the fictional setting, thus reducing the number of agents, the temporal and spatial cause-effects dynamics involved (e.g. locked room mystery, games with pre-established number of players, time constraints, abandoned places, etc.). – More so, the text shares with the reader the Competence of the main characters, communicating it through description sequences, enunciative focalisations and enunciational explanations (e.g. explanation to “naïve” assistants, representations of thought process, verbose description of non-common knowledge, etc.). – The text may reduce the diegetic ellipsis and explicit a set of common, non-falsifiable set of information needed for the abductive process (e.g. through police or scientific reports directly communicated). 112 VINCENZO IDONE CASSONE – The text provides focalisation on hints and information, either through enunciative and aspectual dynamics (e.g. camera movement, vignettes, out of place descriptions) or directly through the explicit intervention of the main characters (e.g. explicative anticipation, listing of possible alternatives, direct breaking of the fourth wall and so on). In doing so, these texts often rely on the same techniques used by the mystery and detective writers, but with a different (if not opposite) aim. On a general level, it could be said that the typical modern detective novel develops as a complex mechanism in order to guide and control the reader’s expectations and interpretations so to produce the designed surprise, suspense and curiosity (Calabrese 2016; Eco, Sebeok 1983); while the above-mentioned texts provide a challenge which is designed to be solved, through a form of cognitive dynamic balancing believed to result in a form of “fair game”. In doing so, they move away from some of the most common features of the detective novels. According to Todorov’s (1977) seminal semiology of mystery genres, the whodunit can be considered as the opposite of the thriller: the former involves a secret in the past, which need to be uncovered; the latter involves a mystery centred on the main characters, which waits for them in the future. But in both cases the engagement of the reader is influenced by his/her “close perspective” on the main character, the selective myopia which result in suspense and the desire to discover the trajectory of the story; that is, the narrative pleasure is connected to the limited possibility to infer the narrative development, as a result of a cognitive unbalance between the reader and the diegetic character. Both types of mystery are constitutively based on a cognitive difference between the reader and the POV character. It is common for readers to know less than the main characters, and the attempt to anticipate and uncover the truth before them is, most often than not, literally impossible. The very construction of the narrative perspective (point-of-view, narratorial strategies), the direction of the storytelling (montage, chapter frames and, above all, the strategy of information concealment planned by the author/s) end up putting the users in a cognitive subalternity, both in comparison to the author, and to the main characters. It is thus common for specific key pieces of information or clues to be precluded from readers until they will bring the maximum effects (suspense, surprise, mystery. In doing so, the text embodies a different form of dissimulation strategy (Fabbri, Montanari 2004; Landowski 1996). This can be seen clearly through many of the classic characters of detective stories, such as A study in scarlet (1887), The sign of four (1890), or in Holmes’ short stories; as well as Agatha Christie’s stories: either because of lack of knowledge required for the abduction (e.g. Death on the Nile, 1937) or because of the limits dictated by focused point-of-view (And then there were SECRET GAMES, PUZZLE NARRATIVES AND PLAYFUL DECRYPTING 113 none, 1939) or because of more complex perspectival red herring (The murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926). On the contrary, in the above-mentioned texts, the process of dynamic balancing and “fair” narrative interpretation lead to the reduction, alteration or counter-weighting of many of these narrative devices, so to make the text more “accessible” to the readers/players. The very same difference between those textual strategies was already hinted by Bernard Suits (1985). For the game scholar, detective novels and whodunit in particular present many elements which are comparable to an agonistic, wit-based game. However, he notes, a key difference exists between the two. The game exists only insofar told by the narrator, because the true players are respectively the murderer and the detective/ main character; the reader is, for Suits, “only” a spectator of this game, fulfilling a role which is no different from those who spectate soccer matches: they may eventually foresee certain patterns or trajectories, but they are not playing the game. Looking at the above-mentioned examples, an integration to Suit’s idea can be proposed: while the typical detective novels and mystery genre closely follows his interpretation, the texts described above represent the attempt to reduce the distance between the conception of Model Reader as a spectator and Model Reader as a Player. From this new position, they are involved in a challenge with the main character (at the figurative level), while at the fruition/interaction level they are challenged by the Model Author through the text itself. 2.3. Fair game or playful dissimulations? All these examples show an increasing interest in narratives where readers are active participants in a game, in which they accept the challenge provided by the text and may compete against the main characters, in order to actively uncover the secrets of the plot. In this way, the text can be considered to be closer to the typical “interactive nature” of games which is fully explicit in book-games, digital adaptation of detective novels and so on. Does this mean, however, that the texts previously described reduce or counter the dissimulation strategies employed by the empirical authors? Not at all. On the contrary, it could be said that the cognitive dynamic balancing mentioned insofar is only a part of a more complex re-structuring of the strategic interaction included in those narratives. This re-structuring gives shape to a different model of dissimulation, which mirrors at the interaction level the dissimulation dynamics involved in the double-game-layer described in 1.3. 114 VINCENZO IDONE CASSONE Thomas Elsaesser (2009) already discussed this phenomenon in his analysis of mind-game movies. Many contemporary films present, according to the media scholar, explicit forms and dynamics of games (following the game-like setting described in 1.2), such as The Truman show (1998), The Game (1997), The others (2001) and so on. On the other hand, the “game” label sometimes stands for films which «once more “play games” with the audience’s (and the characters’ perception of reality» (Elsaesser 2009: 14). The scholar lists titles such as The Sixt sense (1999), Inception (2010), Shutter Island (2012), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and many others. A paradigmatic example is represented by the movie Memento (2000), which give birth to a mind game out of the direction and perspectival strategies of textualisation. The alteration of memory of the main character is translated into the direction, which represents the events of the plot through a set of a-chronological shots of approximately 5 minutes. In this way, the movie itself works as a jigsaw puzzle for its viewers, who need to apply a non-trivial interpretive effort (see Aarseth 1997; Ferri 2009) in order to understand the basic narrative development, re-composing the sequence of events to unravel the mystery of “what’s happening” (in Eco’s terms, to define the diegetic fabula). Viewers are thus engaged into an active process of decrypting the scenes in order to give meaning to the events they are watching, to give a meaningful order to the plot. However, at a first glance, these texts seem to represent the exact opposite of the trend described insofar; while we observed narratives which “play it fair” for the Model Reader, here a cat-mouse play situation is described, certainly more akin to the previously-mentioned dissimulation strategies used in the classic mystery literature and cinema (from Conan Doyle to Hitchcock). Despite that, many of Elsaesser’s examples have been simultaneously listed here as examples of fair game-like narratives. These examples, however, should not be seen as opposed but rather as complementary manifestations of a common process: it is because of the game-like interpretive patterns embedded in certain texts, that a further level of dissimulated play can develop. Simply put, once a game-like form of interaction is part of the textual dispositive, two correlated process take place: – on the one hand it requires a form of fair rule-based balance between the challenger and the challenged; – but once the challenge has been accepted, both challenger and challenged take part in an asymmetrical game of dissimulation and decrypting through the text itself. The different texts may thus embody a whole spectrum of possibilities, from a more “lenient” attitude towards the readers to the display of abuse of the narrator’s power, but in both cases these possibilities rely on the implicit perception/existence of a game Contract. SECRET GAMES, PUZZLE NARRATIVES AND PLAYFUL DECRYPTING 115 3. Playful Patterns of Media Interaction: Fan Theories and Ludic Postmodernism 3.1. Playful interaction in pop culture A third trend of gamified dissimulation is the result of the emergence of the previous phenomena in the media system, and involves the cultural patterns and norms connected to the social experience of this kind of texts. Once certain gamified models and patterns diffuse in contemporary popular media, their influence may result in the development of socio-semiotic interactional norms for the media themselves. Simply put, the practice of textual production and of textual interaction is increasingly designed and perceived as a game between authors and public, developers and viewers: the experience of media itself is increasingly gamified, as testified by the industry of media production and by the spread of paratextual and trans-textual discourses and rhetoric in the fan culture. From a general view, these examples can be seen, of course, as a particular case of the dynamics of convergence culture (Jenkins 2006): the development of fandom and prosuming resulted in media strategies encouraging the active interaction with the fanbase, the development of marketing practices which consistently interact with the communities supporting certain texts and media. It’s not a trend limited to the authors’ decisions, but to all the subjects involved in the media pipeline. As a result, the texts are increasingly framed with teasers and so-called Easter eggs: hidden elements, apparently insignificant which may only be found by engaged readers, sometimes providing the key to anticipate the development of the story. At the same time, the public and the most involved viewers begin an active process of interpretation and decrypting, in order to analyse and predict the development of the franchise itself. Through wiki pages, discussions on forums, A.M.A. interviews, blogs and social networks, many tv series, movie franchises and episodic literature forms (mangas, fanfictions, light novels etc) become the battlefield of a “game of wits”. A paradigmatic example is the manga Tokyo Ghoul (2011-2014) and its sequel, Tokyo Ghoul:re (2014-2018), horror thrillers adult fictions. The author, Ishida Sui, is known for including complex encryptions into the manga and in the para-textual elements (chapter titles, cover, fanzines, commercials). Those codexes have been diligently decrypted by the fans for years. By recognising and connecting the different hints into a coherent frame, the readers have begun to formulate hypotheses of an ideological and allegorical reading of the text, which made them able to foresee certain major plot twists, or avoid the many red herrings presented in the narrative. This has concretely happened during the development 116 VINCENZO IDONE CASSONE of the series, with some users able to predict the most important plot twists of the story2. Significant examples can be found by looking at the strategies of community engagement undertaken by the tv series Lost (2004-2010) and Westworld (2016-) and similar texts. Both of them have been constantly interacting through complex decrypting and encrypting, taking place at several layers of the diegesis, paratextual or trans-textual elements. Both series have seen the development of engaged communities which tried to solve and anticipate many mysteries by connecting the clues and cryptic elements provided by several medias, social networks and other transmedia elements. The authors have often (willingly or not) interacted with the fanbase, sometimes even with dissimulative strategies and fake announcement3, which have only strengthened the hype and consolidated the practice of fan theorisation. 3.2. Gameful dissimulation and theories of textual interpretation This last phenomenon may seem a simple variation of the ones discussed above; on the contrary, it involves the passage from certain textual dynamics and textual cooperative strategies towards a more general set of socio-cultural interpretive patterns, which are now consolidated norms of textual interpretation and interaction with fictional worlds. In regard to this, the dissimulation dynamics and strategies discussed up to convoke a more complex discussion related to the existence of cultural textual strategies of interpretation. Both Eco (1990) and Gonzales (2013) reflect on different theories of textual interpretation diffused in cultures: the norms behind the Hermeticism theory of interpretation, for instance, postulate an infinite process of hermeneutics and shifting of meaning; whereas the rationalist Greek postulates explicit boundaries and limits which contribute to a single coherent interpretation; Dante’s (scholastic) idea of four textual layers, may assumes the multiplicity of readings/interpretations, but also describe hierarchical and axiological relationships between them, as do the Surrealist or Freudian theories/norms of textual interpretation. While these norms may share the basic acknowledgement of multiple possible layers of interpretation which are “embedded” in the manifest layer of the text, they differ in relation to the characteristics of those layers, to their hierarchy and to their ideological evaluation. Furthermore, at a cul2 See https://www.reddit.com/r/TokyoGhoul/comments/5dzcv9/theories_that_ turned_out_to_be_true/ (last access 10 October 2019). 3 Such as Westworld’s authors announcement to release the full 2nd season spoiler on reddit so to stop their fan theory crafting, see https://www.reddit.com/r/westworld/ comments/8aztn4/we_are_westworld_cocreatorsexecutive/dx330b3/. SECRET GAMES, PUZZLE NARRATIVES AND PLAYFUL DECRYPTING 117 tural level these theories resulted in different patterns and norms for the interpretation of cultures themselves, contributing to the self-description mechanisms described by Lotman (1990). For our reasoning, however, the main point is that each of them also leads to a correlate theory of openness, vagueness and falsification of the texts themselves; paving the way for the development of certain cultural norms and patterns for dissimulation. This preliminary study highlighted the possibility to speculate on the emergence of a recent, post-modern, pattern of textual interpretation, which is heavily inspired by the ludic metaphor: not concerned with the reflection on truth itself, more with the act of truth-making implied by its search. It is grounded on the assumption of the abstract and arbitrary nature of meaning, on the possibility of infinite levels of dissimulation and encryption, and on the search driven by logical coherence and strategic engagement. Such speculation would require, of course, further and more developed research into the process of cultural gamification. Conclusions The aim of the present paper was to discuss a further phenomenon in the gamification of media: the development of mystery-based game-like narratives in mass media, and the analysis of their dissimulation patterns. More specifically, I have presented and analysed recent playful elements and patterns connected to mystery, thriller and other fiction genres, investigating the ways in which game models interact with other media, and the resulting decrypting and dissimulation effects, both at the textual level and at the discoursive level: the inception of game-like settings in popular narratives; the diffusion of game-like pattern of textual interpretation and cooperation/competition; the development of gamified norms for media interaction and interpretation. Vincenzo Idone Cassone University of Torino Via Verdi 8 10124 Torino idonecassone@gmail.com References AARSETH, E.J. 1997 Cybertext: Perspectives on ergodic literature, Baltimora, JHU Press. AZHARI, A. 2019 “Gamification Framework: The Contribution of User Centered Design, Social Media Applications, Gaming and Psychology Concepts and Frameworks”, 118 VINCENZO IDONE CASSONE HCI in Games. HCII 2019. 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