Gameology: Commentary and Resources for the Game Studies Community

Thanks for a great post.

I am not sure the HUD is a paratext at all, it seems to offer its own mini-narrative, mutating between bookmark (of how far into the performance) and comment in the margin (on performative understanding and execution, on how well the player is doing, and sometimes as a memory or memento library), so in a way it is an external cognitive artifact and yet also a direct interactive part of the interface.

I know that trying to read text and at the same time spatially explore games creates all sorts of cognitive issues (esp overloading) in virtual environments. Recent cognitive psychology suggests that the way, speed and order of how we 'read' text (as in, word) and 'perceive' image are fundamentally different-which may well challenge those who 'read' across not just literature but also film and game as 'text'. In other words, that we even 'read' spatial games, is a moot point.