A Preliminary Poetics for Interactive Drama and Games by Michael
Mateas discusses an interesting concept for video games called
agency. Mateas describes agency as “the feeling of empowerment
that comes from being able to take actions in the world whose
effects relate to the player’s intention”. Basically, that means
that the player is coming up with goals they want to reach (that
is, they are forming intentions), and based on them decide on
in-game actions to take which will move them towards their goal.
A more simplistic way to say it would be that the player can do
the things that they want to do, and have them cause effects
related to what they were expecting. Sounds great, how do we do
that? If a game gives the player agency, then the act of playing
the game becomes more directed and enjoyable. But, how does a
game make this happen? Mateas answers this by first bringing up
two concepts from Aristotle’s theory of drama: material cause
and formal cause. Aristotelian what now? Material cause and
formal cause