Trauma in Autobiographical Videogames: The Case of Father and I (2012)

• Main Author: Loredana Bercuci
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Bucharest 2018-04-01
• Series: Intersections
• Subjects: autobiography; narrative; rules; trauma; video games
• Online Access: http://www.intersections-journal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Loredana-Bercuci-article.pdf

Although trauma and memory have been a focus of cultural studies for more than twenty years now, few scholarly works focus on medium-specific representations of trauma and even fewer comment on the tendency of trauma representations to be autobiographical in the 21st Century. The present paper is part of a larger project that seeks to tackle precisely these issues. Here, I look at the representation of trauma in a relatively recent autobiographical video game, namely Vince Caballero’s Father and I (2012). I argue that the use of trauma as a trope adds a further narrative demand to video games, making it even more difficult to negotiate the specificities of the medium. At the same time, however, it functions as a stock story that enhances the narrative dimensions of the game under discussion.