[L]udofictional worlds may be studied from a Macrostructural Static Dimension, a Microstructural Dynamic Dimension and a Metaleptic Dimension

From POSSIBLE WORLDS IN VIDEO GAMES
From Classic Narrative to Meaningful Actions
by Antonio José Planells de la Maza
Carnegie Mellon University: ETC Press Pittsburgh, PA, 2017 http://press.etc.cmu.edu/

[L]udofictional worlds may be studied from a Macrostructural Static Dimension, a Microstructural Dynamic Dimension and a Metaleptic Dimension. 

The Macrostructural Static Dimension involves understanding the ludofictional world as a formal system of linking together possible worlds. It considers a perspective that addresses the element of predestination in the game as a closed world in which the player has different ways of exploring according to possible and/or necessary actions taken at any given time. Thus, it becomes especially useful to analyze the global structure of each video game and the use of narrative worlds (cutscenes) and ingame scenes in the structure of the ludic experience. [6]

On the other hand, the Microstructural Dynamic Dimension analyses how the movement and modification of the characters’ inter-world identities develop throughout the course of the game. To do so, different theoretical categories are based on fictional features defined by characters’ possible and/or necessary actions, their psychological sub-worlds – what they fear, desire and/or imagine, etc. – and the relationships created between them. In this way, this dimension emphasizes the idea that ludofictional worlds are predetermined spaces for action and relationships with other fictional beings that may sometimes become the central axis of the ludic experience. 

The final level of meaning, the Metaleptic Dimension, replaces the idea of interactivity by proposing the narratological concept of metalepsis as the connection between the fictional world and the external user who is provided with certain mechanisms to participate in it. Thus, this perspective studies the physical and symbolic systems between the player and the world and vice versa, the internal leaps between different fictional levels and the sporadic and extraordinary disruptions to fictional boundaries that some characters may undergo. [7]