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narrative or other information materials that come with the game. Here, too,theremaybeimagesofprincipalcharacters.InHalfLifethehero,whomplayersare to identify with while playing, is “Dr. Gordon Freeman”, a theoreticalphysicist(Fig3).Figure3:Dr.GordonFreemanfrom“HalfLife”In FPS games like Half Life, players, or rather, their avatars find themselvessuddenly inserted into catastrophically cascading streams of critical decisionmakingprocessesthatneedtoberesolvedasquicklyandeffectivelyaspossiblein order for the avatar to ‘survive’. As they struggle to manage the continualcrisesthrownatthembythegame‐enginethatcreatesandmanagesthefictionalenvironment with its objects and events, the player and the game‐engine intandem co‐construct a unique narrative program that characterises thegameplaysessioninquestion.MassimoMaietti 2 hasreferredtosuchgameplayartefacts as terminal texts. In reality, most terminal texts remain merelyephemeral,sincetheyonly‘exist’asaflowofembodiedphenomenalexperienceasplayersareactuallyplayingthegame.