Narrative and Gameplay: The Balanced and Imbalanced Relationship between Dramatic Tension and Gameplay Tension

There is a conflict between narrative and gameplay that not only creates a challenge to game developers and game designers, but also affects the player and his game experience. This study focuses on the analysis and research of narrative in video games in order to identify and promote an understanding of the dynamics between the dramatic and gameplay tensions. The first results of this research revealed that narrative and gameplay can be interconnected and balanced, but there are cases where narrative tension is superior to gameplay tension, and vice-versa.