Review of Gualeni and Fassone’s Fictional Games: A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play (2022), London: Bloomsbury Publishing

A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play is two things.One, it is an intellectual toolkit for the analysis of games.Two, it is a journey into the concept of narrative and, in so doing, an introduction into a certain narrative device that is the fictional game.Before all else, it is important to examine what exactly a fictional game is, and thanks to the toolkit character of the book, the definition of fictional games is clearly and continually stated throughout the book.A fictional game is an umbrella term for 'playful activities and ludic artifacts conceptualized as a part of fictional worlds'. 1 They are 'meant to trigger the imagination of the appreciator of a work of fiction and cannot actually be -or at least were not originally meant to be -played'. 2Fictional games. . .are not typically presented in formally complete ways; rather, authors often simply hint at these games' rules, affordances, boundaries, exceptions and criteria for success, defining them just clearly enough to achieve their intended functions within the work of fiction.