Word.ws English Dictionary

ludonarrative dissonance

ludonarrative dissonance noun: the perceived conflict between a game's ludic and narrative elements; a situation in which the gameplay of a video game mismatches or clashes with its story.

Noun

ludonarrative dissonance (usually uncountable, plural ludonarrative dissonances)

  1. (usually) The perceived conflict between a game's ludic and narrative elements; a situation in which the gameplay of a video game mismatches or clashes with its story.

Forms of ludonarrative dissonance

pluralludonarrative dissonances

Origin of ludonarrative dissonance

Coined by Canadian video game designer and director Clint Hocking in 2007.

Questions about ludonarrative dissonance

What does ludonarrative dissonance mean?
Ludonarrative dissonance means the perceived conflict between a game's ludic and narrative elements; a situation in which the gameplay of a video game mismatches or clashes with its story.
What part of speech is ludonarrative dissonance?
Ludonarrative dissonance is a noun.
What is the plural of ludonarrative dissonance?
The plural of ludonarrative dissonance is ludonarrative dissonances.

Words near ludonarrative dissonance in the dictionary

  1. ludomusicological
  2. ludomusicologist
  3. ludomusicologists
  4. ludomusicology
  5. ludonarrative
  6. ludonarrative dissonance
  7. ludonarrative dissonances
  8. ludonarratives
  9. ludoo
  10. ludoos
  11. ludopath

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ludonarrative dissonance (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “ludonarrative dissonance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ludonarrative_dissonance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.