A Framework for Choice Hermeneutics

Choices in storygames do more than create narrative branches, and mean more than cause and effect. The structure of hypertext is similar to choice structures, and the way links add semantic meaning to the text they connect is similar to the way choices add semantic meaning to the events they connect. We apply research from hypertext theory to expand the framework of choice poetics presented by Mawhorter et al. (2014), outlining more detail in the choice structure they propose and reframing their discussion of choice idioms. We demonstrate this analytical framework by applying it to a reading of Sonder (Focht 2019)—a game in which choices are written to emphasize their semantic function—to show how our framework expands the vocabulary around choices to provide more descriptive ability, and in turn more analytical insight, for critics and scholars analyzing games with choice structures.

The Game Narrative Renaissance: A Call for a Dedicated Game Writing Pedagogy

Character-driven Narrative Engine. Storytelling System for building interactive narrative experiences

This paper discusses a design methodology for developing interactive storytelling projects based on character-driven stories. Shaped as a three-year research through design, it was applied in the educational context of Politecnico di Milano, School of Design, from 2015 to 2017. To open up the issue of the degree of interactiveness and agency that different media allow toward the story, we merged knowledge from cultural, media and game studies. Aiming at building brave, fresh interactive narratives for contemporary media (analogue, digital or hybrid), each year we experimented the implications of initiating the design activity from a different starting point: 1) archetypal characters, 2) thick and compelling storyworlds, and 3) real testimonies shaped as short stories and fragments of memories. We discuss the different tools and methods employed, and the reasons why behind their evolution through time. Then, we conclude with a critical analysis of the results obtained, looking at the consequences and potentialities of how this narrative process has been applied to the game design field.

Exploring How Changes in Game Systems Generate Meaning

In this paper, we use Florence, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Descent: Freespace - The Great War as examples to analyze how changes in the game mechanics can be meaningful. We argue that play is essential for this interpretation and by changing their mechanics games can deliver plot points in a way unique to the medium. We look at a game’s temporality in addition to its play to be able to further interpret changes to its systems. To conclude, we compile a list of interpretive and designfocused questions intended to further explore this space of interpretation.

Exploring the Role of Narrative Puzzles in Game Storytelling

In this paper, we consider narrative puzzles in story-driven video games as distinct design elements of great narrative importance. While many scholars and designers focus on the inner workings and mechanisms of puzzles, we delve deeper into the role that puzzles play in the unfolding and the player’s experience of game plot. Drawing on examples from a variety of games that are rich in narrative puzzles, we present an initial taxonomy of the functions a narrative puzzle can perform for game storytelling and discuss their potential implications. Through the analysis and discussion, the paper aspires to contribute to both game analysis and game design with a new analytical lens as well as description of some potential design patterns that involve narrative puzzles.

Using Interactive Social Story Games to Teach Social Skills to Children with Autism

This paper presents interactive social stories (ISS) for teaching social skills to children on the autism spectrum. Using interactive narrative techniques, we enhance the traditional intervention of Social Stories in order to facilitate exploration and potentially promote stimulus generalization. Using this approach, we designed a tablet-based ISS game called FriendStar to teach 9-13 year old children with autism the social skills of greeting in the school context. The results of our user study show that both health professionals and children with their caregivers reacted positively to FriendStar. Most notably, both groups respond favorably to the ability of making mistakes and correcting them in the game.

Transforming Game Narrative through Social Media: Studying the Mass Effect Universe of Twitter

This paper explores the world of social media as a tool for interactive narrative in video games. From the perspective of fan fiction, this paper looks at ways games can be transformed through Twitter as a narrative tool. We perform a textual analysis on selected characters’ Twitter accounts drawn from the Mass Effect series. We show a number of findings having to do with how authors balance their character’s identities, Twitter as a narrative tool despite its unique constraints, the mutability of narrative time in this medium, and the ways authors create and navigate impossible situations created because of the conflict between their authorial intent and what occurs in the games. We argue this participatory and interactive form of narrative is a factor game designers must acknowledge and understand as social media continues to evolve and the boundary between consumer and producer deteriorates.

The Gameplay Gestalt, Narrative, and Interactive Storytelling

This paper discusses the relationship between concepts of narrative, patterns of interaction within computer games constituting gameplay gestalts, and the relationship between narrative and the gameplay gestalt. The repetitive patterning involved in gameplay gestalt formation is found to undermine deep narrative immersion. The creation of stronger forms of interactive narrative in games requires the resolution of this conflict. The paper goes on to describe the Purgatory Engine, a game engine based upon more fundamentally dramatic forms of gameplay and interaction, supporting a new game genre referred to as the first-person actor. The first-person actor does not involve a repetitive gestalt mode of gameplay, but defines gameplay in terms of character development and dramatic interaction.

From real-world data to game world experience: Social analysis methods for developing plausible & engaging learning games

This paper is based on work to develop an interactive learning game called HEALTHSIMNET that is meant for improving practice in a health care network. It considers three selected models for analysis of documentary data acquired during semi-structured interviews with participants of a network of health practitioners in the HIV field. The paper briefly reviews the expansive theory of learning but mainly explains how the three techniques can yield interactive narrative. We end with a description of the game and a discussion of the extent to which games developed using this method can be said to sustain the kind of learning described by activity theory.