Abstract
This paper introduces Narrative Threads, a suite of tools designed to support 11-15 year olds in creating their own narrative-based computer games. Authoring interactive stories in game form has strong educational potential, but although there are tools which make game creation possible for young people, they have provided little to no interface support for the storytelling aspect of the task until now. Here we describe the design and implementation of Narrative Threads, which provides this support. After giving the background to the tool, we describe the extensive participatory design process which built on existing theory. Finally, an initial evaluation is presented, which indicates that games created using Narrative Threads are rated more highly than those created without the additional support provided by these tools.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
References
Heriot-Watt University. Adventure Author, http://judyrobertson.typepad.com/adventure_author/
AgentSheets, Inc. AgentSheets, http://www.agentsheets.com
University of Sussex. Flip, http://www.flipproject.org.uk/
BAFTA/ Abertay University. Games Unpacked, http://ygd.bafta.org/games-unpacked
Washington University in St. Louis. Looking Glass
MIT. StarLogo TNG, http://education.mit.edu/starlogo-tng/index.htm
Immersive Education. Mission Maker, http://www.immersiveeducation.eu/index.php/missionmakerm
Adams, E.: Three problems for interactive storytellers. Designer’s Notebook Column, Gamasutra (1999)
Carr, D.: The Rules of the Game, The Burden of Narrative: Enter the Matrix. In: Gittis, S. (ed.) The Matrix Trilogy; Cyberpunk Reloaded, pp. 36–47. Wallflower Press, London (2005)
Costikyan, G.: Where stories end and games begin. Game Developer 7(9), 44–53 (2000)
Dickey, M.D.: Game design narrative for learning: Appropriating adventure game design narrative devices and techniques for the design of interactive learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development 54(3), 245–263 (2006)
Gilmore, D.J., Green, T.R.G.: Comprehension and recall of miniature programs. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 21(1), 31–48 (1984)
Good, J., Robertson, J.: CARSS: A framework for learner-centred design with children. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 16(4), 381–413 (2006)
Good, J., Robertson, J.: Learning and Motivational Affordances in Narrative-based Game Authoring. In: Narrative and Interactive Learning Environments, NILE 2006. Edinburgh, Scotland (2006)
Goolnik, S., Robertson, J., Good, J.: Learner Centred Design in the Adventure Author Project. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 16, 381–413 (2006)
Harel, I., Papert, S.: Constructionism. Norwood. Ablex, NJ (1991)
Howland, K.: A rating scheme for narrative-based computer games created by young people. In: Cognitive Science Research Paper, University of Sussex (2011)
Howland, K., du Boulay, B., Good, J.: Fostering engaged and directed learning by activity foregrounding and backgrounding. In: Artificial Intelligence in Education. Building Learning Systems that Care: from Knowledge Representation to Affective Modelling (2009)
Howland, K., Good, J., Robertson, J.: A Learner-Centred Design Approach to Developing a Visual Language for Interactive Storytelling. In: Sixth International Conference for Interaction Design and Children, IDC 2007, Aalborg, Denmark (2007)
Jenkins, H.: Game design as narrative architecture. In: Harrington, P., Frup-Waldrop, N. (eds.) First Person, p. s3. MIT Press, Cambridge (2002)
Kafai, Y.B.: Minds in Play: Computer Game Design as a Context for Children’s Learning. Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc Inc. (1995)
Kafai, Y.B., Franke, M.L., Ching, C.C., Shih, J.C.: Game Design as an Interactive Learning Environment for Fostering Students’ and Teachers’ Mathematical Inquiry. International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning 3(2), 149–184 (1998)
Kelleher, C., Pausch, R., Kiesler, S.: Storytelling alice motivates middle school girls to learn computer programming. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, San Jose (2007)
Kress, G., Van Leeuwen, T.V.: Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. Hodder, London (2001)
Louchart, S., Aylett, R.: Narrative theory and emergent interactive narrative. International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life Long Learning 14(6), 506–518 (2004)
Mateas, M.: A preliminary poetics for interactive drama and games. Digital Creativity 12(3), 140–152 (2001)
Mayer, R.E., Moreno, R.: Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load In Multimedia Learning. Educational Psychologist 38, 43–52 (2003)
Medler, B., Magerko, B.: Scribe: A tool for authoring event driven interactive drama. Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, 139–150 (2006)
Norman, D.A.: Things that make us smart. Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., Reading (1993)
Atari. Neverwinter Nights 2
Overmars, M.: Teaching computer science through game design. Computer 37(4), 81–83 (2004)
Papert, S.: The children’s machine: rethinking school in the age of the computer. Basic Books, Inc., New York (1993)
Repenning, A., Webb, D., Ioannidou, A.: Scalable game design and the development of a checklist for getting computational thinking into public schools. In: Proceedings of the 41st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM, Milwaukee (2010)
Robertson, J.: Making games in the classroom: Benefits and gender concerns. Computers & Education 59(2), 385–398 (2012)
Robertson, J., Good, J.: Children’s narrative development through computer game authoring. TechTrends 49(5), 43–59 (2005)
Robertson, J., Good, J., Howland, K., MacVean, A.: Designing With Young People. In: Luckin, R., et al. (eds.) Handbook of Design in Educational Technology. Taylor and Francis, London (2012)
Robertson, J., Howells, C.: Computer Game Design: Opportunities for Successful Learning. Computers & Education 50(2), 559–578 (2008)
Robertson, J., Nicholson, K.: Adventure Author: a learning environment to support creative design. In: Sixth International Conference for Interaction Design and Children, IDC 2007, Aalborg, Denmark (2007)
Sharples, M.: An account of writing as creative design. In: The Science of Writing: Theories, Methods, Individual Differences, and Applications, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah (1996)
Svendsen, G.B.: The influence of interface style on problem solving. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 35(3), 379–397 (1991)
Weiss, S., Müller, W., Spierling, U., Steimle, F.: Scenejo – an interactive storytelling platform. In: Subsol, G. (ed.) VS 2005. LNCS, vol. 3805, pp. 77–80. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Winterbottom, C., Blake, E., Gain, J.: Using visualizations to support design and debugging in virtual reality. Advances in Visual Computing, 465–474 (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Howland, K., Good, J., du Boulay, B. (2013). Narrative Threads: A Tool to Support Young People in Creating Their Own Narrative-Based Computer Games. In: Pan, Z., Cheok, A.D., Müller, W., Iurgel, I., Petta, P., Urban, B. (eds) Transactions on Edutainment X. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7775. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37919-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37919-2_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-37918-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-37919-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)