An Educator’s Guide to Interactive Digital Narrative – Syllabi and Resources From Around the World

Narrativas Interativas

By Jorge Miguel Ferrão Palinhos

Department: Art and Communication

Level: Postgraduate

Credits: 4

The syllabus contents of this course are adapted to the needs and objectives of the Engineering and Development of Digital Games master course. The curricular unit of Interactive Narratives for Video Games is a fundamental unit that complements and offers basic knowledge in the practice of narratology. It tries to present briefly the work of conception and execution of game scripts, the needs of interactivity, and the connection between ludic and narrative dimensions, valuing the differences and common points between these areas, and their impact on the interactive work.

Narratives in Interactive Systems

By Luis Emilio Bruni, Nele Kadastik

Department: Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology

Level: Graduate Master of Science

Credits: 5 ECTS

The course introduces state of the art frameworks, concepts, and techniques to enable students to design, implement and evaluate Interactive Digital Narrative products that involve the use of storytelling in the latest emerging technological platforms. It presents key concepts and issues relating to Interactive Digital Narrative and Storytelling from IDN, narratology, media technology, cognitive science, semiotics, UX, and ethics. Students get the chance to work with projects and cases from different domains of applications, such as extended reality (XR) technologies, games and serious games, edutainment, interactive storytelling, interactive documentaries, museum science, cultural experiences, performing arts, social media, healthcare apps, immersive journalism, and art installations.

Storytelling with XR

By Ajibade Quwiyu

Department: Extended Reality (XR, VR, AR)

Level: Undergrad/Graduate

Credits: No Unit

Interactive Narrative Design

By David Antognoli

Department: Interactive Arts and Media Department

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 3

Students will implement interactive storytelling content across a variety of platforms in this
development-oriented course. In addition, students will survey and analyze a variety of historical
and contemporary approaches to interactive narrative and discuss some of the fundamental
challenges that face creators in this field. Students will produce published portfolio projects
designed to practice and demonstrate interactive narrative design and development skills while
providing an outlet for their artistic voices.

Tele 5990 Seminar Media Arts: Interactive and Transmedia Narrative

By Dr. Hartmut Koenitz

Department: MMA (Mass Media Arts)

Level: Undergrad

Credits:

Interactive Narrative is a hot topic in many areas: computer games, interactive documentaries,

education, digitally enhanced journalism, health communication etc. While much has been achieved as evidenced by recent narrative games titles like The Walking Dead or Heavy Rain, or the interactive documentary Fort McMoney, Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) is still an open field that provides many opportunities for creative professionals, researchers, and artists. The course will present the field of IDN by exploring significant works and also by hands-on experience which will result in a fully working interactive narrative title by the end of the term, with the potential of a release in the AppStore.

Virtual Reality IV: XR in Game, Gamification and Interactive media

By Hesam Sakian Mohamadi

Department: Department of Multimedia

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 3

Extended reality (XR) is an umbrella term that encompasses virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and other immersive technologies that create or enhance digital experiences. XR has been widely used in game and gamification, which are the application of game elements and principles to non-game contexts, such as education, health, business, and social impact. In this course, students will learn the fundamentals of XR, game design, gamification, mobile sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS, TOF, compass, etc.) and how to use them to create engaging and meaningful experiences for various purposes and audiences. Students will also explore the current trends, challenges, and opportunities of XR in game and gamification, and its impact on society, culture, and ethics.

Course Prerequisites: Interest in XR, game design, gamification and interactive media. Basic programming skills, familiarity with 3D modeling software and Unity3D engine are recommended.

Narrative in a Digital Age

By Jason Boyd

Department: English

Level: Undergraduate

Credits: 1

This course explores how contemporary writers and artists have attempted to come to terms with the so-called post-print era—a historical moment characterized by the strategies of fragmentation and recombination that digital hyperspaces make possible. By analyzing digital texts and the work of cultural theorists on the nature and impact of this new medium, students will address the implications of the rise of computing and the internet for the future of literary and other cultural practices.

Nonlinear and Interactive Storytelling

By Joshua A. Fisher

Department: School of Journalism and Strategic Communication

Level: Graduate

Credits: 3

Hypermedia Laboratory

By Luís Frias

Department: Arts Department

Level: undergraduate

Credits: 8

Addressing the need to include contemporary digital narratives, in the scope of a Multimedia Design graduation, this course promotes as well students ability to integrate previous acquired knowledge on visual media creation and interface design and development.

This course works as an introductory level to the production of a narrative hypermedia project.

Students will be able to identify and differentiate narrative structures and patterns, linear, non-linear and hypermedia. Conceive interactive narrative structures and learn how to use tools for construction of interactive scripts. Understand the relevance and be able to apply notions of interface design in the construction of narrative interactive content.

Narrative Game Applications

By Pratama Wirya Atmaja

Department: Department of Informatics

Level: undergrad

Credits: 3

Games and narratives have been close friends for a long time, and narrative-driven games have consistently been in high demand in entertainment and serious contexts. Due to being artistically rich and technically flexible, such games are ideal for small and independent developers and thus suit the emerging Indonesian game industry. This course prepares students to enter the industry through project-based learning activities on narrative game design, narrative game programming, and narrative game development. The course’s instructions concisely yet comprehensively cover interactive narrative theories, design methods, game algorithms, and development tools and practices. Meanwhile, the course’s assignments follow the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy to ensure an appropriate progression of learning complexity.

Minor in Interactive Narrative Design

By Christian Roth

Department: School Games & Interaction

Level: undergrad

Credits: 30 EC

Interactive Storytelling

By Vincenzo Lombardo & Antonio Pizzo

Department: Department of Humanities & Department of Informatics

Level:Master level

Credits: 6

Goal of the course is to learn the knowledge about the production models of interactive digital narrative (IDN), from the main elements to the software modules of the system architectures. In particular, students will learn

– the history and the main example of IDN

– the fundamental of the IDN systems

– the units and the agents of IDN

– the software architectures of the IDN systems

This course participates to various programmes of humanities, providing the basic elements of the IDN design.

Module UXS-2/3412: Playable Fiction

By Dr. Lyle Skains

Department: Creative Studies and Media

Level: undergrad

Credits: 20

The creative writer is constantly challenged by the evolution of literary form, striving to create fresh and original narratives that depart from the conventional. Modernism, postmodernism, and now digital media are all avenues of exploration and experimentation. This module focuses on the latter domain, as writers approach narrative through the creation of games. Story-games, such as hypertexts, interactive fictions, and visual novels, necessitate unconventional, and even unnatural, structures and perspectives. By creating playable narratives, students on this course will open their writing up to new expressions, forms, and genres. Students will discuss and explore critical and creative responses to these texts, applying new techniques and awareness to their creative writing practice.

Intelligent Storytelling

By Yun-Gyung Cheong

Department: Department of AI

Level: Graduate

Credits: 3

The goal of this course is to theoretically understand interactive stories and computationally model them to implement technologies for automatic analysis and creation of narratives. The curriculum includes story analysis based on narrative theory, various computational models applying artificial intelligence algorithms, authoring tools for creating interactive stories, and case studies implementing intelligent stories in VR and games. Students who take this course are expected to be able to design and implement systems that enhance user experience by adding story elements to the problems they want to solve

지능적 스토리텔링

By 정윤경

Department: 인공지능학과

Level: 대학원

Credits: 3 학점

본 과목의 목표는 인터랙티브 스토리를 이론적으로 이해하고 계산적으로 모델링하여 서사를 자동 분석 및 창작하는 기술을 구현하는 것이다. 학습 내용은 서사 이론에 기반한 스토리 분석, 인공지능 알고리즘을 적용한 다양한 계산적 모델, 인터랙티브 스토리를 만드는 저작 도구, 지능적 스토리를 적용한 VR, 게임등의 구현 사례를 포함한다. 본 과목을 수강한 학생은 해결하고자 하는 문제에 스토리 요소를 추가하여 사용자 경험이 증대되도록 시스템을 설계하고 구현할 수 있을 것으로 기대된다

Narrative and Technology

By Justin Bortnick

Department: English

Level: undergrad

Credits: 3

This course asks students to consider the ways in which technology influences narrative and storytelling practice. Many day-to-day experiences are mediated through an increasingly complicated network of technological structures, algorithms, and a plethora of connected devices. It is paramount that students understand the relationship with and influence that these systems have on traditional narrative modes, and how the works that manifest from them – video games, fan production, hypertext and more – are produced and consumed. This course asks students to write at length critically about these relationships as well as engage in creative production to design interactive digital narrative works of their own.

Narrative and Technology

By Colette Daiute

Department: Psychology ;Educational Psychology ; Urban Education ;Digital Humanities

Level: Graduate/ Ph.D. & M.A.

Credits: 3

This course provides conceptual foundations of interactive digital narrative (IDN) for social science graduate students. In addition to gaining knowledge and appreciation of IDN, students who take this course design research on potential uses for learning, well-being, and social change. Course readings, workshops, and assignments highlight system-process-product complexity, with dynamics including interactivity, game mechanics, choice poetics, polyvocal characters, play, intersubjective pivots, multi-modality (text, AR, VR), immersion, and diverse kinds of player engagement. The course also focuses on contemporary methodologies, such as virtual workshops, data capture, retelling, meta-cognitive replay, and AI-assisted data analysis. We consider the technical qualities of IDN within cultural and ethical contexts (education, museums, community organizations, mental health practices), diversity (designer/player gender, racial, ethnic identifications), equity (sensitivity to bias, accessibility), and inclusion. Class sessions begin with the professor’s brief lecture, a student presentation analyzing an IDN example for potential research, and full-class discussion about the readings and presentation. The course includes a basic hands-on experience with authoring in Twine to familiarize students with how it works and to encourage their further pursuit of IDN design.

DMS199: Making and being made by Media: Introduction to Game Studies

By Dave Pape

Department: Media Study

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 3

This is a first-year seminar intended to introduce students to college in general, and to some of the ‘big questions’ in the specific field of game studies. In this course, students develop a critical perspective on games as media. Reading, viewing, and interacting with contemporary projects and media theory that critically addresses the relations between viewers, producers, and media. In addition the course is an introduction to both analog and computer-based game production techniques. The skills learned in making games will be applicable in a range of creative endeavors beyond the course.

English Major Senior Seminar on Games and Interactive Narrative

by Jennifer Grouling, Ph.D.

Department: Department of English

Level: Undergraduate

Credits: 3

This course combines your skills in creative writing, professional writing, and analysis to study interactive narrative in games. We will read about writing for the game industry. You will apply what you have learned in a collaborative project to create a board game, role-playing game, or interactive fiction.

As a senior seminar, you will develop a capstone project based on the theme of the course and your specialty within English Studies. You will conduct an analysis of a game, design a game pitch or script, or develop teaching materials that incorporate gaming.

Digital Rhetoric and Interactive Media

by Jacob Euteneuer.

Department: Rhetoric

Level: Undergraduate Upper-division (Juniors and Seniors)

Credits: 3

In today’s world, more people than ever have the opportunity to create and distribute narratives, art, and arguments. At the same time, we spend more time, money, and energy playing and interacting with digital media than ever before. The vast majority of this media takes the form of interactive digital narratives. This class takes a dual approach to understanding how people make these persuasive objects and how people perceive them. First, it looks at the tools and contexts of making interactive narratives, sports, games, and toys. Then, we will analyze how the tools’ limitations and affordances affect the process of making–who gets to make things, what people decide to make, and how people find and discover these things. Having both of these in hand, this class examines how interactivity and play have shaped our culture as well as where things might go from here. The final project is the production of an interactive digital narrative that puts forth a specific, researched argument. Students in this course can expect to develop proficiency in several new digital tools and produce digital narratives and games detailing how those tools can be used to change how we see and think about the world.

DMS463: Electronic Literature

By Josephine Anstey & Dave Pape

Department: Media Study

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 4

For decades, writer/artists have been using the computer as a medium for creating fictional and dramatic experiences. Many different kinds of both mainstream and experimental work fit under the umbrella of Electronic Literature: Digital Interactive Storytelling, Games, Intermedia Performance, Hypertext, Location-media, Virtual Reality, Escape Rooms. Practitioners variously focus on visuals, writing, coding, sound. Delivery systems are flexible and diverse: from mobile phone app to physical installation to augmented reality. This course focuses on this expanding and morphing territory. Students will read theoretical texts, analyze work, and create their own fictional and literary experiences in and around computer media.

Narratives and digital storytelling in TEFL

By Réka Lugossy & Mónika Fodor,

Department: Institute of English Studies

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 4

Build multimodal literacy skills and refine teacher trainees’ skills involved in producing and responding to digital stories.
Create innovative digital stories that show students’ understanding of narratives and demonstrate their voice.
Develop students’ interest and expertise in using digital stories in teaching and learning EFL.
Achieve a theoretically embedded understanding of why narratives matter in education.
Refine participants’ storytelling skills while producing digital stories and responding to them.

Artes Electrónicas y Nuevos Medios (con enfoque en narrativas digitales interactivas)

By María Cecilia Reyes

Departamento: Humanidades y Filosofía

Nivel: Pregrado

Créditos: 3

Este curso es un breve recorrido por el complejo mundo de las Artes Electrónicas y los Nuevos Medios, con un enfoque en las narrativas digitales interactivas, explorando sus orígenes históricos y sus múltiples manifestaciones, técnicas y tecnologías; analizando a través de la reflexión estética los cambios culturales que enfrentamos en la era de la información. El curso está destinado a estudiantes de todas las carreras universitarias en todas las áreas del conocimiento.

UXS-2/3048 Transmedia Storytelling

By Dr. Lyle Skains & Ms. Isabel Vincent

Department: Creative Studies and Media

Level: undergrad

Credits: 20

In this module you will investigate storytelling in its various forms, writing through an awareness of critical theory, and creating original work relating to your investigations. You’ll develop an awareness of issues (critical and creative) connected with storytelling, and consider the range, type and style of stories (genres, media, perspectives). You will discover how cultural norms and assumptions influence the telling of stories, exploring and applying relevant critical theory from the perspective of a writer, and reveal through your original work the nature of authorship and readership.

Digital Narrative

By Snezana Milosavljevic Milic,Dejan Milutinovic, & Snezana Bozic

Department: Department of Serbian Studies

Level: PostGraduate, PhD Program Course

Credits: 6

Twining History: Writing the Asian Past through Interactive Narrative

By Shu Wan

Department: History

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 1

GAME-675 Writing for Interactivity

By Dr. Andrew Phelps

Department: AU Game Center

Level: Graduate

Credits: 3

This course examines storytelling strategies for digital games and other interactive media forms. This is a hands-on course that focuses on story-driven, single- and multi-player experiences in the context of storytelling across media. It introduces students to the design and development of narrative games and media experiences including conceptualization, foundational narrative design strategies, and putting these designs in practice through the authorship and delivery of project-based work. Particular attention is paid to both pre-existing and emergent development practices and technologies, as well as how writing for interactivity relates to more traditional dramatic writing and current research in the field.

Trinity Western University

Department: Game Development

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 3

GAME 341: Interactive Storytelling is an in-depth look at the various forms of writing for video games. Students will study and practice game story scripting, writing for interface, dialogue and narration, as well as video game technical writing. Students will develop skills to handle the many writing tasks necessary for a game development project. Students who are not part of the Game Development program will also benefit from taking this course, as it is also applicable to non-game forms of media production.

Interactive Storytelling

By Renske van Enschot

Department: Communication and Cognition

Level: Master

Credits: 6

In this course, students become acquainted with (interactive) narratives, stories and storytelling and with the experience and effects of (interactive) narratives. They explore interactive storytelling in, for example, journalism, health communication and education and discuss how interactivity can be used in storytelling in a meaningful, responsible way. They do so through exploring scientific literature but also through analyzing a professional interactive narrative (discussed in a working group) and creating and publishing their own interactive narrative.

Reading and Making Digital Literature

By Mark C. Marino

Department: Writing Program

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 4

In the age of computers, writing and reading are undergoing complex transformations and evolutions. Digital platforms have opened new possibilities for literature itself, creating new genres of reading experiences that combine the collaboration of readers, writers (including programmers, visual artists, and musicians), and computational systems. These innovative works combine text, audio, visuals, interactivity, and algorithmic processes to create new modes of literary art, extending and reimagining previous forms. This course is designed as a survey of new forms of born-digital literary art, offering students an opportunity to explore new genres and works and to develop new literacies by creating works of their own. This is a creative writing class for the 21st Century.

Creative Writing for Games

By Jorge Miguel Ferrao Palinhos

Department: School of Public Management, Communication and Tourism

Level: Bachelor

Credits: 6.0

Multimédia és digitális történetmesélés az oktatásban

ByAnita Lanszki PhD,

Department: Pedagógiai és Pszichológiai Kar

Level: MA

Credits: 5

Ez a kurzus az angol nyelvű neveléstudományi mesterképzés oktatástechnológiai szakirányának (Education Science – Educational Technology) része.

A digitális történetmesélés számos olyan formát ölthet, amellyel bizonyítottan izgalmas és hatékony módon lehet a tanulókat bevonni a tanítási-tanulási folyamatba számos kontextusban. A kurzus konstruktivista tanulási megközelítésen alapul, amelyben a hallgatók együttműködve dolgoznak saját digitális elbeszéléseik és digitális történetmesélési tanulási-tanítási tervük elkészítésén. A kurzus során a hallgatók megvizsgáljá a multimédia használat és a szövegalkotás gazdag felhasználási lehetőségeit, miközben számos szerkesztést és írást segítő digitális eszközt ismernek meg.

Multimédia és digitális történetmesélés az oktatásban

ByAnita Lanszki PhD,

Department: Faculty of Education and Psychology

Level: Graduate

Credits: 5

This course is part of the Education Science – Educational Technology MA program.

Digital storytelling can take many forms that result in exciting and effective ways to engage students and has proved to be a powerful tool that can be used in multiple educational contexts. The course is based upon a constructivist learning approach in which students work collaboratively to produce their own digital narratives and digital storytelling unit plans. During the course, a range of topics related to the design and development of multimedia-rich educational projects will be explored by a mixture of demonstration, discussion, and hands-on experiences about emerging authoring tools.

Cultural Interactive Narratives: from Data to Script

By Angeliki Chrysanthi

Department: Audiovisual Communication and Advertising

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 4

The term cultural narrative is defined by certain cultural representation practices pertaining to the identification, documentation (and/or creation), transmission, and presentation of a corpus of cultural data. Such data, originating from a specific context, are interpreted to acquire meaning in a different context through the formation of a narrative. In this course, the latter takes the form of an interactive digital narrative which students are encouraged to explore both on a theoretical and a practical level, while they are equipped with the appropriate methodological and digital tools so that they can create complex and compelling scenarios for diverse applications encountered in the contemporary landscape of digital culture.

Audiovisual and Multimedia Languages

By Arnau Gifreu-Castells & Jaume Cuspinera

Department: Audiovisual Communication and Advertising

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 6

Theoretical-practical subject that provides an approach to audiovisual and multimedia languages. Based on a set of projects, guidelines are defined for designing and implementing these languages. The theoretical part examines the fundamentals of the audiovisual (narrative, grammar and script) and multimedia (narrative, architecture and design) languages, and analyzes the main trends of current interactive and immersive formats (Interactive Narratives, Interactive Video, Video Games, Transmedia Narratives, Extended Reality/XR, Immersive Experiences, Generative AI, etc.). These trends are projected, navigated and explored based on the study of a selection of works that operate as case studies. The works include both international projects and works produced in the professional and academic environment by the teacher. In the practical part of the course, students work in groups and have specific roles to produce an audiovisual project and a multimedia project that have a thematic and aesthetic relationship. The projects also maintain coherence and a narrative dialogue between the different media and platforms.

Audiovisual and Multimedia Languages

By Barbaros Bostan

Department: Digital Game Design

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 3

This module explores how storytelling evolved through different mediums and how it is incorporated into contemporary video games. World design, plot and structure, characters, meaningful choices, interactive stories, and cinematography are the key concepts. Students will understand linear and nonlinear interactive narrative techniques, develop an interactive storytelling perspective for video games, understand player types and develop an interactive narrative project in a fictional setting chosen by the instructor. Students will read and analyze the best practices of contemporary written works, such as fictional novels. Students will also play and analyze contemporary video games (in different platforms) with special emphasis on their stories.

Theatre for Management

By Carlo Presotto

Department: Management

Level: Graduate

Credits: 4

Students will be engaged in practical exercises to enhance their creativity and strengthen their management and teamwork skills. Once they have acquired the fundamental tools, the participants will visit a partner company, gathering information and studying its history and development. Subsequently, they will develop and present their own corporate theater proposal based on the company’s needs, utilizing immersive devices of augmented audio reality, following the Silent Play technique which allows the creation of an interactive digital performance. The performance will be adapted to a previously identified real space, with careful attention to the presentation and communication of the event.

New Formats in Journalism

By Jorge Vázquez-Herrero

Department: Communication Sciences

Level: Undergrad

Credits: 6

The course places Journalism students in the contemporary scenario of digital communication, taking into account the evolution of media and technologies, as well as the convergence process, the transformations in journalistic media and the effects of audience participation. The new audiovisual and multimedia formats that have emerged are studied and analyzed, together with the new products for the Web. The workflow and ethical considerations involved in interactive storytelling are addressed in the course. The aim of the subject is that the student acquires knowledge about the new formats and products for the Web and to be able to design digital and interactive journalistic projects.

Digital Storytelling for Social Innovation

By Thandiwe Matyobeni

Department: Community Engagement

Level:Undergrad/Graduate/Post-Graduate

Credits: 4

The course is designed to nurture innovativeness in education. Its aim is to blend what is learnt in lecture halls and the real-world experiences of students. The course takes a learner-centered approach to teaching to stimulate agency through peer feedback, collaboration, and ownership. The course contributes to hidden curriculums by facilitating metaliteracy development and cohesion. The course is integrated into any discipline-specific course to complement and enrich the learning process and assessment. Focus groups are used as a central aspect of the course to provide peer feedback as the storytelling process unfolds.