Minor in Interactive Narrative Design

Christian Roth, PhD, School of Games, HKU University of the Arts , Utrecht, The Netherlands

Course Type: Design and Technology-focused

Keywords: Interactive Narrative Design, Strategic Storytelling, Ludonarrative Harmony

University Department Level Credits Length Medium
HKU University of the Arts School Games & Interaction Undergrad 30 EC 20 In-person

Course Description

The Minor Interactive Narrative Design (MIND) teaches to work with the tools needed by the storyteller of the future. In two related projects (self-expression and present yourself), students combine theory and practice, and learn to identify the opportunities for putting interactive projects on the market.

Project 1 (in pairs), students take one or two of the ’36 dramatic situations’ (Polti) as their starting point and create an interactive presentation based on a personal narrative or chosen theme.

Project 2 (group), students develop a promising interactive concept (including a working prototype), and create a funding application for it. This strategic narrative design is often similar to a serious or persuasive narrative game, but can also be an installation. 

The minor is rounded off by a personal presentation in which students reflect on their own development as interactive narrative designers, using examples from their projects (ten-minute presentation for a committee of lecturers).

https://www.hku.nl/en/study-at-hku/games-and-interaction/minor-interactive-narrative-design

Course Objectives ​

  • Analysis and creation of basic story elements (characters, setting, conflict, events)
  • Steps of the IND design process using different sets of IND design and creation tools 
  • Learning IND design conventions (e.g. delayed consequences (call-back, flags), foldback structures, scripting the interactor)
  • Theory behind narrative design and writing, including ludonarrative harmony / dissonance, meaning-making and experiential dimensions (curiosity, suspense etc). 
  • Working as a Production Studio: As a team, developing and pitching a promising, purposeful IND concept, supported by a prototype, targeted at a suitable audience and application area, writing a funding application. 
  • Design as iterative process, including playtesting and reflection 
  • Learning how to become a professional interactive narrative designer

Weekly Outline

Week 1. Introduction Project: Ideation, Prototyping & Playtesting

Week 2. Project 1: Kick-off, Writing for Interaction & Designing Agency

Week 3. Writing for Interaction & Designing Agency

Week 4. Writing for Interaction & Designing Agency

Week 5. Ideation, Prototyping & Playtesting 

Week 6. Ideation, Prototyping & Playtesting 

Week 7. Mid-term

Week 8. Workshop week (e.g. Escape rooms and installations)

Week 9. Project 2 kickoff -> Production Studio 

Week 10. till Week 20. Guest Lectures, Excursions, Production Studio 

Week 20. End-term

From the Syllabus: Interactive Narrative Labs

In the so-called “interactive narrative labs”, or just “labs” in the first block, students will get lectures and project supervision from the core teachers. Each lab runs for three weeks, parallel to the first project. Each of the two labs focuses on a particular part of the process of creating an Interactive Narrative Design, namely:

Lab 1: Ideation, Prototyping & Playtesting

Lab 2: Writing for Interaction & Designing Agency 

During the labs we will also create time and space for project feedback, skillsharing (either internally or from HKU experts) and playtesting other inspiring IND works (see ‘Let’s Plays’). There will also be some ‘free space’ for workshops to be filled in at a later date based on the questions and needs of the students.     

Lab 1: Ideation, Prototyping & Playtesting

During the three weeks of this lab we will explore different types of interactive narratives, ranging from improvisation theater to digital games. Reflection on your experience with these plays an important role. What happened, how did you feel and how did the narrative designers achieve that through their artefact? Playtesting other works will inspire you to create your own. You will learn how to ideate with the goal of rapid prototyping. Within a series of smaller challenges, you will ideate, create, test and reflect. What did you learn from the playtest? What could be improved? Based on your insights, you’ll iterate and test again.

Lab 2: Writing for Interaction & Designing Agency

you will dive deeper into the actual scripting and writing process of creating interactive narratives. We will start with the fundamentals of storytelling, exploring character, conflict, worldbuilding and plotting and from there on move on to the specific challenges and possibilities of telling in an interactive manner and creating agency for players. A ‘script’ in an interactive story can be quite diverse, so you will not only learn how to write dialogue and story, but also how to utilize tutorials, quests, item descriptions and visual storytelling to create a meaningful whole. But we will not only be looking at the structural and technical side of storytelling during the lab: you will gain more insight in how to create deeper emotional choices within your narrative by creating a ‘heatmap’ for your interactive narrative.



 

Reading

  • Murray, J. H. (2017). Harbingers of the holodeck (Chapter 2). In Hamlet on the holodeck: The future of narrative in cyberspace (Updated edition, pp. 35–67). The MIT Press.
  • Roth, C., & Koenitz, H. (2016). Evaluating the user experience of Interactive Digital Narrative. Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Multimedia Alternate Realities, 31–36. https://doi.org/10.1145/2983298.2983302
  • Roth, C.: The ‘Angstfabriek’ experience: Factoring fear into transformative interactive narrative design. In: Interactive storytelling. pp. 101–114. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33894-7_11.
  • Polti, Georges (1921). The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. Franklin, Ohio: James Knapp Reeve. 
  • Bogost, I. (2007). Persuasive games: The expressive power of videogames. Boston Review.
  • Flanagan, M. (2009). Critical Play: Radical Game Design. MIT Press Cambridge

Viewings

IDN Artifacts

  • Adventures with Anxiety  
  • AI Dungeon: https://play.aidungeon.io/main/home
  • Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
  • Façade
  • Florence
  • I am Mosul  
  • Mission Zhobia  
  • The Last Hijack  
  • The Industry  
  • Unpacking
  • What Remains of Edith Finch

IDE and IDN Authoring Tools

  • Installation 
  • Twine
  • Presentation software (Powerpoint, Keynote, Google Slides)  / whiteboards (Miro)
  • Inkle Writer
  • Inform7
  • RenPy
  • Unity3D (with Yarnspinner https://www.yarnspinner.dev/)
  • Unreal Engine

Major Assignments (being assignments whose value is of 25% or more)

Project 1 (mid-term)

  • Platform: student choice, can also be an installation or board game 
  • Purpose: create a personal small interactive narrative experience based on skills you bring to the Minor (e.g. filmmaking)
  • Requirements:
    • Project Length: 5 – 7 minutes 
    • Project Size: 3 scenes, beginning, middle and end
    • Project Aesthetics: artistic or experimental
    • Coding Proficiency: depends on student backgrounds, no coding required for this project
  • Evaluation: 
      • Interactivity: Student is able to recognize IND design patterns in existing interactive narratives and their own work
      • Story and narrative: Student understands the techniques and basic components of (interactive) narrative experiences and is able to apply it to own work
      • Production values: Student is able to set up a (physical and/or digital) playtest with a prototype for a test audience using existing techniques and designs (paper prototyping, Twine, etc), Student is able to propose the suitable technical tools and development process for the concept
      • Team and Communication:  Student is able to share ideas internally, supported by basic communication tools (e.g. pitch, slides, video, prototypes), Student is able to document their own learning journey and insights

Project 2 (end-term, 60 %)

  • Platform: student team choice, often several iterations using different technologies 
  • Purpose: 
    • It will address an existing societal need or opportunity, derived from practice
    • It contains a clear exploration and analysis of this need or opportunity (research)
    • It must be workable in scope (considering team size, skills and available time)
    • It is delivered via a pitch presentation, supported by a tested and playable prototype
    • It will be reflected upon in terms of impact and transformative potential
  • Requirements:
    • Project Length: over 10 minutes
    • Project Size: variable, prototype should give a good insight into the concept, .e.g vertical slice
    • Project Aesthetics: need to demonstrate the production capabilities 
    • Coding Proficiency: usually contains higher level of coding (developer on team)
  • Evaluation: 
      • Interactivity: project 1 basics + student is able to develop original IND designs
      • Story and narrative: project 1 basics + Student is able to apply her insight in the appeal of (interactive) narrative experiences to create works with emotional and/or educational impact
      • Production values:  project 1 basics + Student is able to formulate clear design questions and create the right prototypes to test these, Student is able to effectively reflect on the feedback gained in the ideation and incorporate the feedback in their iteration process, Student is able to develop the audiovisual (and haptic) stimulus (e.g. illustration, modelling, animation, UI, etc.) on a sufficient level
      • Team and Communication: project 1 basics + Student is able to share ideas externally (offline/online), supported by advanced communication tools (e.g. video, prototypes), Student is able to distill insights from their own learning journey that are usable to other designers

Course Best Practices

  • We find that students need a good mix between contact hours and self-organised working time. We keep a similar structure throughout the course.
    Contact hours: two sessions per week, usually Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday has a lecture, then applied work. Thursday starts with a deep dive on a topic, then usually work in teams and playtesting 
  • Our course can not cover all the needed topics, so we combine it with other courses, whenever possible, e.g. students could join the introductory game design lessons with Ernest Adams. Furthermore, we want students to also use physical elements in their works, so we offer them access to use all of our workshop facilities, such as for laser cutting and 3D printing. Furthermore, students can use the BlackBox for the creation of immersive environments (CAVE) and the 360 dome.
  • It is crucial for us to have students experience other works so we arrange an excursion to The Dutch Design week and we include two museum visits.
  • We advise to have students upload their digital works online (e.g. itch.io) as projects can then easily be shared
  • We invite external examiners from the industry for the midterm and endterm.
  • As part of our Let’s Share events, we invite students to share existing knowledge from their field (e.g. animation, theater) -> this flipped classroom experience helps them to take new perspectives and support our endeavors to be a learning community
  • We made good experiences by inviting externals to give workshops, e.g. on how to write a successful grant application. We do this via a lecture by a company that got the grant, e.g. the Dutch companies &Ranj and Wispfire and by a  lecture by the grant advisor.
  • To help students with their learning journey, we offer optional check-ups with students during the minor → Let’s Talk Sessions. These meetings can be used for anything related to the learning goals, study progress, well-being or additional feedback on the projects. These meetings helped us to help identify issues early on and at crucial moments.