research-article

Narrative support for young game designers' writing

Authors:

Benedict du BoulayAuthors Info & Claims

IDC '15: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children

Pages 178 - 187

https://doi.org/10.1145/2771839.2771858

Published: 21 June 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Creating narrative-based computer games is a complex and challenging task. Narrative Threads is a suite of software tools designed to aid young people (aged 11-15) in creating their own narrative-based games as a writing development activity. A participatory design process highlighted the areas where additional support was required, and informed the iterative design of Narrative Threads. The tools are implemented as a plugin to a commercial game creation toolset, and constitute character and object design tools, a branching narrative diagramming tool and an augmented story map view. In this paper, we provide an overview of the design of the tools and describe an evaluation carried out with 14 children over a four-day workshop. The study examined tool usage patterns, and compared games created with Narrative Threads to those created using the standard toolset. The results suggest a number of ways in which dynamic external representations of story elements can support writing activities in narrative-based game creation. Young designers using Narrative Threads wrote more character dialogue, made stronger links between the conversations they wrote and wider game events, and designed more complex characters, compared to those using the standard toolset. In addition to showing how Narrative Threads can support young games designers, the results have broader implications for anyone looking to support storytelling and writing through game creation activities and tools.

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Cited By

Chen LXiao SChen YSong YWu RSun L(2024)ChatScratch: An AI-Augmented System Toward Autonomous Visual Programming Learning for Children Aged 6-12Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642229(1-19)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642229
Hagen MCruzes DJaccheri LFails J(2024)Evaluating digital creativity support for childrenInternational Journal of Child-Computer Interaction10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.10060338:COnline publication date: 27-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.100603
Hava KGuyer TCakir H(2022)Factors That Enable or Hinder the Implementation of Game Development Activity in Learning EnvironmentsResearch Anthology on Developments in Gamification and Game-Based Learning10.4018/978-1-6684-3710-0.ch016(344-364)Online publication date: 2022
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-3710-0.ch016
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Narrative support for young game designers' writing
1. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

IDC '15: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children

June 2015

488 pages

ISBN:9781450335904

DOI:10.1145/2771839

Conference Chairs:
Marina Umaschi Bers
Tufts University
,
Glenda Revelle
University of Arkansas

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 21 June 2015

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Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Doctoral Training Account

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IDC '15

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IDC '15: Interaction Design and Children

June 21 - 24, 2015

Massachusetts, Boston

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IDC '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 24 of 103 submissions, 23%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 172 of 578 submissions, 30%

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IDC '25

Sponsor:
sigchi

Interaction Design and Children

June 23 - 26, 2025

Reykjavik , Iceland

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Cited By

Chen LXiao SChen YSong YWu RSun L(2024)ChatScratch: An AI-Augmented System Toward Autonomous Visual Programming Learning for Children Aged 6-12Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642229(1-19)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642229
Hagen MCruzes DJaccheri LFails J(2024)Evaluating digital creativity support for childrenInternational Journal of Child-Computer Interaction10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.10060338:COnline publication date: 27-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.100603
Hava KGuyer TCakir H(2022)Factors That Enable or Hinder the Implementation of Game Development Activity in Learning EnvironmentsResearch Anthology on Developments in Gamification and Game-Based Learning10.4018/978-1-6684-3710-0.ch016(344-364)Online publication date: 2022
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-3710-0.ch016
Zarei NQuek FChu SChan AHowell J(2022)Designing Interactive Contextual Cues for Children’s Video-Stimulated WritingProceedings of the 21st Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3501712.3529727(196-205)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3501712.3529727
Hava KGuyer TCakir H(2020)Factors That Enable or Hinder the Implementation of Game Development Activity in Learning EnvironmentsCognitive and Affective Perspectives on Immersive Technology in Education10.4018/978-1-7998-3250-8.ch014(267-288)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-3250-8.ch014

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