Companionship games:a framework for emotionally engaging and empathetic interactive characters

1 in 2 people are diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and for those living with cancer loneliness and isolation are significant problems. This paper discusses the development of a virtual cancer support group, using the support group format to offer a companionship game to breast cancer patients. Seven characters populate this support group, designed as empathetic virtual agents. Interviews and playtests will assess the effectiveness of the design practice developed, and these learnings will be used to create a design framework for emotionally engaging and empathetic interactive characters.</p

Cognitive and affective perspectives on immersive technology in education

This research explains the rationale behind the utilization of mobile learning technologies. It involves a qualitative study among children to better understand their opinions and perceptions toward the use of educational applications (apps) that are available on their mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. The researchers organized semi-structured, face-to-face interview sessions with primary school students who were using mobile technologies at their primary school. The students reported that their engagement with the educational apps has improved their competencies. They acquired relational and communicative skills as they collaborated in teams. On the other hand, there were a few students who were not perceiving the usefulness and the ease of use of the educational apps on their mobile device. This study indicates that the research participants had different skillsets as they exhibited different learning abilities. In conclusion, this contribution opens-up avenues for future research in this promising field of study.peer-reviewe

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

Narrative support for young game designers’ writing

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

Designing Sugaropolis:digital games as a medium for conveying transnational narratives

In this paper, the authors present a case study of ‘Sugaropolis’: a two-year practice-based project that involved interdisciplinary co-design and stakeholder evaluation of two digital game prototypes. Drawing on the diverse expertise of the research team (game design and development, human geography, and transnational narratives), the paper aims to contribute to debates about the use of digital games as a medium for representing the past. With an emphasis on design-as-research, we consider how digital games can be (co-)designed to communicate complex histories and geographies in which people, objects, and resources are connected through space and time

Crossovers: Digitalization and literature in foreign language education

Digitalization produces increasingly multimodal and interactive literary forms. A major challenge for foreign language education in adopting such forms lies in deconstructing discursive borders between literary education and digital education (romance of the book vs. euphoric media heavens), thereby crossing over into a perspective in which digital and literary education are intertwined. In engaging with digital literary texts, it is additionally important to consider how different competencies and literary/literacy practices interact and inform each other, including: (1) a receptive perspective: reading digital narratives and digital literature can become a space for literary aesthetic experience, and (2) a productive perspective: learners can become “produsers” (Bruns, 2008) of their own digital narratives by drawing on existing genre conventions and redesigning “available designs” (New London Group, 1996). Consequently, we propose a typology of digital literatures, incorporating functional, interactive and narrative aspects, as applied to a diverse range of digital texts. To further support our discussion, we draw on a range of international studies in the fields of literacies education and 21st century literatures (e.g., Beavis, 2010; Hammond, 2016; Kalantzis &amp; Cope, 2012; Ryan, 2015) and, in turn, explore trajectories for using concrete digital literary texts in the foreign language classroom

Machinima interventions: innovative approaches to immersive virtual world curriculum integration

The educational value of Immersive Virtual Worlds (IVWs) seems to be in their social immersive qualities and as an accessible simulation technology. In contrast to these synchronous applications this paper discusses the use of educational machinima developed in IVW virtual film sets. It also introduces the concept of media intervention, proposing that digital media works best when simply developed for deployment within a blended curriculum to inform learning activity, and where the media are specifically designed to set challenges, seed ideas, or illustrate problems. Machinima, digital films created in IVWs, or digital games offer a rich mechanism for delivering such interventions. Scenes are storyboarded, constructed, shot and edited using techniques similar to professional film production, drawing upon a cast of virtual world avatars controlled through a human–computer interface, rather than showing real‐life actors. The approach enables academics or students to make films using screen capture software and desktop editing tools. In student‐generated production models the learning value may be found in the production process itself. This paper discusses six case studies and several themes from research on ideas for educational machinima including: access to production; creativity in teaching and learning; media intervention methodology; production models; reusability; visualisation and simulation

The quest for ludonarrative : designing a ludonarrative analytical framework for analysis and design of ludonarrative in games through analysed case studies : Hollow Knight, Celeste, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

games have grown into the largest entertainment media in the world, significant research into the social, economic, and cultural impact of games has been conducted. However, investigation into the aesthetic and sense-making capacity of games is less well represented. Specifically, the intersection and synthesis of game narrative and gameplay, known as ludonarrative, is under theorised. This thesis addresses this gap by developing a framework for analysing and designing ludonarrative in games and testing it against three case studies; Hollow Knight, Celeste, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The thesis includes an extensive literature review which identifies theories and frameworks to construct the Ludonarrative Analytic Framework (LAF), with close playing providing the data for case study analysis. In addition to the LAF, this thesis contributes analysis of the artistic value of the three case studies and furthers the conversation about games’ capacity and methods for storytelling