A framework for multi-participant narratives based on multiplayer game interactions

Multi-participant Interactive Narratives have the potential for novel types of story and experiences, but there is no framework to show what is possible, and therefore no description of what types of multi-participant narrative could exist. In this paper, we attempt to build such a framework by first considering the core characteristics of interactions in multiplayer games, and then considering how those might be used to define different types of multi-participant narrative. Our framework is based on a systematic analysis of 56 interactions across 17 multiplayer games, resulting in 9 distinguishing characteristics. We then validate this framework by applying it to 3 novel multiplayer games, showing that it successfully captures the player interactions, although some higher level design decisions are missed. Finally, we demonstrate that novel premises for multi-participant narratives can be constructed from these characteristics. Our work provides a foundation for considering the types of multi-participant narrative that are possible

Developing an Interactive Tabletop Mediated Activity to Induce Collaboration by Implementing Design Considerations Based on Cooperative Learning Principles

Constructive collaboration can be a difficult matter. For this reason, we are implementing and studying an interactive-tabletop-mediated activity that aims at inducing collaboration among participants. The resulting activity ‘Orbitia’ is designed as a serious game. Participants are asked to act as a space- mining crew, which has to collect minerals with a rover and rely on a camera- drone for reconnaissance, while keeping the rover out of harm and managing limited resources. In this paper we provide an account of how we designed Orbitia’s pedagogical structuring by relying on the Johnsons’ cooperative learning approach whose fundamental concept is “positive interdependence”. More particularly, we show how we worked on resource, role and task inter- dependence to design three collaboration-inducing ‘flagship’ devices: the rover- steering-device (RSD), the item-locating-device (ILD) and the responsibility- activating-device (RAD)

Knowledge at play. Studies of games as members’ matters

On a general level, this thesis seeks some answers to the broad question of what one can learn from digital games. With an analytical approach informed by ethnomethodology, the main thrust of the work is an exploration of members’ matters in the area of games and gaming. In response to prevailing discussions about how, where and what gamers learn, the aim is to examine emerging forms of knowledge embedded in practices in and around digital games. The first part of the thesis addresses three themes: the question of whether leisure gaming could be understood to have transfer effects; how games are positioned in a state of restlessness and multistableness; and how the domain encompassing gaming and game development is advancing in terms of professionalization and institutionalization. The second part is comprised of three empirical studies based on two sets of video recordings: collaborative gaming in The Lord of the Rings Online, and assessment practices in game development education. The studies begin to unravel the elusive phenomena of gaming by making some gameplay practices and conventions visible. For instance, the findings suggest that there are specialized coordination practices, developed through long-term engagement with the online game. Furthermore, from the perspective of the institutional framing, it is argued that understandings from other media are not applicable in a straightforward manner, but must be carefully calibrated to matters such as game genre conventions and control over gameplay conduct. By describing the reasoning and knowledge displayed by gamers and game developers, the thesis contributes to interrelated discussions about knowledge development, currently carried out in educational science, interaction studies and game studies. In conclusion, it is suggested that digital games are establishing autonomy from other forms of entertainment media and software industries as a result of the ways games and gaming as multistable objects of knowledge have become deeply embedded in society