Narrative Design Process: A Reflection

I am a fairly confident writer and earned an English minor in undergrad; so when I approached this assignment, I naïvely wondered “What could be so hard about putting together a little story for a game?” A lot. Actually, a whole lot.

The Process

I was fairly comfortable with ideation techniques and refinement. I’ve taken the rapid development class and also use iterative processes at work, so that was great background for this activity. Using the resources we were given to generate story ideas was helpful! Playing Rapid Fire was fun, but the Idea Cards technique left me confused, and after a few tries I gave up on that one. In the end I combined what I had from Rapid Fire with the What If Scenarios that highlighted training needs at work.

Figure 1. Freytag's Pyramid story arc

Planning the story was a matter of art imitating life. We’ve recently had several new hires at work, and training customer service personnel for the small e-commerce meal delivery company I work for seemed like a good fit for this game.

Initially I had the wrong idea, or maybe it was the right idea but the wrong approach. On my first take, I'd planned to allow

Decision Types for Learner & Player Agency in Text-Based Narrative Games: SPENT

It’s been years since I played a game that's largely text-based. I was curious to see what current possibilities look like and how they’ve evolved, so I decided to try all three of the narrative games this week's module. While Gods Will Be Watching (Deconstructeam, n.d.) and The Domovoi (Bravemule, n.d.) were both well done, I was drawn in by the simplicity and surprisingly strong realism provided by Urban Ministries of Durham game SPENT (n.d.).Links to an external site.

Gameplay

Figure 1. Screenshot from the game SPENT.

Focusing on the theme of poverty and its challenges, SPENT is an online game designed to simulate the challenges of living paycheck to paycheck by requiring players to make a series of decisions in the first person that directly affect their financial stability (Figure 1). Each choice is connected to dilemmas relating to health, education, and basic family needs, often presenting no ideal solutions. Non-player characters are introduced in limited cameos and can include bosses, landlords, neighbors, and immediate family members, among others. This game effectively models

Gameplay Analysis of Zoombinis

Mentor Game Details

Award winner “Logical Journey of the Zoombinis” was originally developed by Chris Hancock and Scot Osterweil, who were co-workers at the Technical Education Research Centers (or TERC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (TERC, 2024a). The game was launched with tremendous success in partnership with Broderbund in 1996, but as technology evolved the edutainment software was unable to keep pace (Toppo, 2015). Ownership of “Logical Journey of the Zoombinis” changed hands several times, and the game all but disappeared in a stream of mergers. In a surprising twist, TERC was able to reclaim the software in 2011, and in 2015 launched a Kickstarter campaign; news of the game’s revival was received with glee by long-time fans who more than doubled the $50,000 funding goal for an updated desktop version. According to Toppo’s article in USA Today, “Zoombinis” re-launched on August 6, 2015 through the Android and Apple Apps stores, and on Macintosh and Windows desktop platforms shortly thereafter.