Project Details

Game Title and Intended Audience

The subject area and specific topic for the narrative game “Food for Thought” focuses on customer service employee training for an e-commerce meal service delivery company.

The learner/player audience is typically under 35 and tech-savvy; has at least a high school diploma and may or may not have an associate's or bachelor’s degree; and always has some customer service or call center experience. The new team member will be working at a desk in the office of headquarters, taking a third-person POV. The learning objectives for this iteration of the game have been streamlined into two parts: building or deepening product knowledge and garnering an awareness of how presenting information to a customer impacts their decision making.

Plot Summary

CompanyName is a small e-commerce firm specializing in high-quality, macro-balanced meals delivered right to customers’ doorsteps. For 15 years, they've catered to those seeking convenient, fully prepared restaurant-quality meals free from gluten and soy. Made with clean whole foods and premium proteins, their meals contain no seed oils, artificial ingredients, or preservatives. Cost is similar to fast casual dining and price isn’t an impediment to long-term customers. Because the business is doing well and growing, the company is hiring new customer service team members. After reading the job description, Alex feels they're a good match for the requirements so they apply.

Congratulations, Alex— the position is yours! It’s 8:50am, and you just sat down at your desk in the office for day two on the job. Waiting for your trainer to arrive, you decide to log in to the customer service portal. Your new manager hurries over and introduces herself. “It seems a few of our CS Team members are out today! Can you jump in and help us get some customers handled? The phones start ringing at 9:00am!”

Though a bit nervous, Alex needs to jump right in. They have a choice: tackle voicemails from last night or start taking live calls. Either way, these customers have questions, and Alex needs to keep cool while finding the right answers. Do they confidently help, or ask your trainer for guidance when needed? Earning five-star ratings from every customer is your goal, but you don't want to bother your trainer unnecessarily. Can they rise to the challenge?

Twine Prototype URL

https://formernongamer.itch.io/food-for-thought

Story Structure

The story structure of “Food for Thought” is typical as it includes beginning, middle, and end points commonly found in a narrative. The exposition and conflict markers from the beginning of the game include information about the company and why it needs to hire new employees, as well as Alex getting hired. The conflict comes to a head when Alex’s new manager asks them to jump in immediately, despite a paucity of training. Rising action focuses on choosing a level of gameplay. Taking voicemail requires less cognitive load as the learner/player has more time to think and use job aids before responding. Taking inbound calls is faster paced and more challenging. The narrative climax requires simulated customer interaction and wise use of scarce resources (time, in-person help) while simultaneously describing products accurately and solving for customer queries. The story arc shortens with falling action as the day winds down. The phones are not constantly ringing and voicemails are nearly all returned. The narrative ends with one of three resolutions: Alex quits immediately after being unexpectedly asked to take calls; Alex acquits themself nobly and needs only a small amount more training; Alex does a fantastic job and is ready to work solo.

Storyboard of Decisions

Figure 1.

Figure 1. illustrates the storyboard of choices that Alex faces as they work through day two of their new job. Story elements are organized to engage the learner/player sequentially, with more less interesting decision type near the beginning (orange outline) of the game and a greater number of more interesting decision types (pink and dotted white outlines) in the middle and end of the game.

Less interesting decision types include a pair of misleading decisions to advance gameplay; this includes 05 Take a Call and 05 Check VM as there’s only one choice given to force the player’s hand and allow for unexplored opportunity. Obvious decisions are included in 01 and 02 Exposition. A risk/reward decision is in choosing to return voicemails versus answering calls live. Although star ratings by customers were not implemented in this iteration of the game due to technical constraints on the part of the author, that is in the devlog for future iterations to build more interaction and a greater sense of purpose in gameplay.

Strengths, Wins, Gaps & Goals

The author has a few reflections on the game and its creation process. "Food for Thought" offers a solid narrative arc and presents a relatively realistic storyline. The main character's thoughts, responses, and actions are believable easy to relate to. The author did a deeper dive than was necessary with the Twine game engine; using color and text styling to match those of the parent company added to the accurate look and feel of the game. Using the Twinery cookbook allowed the [former] non-gamer to add stronger storytelling elements, advancing the narrative of the story more effectively. The first half of the game has stronger presence than the second half, and would benefit from additional time to add more questions and answers for Alex to work through enhancing gameplay. Adding appropriate supporting creative to the FAQs, Meal Picker page, and Ask the Trainer pages are advised. After closing storyline gapes, goals include adding the customers' star-based rating system and making good use of Twine's randomizer feature. This would be a solid fit for arbitrarily assigning voicemails and calls to whichever line the learner/player chose. Additionally, the game creator could add a countdown timer to calls to add a sense of urgency and the realistic time elapse.

References

Klimas, C. (2024, July 28). Introduction. Twinery.Org: Introduction. https://twinery.org/reference/en/

Sunday, October 6, 2024

Food for Thought: a Narrative Learning Game