narrative

Introduction to Gamification Part 10: Narrative

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Intro to Gamification Part 10 Introduction to Gamification Part 10 Narrative

Narrative is in my opinion, one of the most powerful yet underrated ways of improving almost anything! A good story can carry you through the most boring of times by creating the most exciting of images in your imagination.

However, building stories into certain, less “play” compatible environments can be a challenge. So can creating stories that fit with the very “stop/start” nature of many gamified environments.

What is Narrative?

First, let’s look at what narrative actually is. Put over simply, a narrative is just a story. However, the way I like to look at the difference between a narrative and a story is that a narrative is happening now, whereas a story has already just happened (and a collection of stories is a history…). Read More ...

Guest Post: Storytelling and gamification in education

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Once upon a time 719174 1280 Guest Post Storytelling and gamification in education

Today I am excited to be able to publish a guest post from a good friend of mine, Rob Alvarez Bucholska. We speak regularly and he is a great gamification educator. Here he speaks about how he uses storytelling in materials he creates for the IE Business School in Madrid. Enjoy!

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A while ago, Andrzej Marczewski wrote “6 Tips for Short Term Gamification“, and there is one that stood out for me because of my experience creating interactive learning materials at IE Business School. As you might guess from the title it is about narrative and storytelling. What I’ve done in the past are learning materials that, purposefully, are short bursts of learning for students. They are designed to be completed in 90 minutes or less. If you consider the typical gamified product, where you are normally looking for medium to long-term engagement, it is easy to see that there might be many strategies that don’t apply here. Read More ...

A Challenge for My Readers – Micro Story Telling

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Post it 1505740990 A Challenge for My Readers 8211 Micro Story Telling

It has been weeks since I last spoke about narratives and stories. I just wanted to pass a thought by you that fits in nicely with my stuff on Narrative Atoms and to set you a challenge. I saw a great article thanks to Rob Alvarez, Bucholska that had something very similar – 2 sentence horror stories.

This fit in brilliantly with something I had done recently, so got me to thinking. How much story can you fit on a post-it note? How much text do you need to create a story in the minds of your users/readers? Read More ...

Her Story, Gone Home and Narrative Atoms

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HS Wide Her Story Gone Home and Narrative Atoms

Last week I wrote about Narrative Atoms in some details. They are basically small nuggets of narrative that can stand on their own but together build the bigger story.

Two obvious examples that I totally forgot about are the game / narrative experiences of Her Story and Gone Home.

Her Story is the fabulous creation of Sam Barlow. You take the role of investigator, reviewing a police archive of video footage of a British woman accused of murder. You can access the footage in any order you like, gleaning more clues and information with every video you watch. Sometimes the videos will not make sense until you find the video that came before it, others give you all you need in just a few seconds of footage. The joy is discovering how the story fits together, jumping back and forward through the timeline. New snippets of information give you new ideas on what to search in the archive, leading to many “Ahahaa” moments. Read More ...

Narrative Atoms and The Soap Hero’s Journey

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Narrative Atoms Narrative Atoms and The Soap Hero 8217 s Journey

Narrative atoms are small units of narrative or story that can, within the context of the overall narrative, stand alone. That does not mean they need to be completely self-explanatory, just sit comfortably on their own.

In a standard linear story, each atom would be placed sequentially, so their ability to stand alone is less important. However, in many games narrative bends and twists and turns in a non-linear way. For that to work, for a story to makes sense as it jumps from A to C to G to B and back again, each section, each narrative atom must be able to hold its own without the need every other atom to support it. Read More ...