Abstract
Narratological models can be used to classify serious games as linear narratives, non-linear narratives, or non-narratives and enable an exploration of whether there are differences in evaluations of motivation, engagement and learning in narrative serious games that classify as either non-linear or linear. This paper uses the extended ludo narrative variable model (eLNVM) and its categories as identification criteria to uniquely classify serious games by their narrative structure. To investigate differences in self-reported effects on engagement, motivation, and learning, a dataset of 15 serious games has been classified. The results show differences in effectiveness with the non-linear narrative serious games evaluating better than the linear ones across the three effect types. This research provides recommendations related to what class of narrative to target in future serious games development and propose interesting grounds for future research to further detail the results presented.
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Breien, F., Gkini, C. (2021). The Hero’s Lock Down: Differences in Learning Potential Between Linear and Non-linear Narratives in Serious Games. In: de Rosa, F., Marfisi Schottman, I., Baalsrud Hauge, J., Bellotti, F., Dondio, P., Romero, M. (eds) Games and Learning Alliance. GALA 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13134. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92182-8_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92182-8_23
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