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Transactions on Edutainment X pp 122–145Cite as

Narrative Threads: A Tool to Support Young People in Creating Their Own Narrative-Based Computer Games

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((TEDUTAIN,volume 7775))

Abstract

This paper introduces Narrative Threads, a suite of tools designed to support 11-15 year olds in creating their own narrative-based computer games. Authoring interactive stories in game form has strong educational potential, but although there are tools which make game creation possible for young people, they have provided little to no interface support for the storytelling aspect of the task until now. Here we describe the design and implementation of Narrative Threads, which provides this support. After giving the background to the tool, we describe the extensive participatory design process which built on existing theory. Finally, an initial evaluation is presented, which indicates that games created using Narrative Threads are rated more highly than those created without the additional support provided by these tools.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interactive Systems, School of Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK

    Katherine Howland, Judith Good & Benedict du Boulay

Authors
  1. Katherine Howland
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  2. Judith Good
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  3. Benedict du Boulay
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Digital Media and HCI Research Center, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China

    Zhigeng Pan

  2. Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, 4-1-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, 223-8526, Yokohama-city, Kanagawa, Japan

    Adrian David Cheok

  3. University of Education, Weingarten, Germany

    Wolfgang Müller

  4. Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Kamp-Lintfort, Germany

    Ido Iurgel

  5. Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI), Freyung 6/6, 1010, Vienna, Austria

    Paolo Petta

  6. Fraunhofer Institut for Computer Graphics Research IGD, Joachim-Jungius-Str. 11, 18059, Rostock, Germany

    Bodo Urban

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Howland, K., Good, J., du Boulay, B. (2013). Narrative Threads: A Tool to Support Young People in Creating Their Own Narrative-Based Computer Games. In: Pan, Z., Cheok, A.D., Müller, W., Iurgel, I., Petta, P., Urban, B. (eds) Transactions on Edutainment X. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7775. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37919-2_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37919-2_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-37918-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-37919-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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