Games+Learning+Society 11 Conference

Stories, Games, & Learning Through Play: An Analysis of Narrative Affordances in Game-Based Instruction
Stephen Slota, Michael Young, Roger Travis

Stories are the mechanism through which humans construct reality and make sense of the world around them. Yet, research on the positive effects of narrative in game-based and other learning environments is quite variable, and the relevance of narrative to the learning sciences is not well understood. Identifying precisely how narrative intertwines with human experience of the lived-in world requires the application of a situated cognition framework to understand recipient-content-context interactions as dynamic and co-determined. To begin unpacking this issue, a narrative-structured, game-based learning program, Project TECHNOLOGIA, was used to target in-context, on-the-fly dialogic interactions between narrative “producers” (i.e., instructors) and “recipients” (i.e., participating students). Results indicate that there may be value in pursuing narrative as an instructional game mechanic for complex social, cultural, and intellectual issues as well as the induction of real-world goal adoption. Recommendations for further research are provided.


“I Have To Tell You Something”: How Narrative and Pretend Play Intersect In Story Games
Sean Duncan, Chris Georgen, Lucas Cook, Joey Huang

In this paper, we explore learning and play within the context of rules-light, narratively-focused tabletop role-playing games, colloquially called “story games.” Focusing on data drawn from The Story Games Project, we highlight exchanges within a game session of the game Fiasco, which illustrate a negotiation of roles and collaborative narrative construction among players. With an emphasis on revoicing and pretend play, we discuss implicit mechanics which guide the enaction of roles within the play of these games, as well as the means by which players learn to embody different identities through play.


Metafiction in Videogames
James Cox

There have been doubts about the existence of metafiction within videogames. It may be related to the paucity of research that grounds metaficiton as a game relevant term. This discourse will briefly define what metafiction is and explore the existence of metafiction within fiction. In doing so, it will separate metafiction in videogames from credits and in-game instructions. A description of four types of metafiction in videogames (emergent metafiction: fiction that reveals itself to the player, immersive: fiction that brings the player into the fiction, internal: character-to-character, and external: designer-to-player) is discussed. Ultimately, the implication of metafiction in videogames is illuminated, and its potential impact on the future of game design summarized.