Interactive Storytelling

I’ve been teaching, researching, creating, writing and commenting about interactive storytelling for the past 12+ years at UVic. It springs out of a lifelong interest in games of all sorts (especially board games and role-playing games), the rise of video games and other forms of interactive media (and my frequent disappointment in the level of storytelling in these media), and the power of play for learning and creativity.

This page collects concepts, resources and reflections related to my ongoing exploration as a teacher and a writer in the social power of games and other forms of interactive narrative.

Key concepts

interactivity
agency
narrative:
- stories: embedded, emergent, contextual
immersion
- willing suspension of disbelief
- 4th wall, metafiction
game
- design: rules, play, culture
point of view
- first-person, second-person, third-person, god game, other?
ludonarrative dissonance

“Some such term is needed to mark the change we are experiencing, the invention of a new genre altogether, which is narrative in shape and that includes elements we associate with games.” — Janet Murray, “From Game-Story to Cyber-Drama”