Designing and Creating Interactive Fiction for Learning Brett E. Shelton Department of Instructional Technology, College of Education and Human Services Utah State University, Logan, UT 84332; Tel: 435-797-2694, FAX: 435-797-2693 email:
[email protected] Abstract: The presentation describes a team of instructional technology graduate students in their design and partial creation of an educational game based on a classic text using interactive fiction (IF). The team experiences IF through play and critical analysis before becoming mini-content experts. The resulting game is a new media text aimed at 9th grade English students who may experience the piece in ways expected (reading comprehension, literary device) and unexpected (spatial skill, problem solving).
Overview The Instructional Games class at Utah State University is composed of graduate students in Instructional Technology. The students explore the field of instructional gaming through a survey of readings, existing products, and those in development. The class considers: • What is the emerging nature of this field? • What are the elements of an effective game? • What makes for “good” instructional design within a gaming environment? A large emphasis of the class is in the examination of current research. In-class activity centers on readings and class discussion. Out-of-class activity includes exposure to and the playing of games, and the creation of students’ own game design. A list of research and readings attempts to span the spectrum of learning theory, game theory, and instructional game research that includes Aldrich, Crawford, Gee, Wolf, Kirriemuir, Koster, Miller, Squire and many others (a full list is available at http://itoutreach.ed.usu.edu/~bshelton/courses/instgames/index.htm). Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the course is choosing a viable, appropriate topic in which to build an educational game, and to implement it in an appropriate game-like medium. This year’s class chose to utilize the classic gaming genre of IF to implement high school English curriculum of studying classic poetry text. The students in this class chose the design and creation of an instructional game based on Edgar Lee Masters’ work Spoon River Anthology (1915) using the medium of IF. The students, acting as instructional game designers and developers, experience the medium of IF through play and critical analysis (Montfort (2003) and Granade works, among others) then dive into an unfamiliar computer language in order to transform a classic text into something new. The students in this class transform Spoon River Anthology into a new media text aimed at 9th grade English students (and teachers) who may experience and analyze the piece in ways expected (reading comprehension, poetry, literary devices) and unexpected (computer language, confidence and self-esteem, problem solving) (i.e., Robertson & Good, 2005). Further research involving this project will examine some of these expected and unexpected learning outcomes.
Why Interactive Fiction? IF is a genre that provides players the opportunity to experience text in a way that blends entertainment and education. IF is a game format that tells a narrative or story by offering a text-based description of a series of locations, non-playing characters (NPC), and rich description. The player interacts with the narrative through a computer program that parses the player’s text responses and
advances the game accordingly. The player is a character in an explorable world within the story and the story progresses through the actions of the player by typing text and receiving text responses (Short, 2001). Traditional IF games have come in the form of “text adventures” such as the Zork trilogy in the early 1980s, but there remains a faithful subculture of writers and programmers of IF. In the majority of IF games there are numerous puzzle-solving scenarios that help the player advance within the narrative. Consequently, IF requires that the player gives more to thought than to action (Granade, 2005). Because text-based IF uses no graphics, it retains a strong sense of the traditional literary experience that one has when reading the original non-illustrated book. IF may provide successful learning experiences with classic texts by reinforcing and augmenting the instructional aims of a standard English classroom. The specific classic text chosen for this class, Spoon River Anthology, supports the objectives for reading comprehension and fluency, poetic devices, literary analysis, character motivation, and examination of narrative and plot structure that can all be explored. IF can additionally offer the benefit of maintaining the original published form of the text.
Instructional Technologists as Game Designers The Instructional Games class is unique in many ways, the most prominent is that one of the objectives is to teach students how to create new media resources for education, so that they need to think like teachers that use new media text in their classes. As Gee noted, “When people learn to play video games, they are learning a new literacy” (2003, p. 16). The same would be true for designing and developing instructional games. It is most common for instructional technologists to become minicontent experts in the areas of curriculum they are designing, however, what is new is that they must develop a critical sense of what makes for “good” games, read the game so as to formulate learning objectives that are parallel (or integrated) into the goals of the game, and create instructional products within the constraints of the planned educational environment. Therefore, they are forced to consider their traditional approaches of instructional design along with new approaches common to game theory in order to satisfy the particular requirements of the class. To achieve this combination of approaches, they are forced to design by ensuring that gameplay activities are consistently aligned with the learning objectives of the lesson.
The Design Process Aligning game activities with learning goals is meant to improve educational game design so that learning experiences will be considered engaging from the learner’s perspective and successful from the instructor’s perspective. The idea is that designing for activity-goal alignment ensures that a correct balance of game-like attributes are included for motivation, but that the activities within the game are meaningful, and therefore exist as more than just a means to an end. The game should include motivationinducing attributes of challenge, proclivity, and uncertainty, yet also directs the player toward the learning goals (Shelton & Wiley, 2006). It is important to look for alignment of activities within instructional goals, and to match the “action” of instructional goals with the design of the environment and model structure (Shelton, 2005). The design should ensure that problem solving in the environment offers the correct types of practice with desired instructional support. If designing and developing in a series of iterations consistent with activity-goal alignment is achieved, the resulting instructional game should be highly motivating and useful for learning.
The Development Process The students in the class created “clusters” of characters and artifacts based on their connections to each other and an unresolved issue presented by the text of Spoon River Anthology. The resulting design specified clusters of characters, locations, and artifacts along with the related game activity and
learning objectives. The result is a miniature guide for development based on what the designers expected from player activity. The following matrix is one example of a designed “cluster.” Characters
Locations
Artifacts
Resolution
- Mrs. Sibley
Shovel
- 'her secret'
Sibley's Headstone (both Amos and Mrs.)
'Secret' is dug up and buried next to Mrs. Sibley
- Editor Whedon
Tool shed
Freshly Dug Grave
- Amos Sibley
Editor Whedon (with mound)
'Secret'
Related Activities Find the tool shed and obtain the shovel Dig up bundle Bury bundle
3 epitaphs
Learning Objectives Student will have to reflect what the 'secret' is. Ensures reading comprehension and character reflection.
The development of the game used technology afforded by an Inform compiler to implement the design of the game based on a number of matrices like the above example. Below is an excerpt of gameplay as presented through “captured” excerpts based on this example. Player input is preceded by a bracket “>”, the other text is generated by the game itself. Every cemetery has a plot, a series of secrets that some would prefer stayed buried. A gravesite You are in a secluded section of the cemetery, near the Northern edge. is another cemetery plot.
To the north
At your feet is a headstone. The ghost of Mrs. Sibley is crying near the hole. Next to the headstone is a freshly dug hole about the size of a bread box. >examine tombstone MRS. SIBLEY The secret The secret The secret The secret The secret The secret My secret:
of the stars,- gravitation. of the earth,- layers of rock. of the soil,- to receive seed. of the seed,- the germ. of man,- the sower. of woman,- the soil. Under a mound that you shall never find.
>look Mrs. Sibley's gravesite You are in a secluded section of the cemetery, near the Northern edge. is another cemetery plot.
To the north
At your feet is a headstone. The ghost of Mrs. Sibley is crying near the hole. Next to the headstone is a freshly dug hole about the size of a bread box. >examine ghost Mrs. Sibley seems quite distressed. Her tear-stained cheeks and sunken eye indicate she has recently been sobbing for quite some time.
>talk to ghost "Is that my baby?" she questions looking around in distress. She doesn't seem to see you as if she were slightly delusional. "It was so small," she whispers to herself. "We should have given it a proper burial." She obviously does not notice your presence. Talking to her further will get you nowhere. >look Mrs. Sibley's gravesite You are in a secluded section of the cemetery, near the Northern edge. is another cemetery plot.
To the north
At your feet is a headstone. The ghost of Mrs. Sibley is crying near the hole. Next to the headstone is a freshly dug hole about the size of a bread box. >go north A gravesite You are at the edge of the cemetery. To the South is another cemetery plot. West is a landfill.
To the
At your feet is a grey headstone, weathered and crumbling with age. You can also see a shovel here. >take shovel Taken. >go west Riverside Landfill You are standing in a landfill near the river.
The stench is nearly unbearable.
You notice a mound of dirt as if someone had buried something many years ago. >dig dirt You shovel for a while and uncover a tiny coffin. After a moment of contemplation, you lean over and gingerly pick it up. Surely you have come across it for a reason. [Your score has just gone up by three points.] >inventory You are carrying: a tiny wooden coffin a shovel >look Riverside Landfill You are standing in a landfill near the river.
The stench is nearly unbearable.
You notice a mound of dirt as if someone had buried something many years ago. >go east
Mrs. Sibley's gravesite At your feet is a headstone. The ghost of Mrs. Sibley is crying near the hole. Next to the headstone is a freshly dug hole about the size of a bread box. >put coffin in hole You gently place the coffin in the infant's grave and push dirt over it. The ghost of Mrs. Sibley suddenly notices you. "You found it and brought it to me!" she cries in joy as she kneels over the tiny grave. Her spirit slowly fades into nothing. You know one more spirit has found rest. [Your score has just gone up by five points.] [You have 5 issues left to resolve.]
Next Steps The next phase of research regarding this project will be to implement the game in a class of 9th grade English students who are studying Spoon River Anthology to see if, what and how they learn with the game. We are especially interested in how the motivational components designed within the game, those theorized by aligning the learning objectives with the game activity, manifest themselves throughout the gaming experience. Further exploration we are considering includes using a graphicsbased format to build a version of the same game (such as the Neverwinter Nights engine), and how that effects the design and development process, and the motivation and overall learning experience of the targeted players/students.
References Gee, J. P. (2003). Chapter 2: Semiotic domains: Is playing video games a "waste of time"? In What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Granade, S. (2005). Introducing Interactive Fiction. Retrieved October 15, 2005, from http://brasslantern.org/beginners/introif.html Masters, E. L. (1915). Spoon River Anthology. New York: Signet Classic Penguin Group. Montfort, N. (2003). Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction (First Paperback ed.). Cambridge: MIT Press. Robertson, J., & Good, J. (2005). Story creation in virtual game worlds. Communications of the ACM, 48(1), 61-65. Shelton, B. E. (2005). Designing and developing instructional games: A project to align learning activity with instructional goals. Retrieved October 25, 2005, from http://it.usu.edu/cle/CLE_alignment.htm Shelton, B. E., & Wiley, D. (2006, April 7-11). Instructional designers take all the fun out of games: Rethinking elements of engagement for designing instructional games. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2006, San Francisco. Short, E. (2001). What's IF? Retrieved October 15, 2005, from http://emshort.home.mindspring.com/whatsif.html
