Narrative threads: A tool to support young people in creating their own narrative-based computer games

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. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.