Academical
“Clicking some of the silly options”: Exploring Player Motivation
in Static and Dynamic Educational Interactive Narratives
Role
Tools
Duration
Methods
Format
Experimental research lead, survey designer
IBM SPSS Statistics, Qualtrics, Procreate
1 year and 2 months
Within-subject Experimental Study, Survey, Thematic Coding, Game Design
US NSF-funded project with Samuel Shields, Shi Johnson-Bey, Dr. Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Dr. Edward Melcer
Overview
"Academical" is a choice-based interactive narrative game designed to teach Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). This project explored if an AI-powered, dynamic narrative game (v2.0) could more effectively motivate learners than a traditional, static branching game (v1.0).
I designed and led a comparative study to understand player motivation in both contexts.
This research
Previous study
(Designing v.1.0
and testing its effect)
Literature Review
Potential of Dynamic Narrative Systems (DEN)
Development of v.2
Employing DEN
Comparative study of
v.1 and v.2
Design Implications
For development of v.3
Goal
-
To compare Academical 1.0 (static) with Academical 2.0 (dynamic) to see how the narrative structure affects players.
-
To examine player motivation and engagement regarding game design elements.
-
To enhance design implications for future Dynamic Educational Narratives (DEN).
Tasks
-
Designed and led comparative research to compare two versions of the game.
-
Wrote the key parts of the paper and presented it at a conference. (CHI 2025)
-
Designed 2D art assets for v.3 of the game.
Background
While most training in the area remains textbook-like,
the use of narrative and interactive methods has found success in engaging learners.
Jane Friedhoff. 2013. Untangling Twine: A Platform Study. In Proc. DiGRA.
Edward F Melcer, Katelyn M Grasse, James Ryan, Nick Junius, Max Kreminski, Dietrich Squinkifer, Brent Hill, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. 2020. Getting academi- cal: a choice-based interactive storytelling game for teaching responsible conduct of research. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. 1–12.
Anastasia Salter. 2016. Playing at empathy: Representing and experiencing emotional growth through Twine games. In Proc. International Conference on Serious Games and Applications for Health. IEEE, 1–8.
Traditional RCR Training
📖
Passive Reading
Static
Low engagement
Interactive Narrative Game
🎮
Choice-based
User action-driven
Active participation
Through previous studies, efficacy in engaging and teaching students
about ethical behavior (knowledge, moral reasoning skills, and attitudes) was observed,
particularly when compared to traditional web-based university RCR training modules.
Then, what are the impact that dynamic narratives can have
on learner motivation, learning efficiency, and engagement?
Katelyn M Grasse, Edward F Melcer, Max Kreminski, Nick Junius, James Ryan, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. 2021. Academical: a choice-based interactive storytelling game for enhancing moral reasoning, knowledge, and attitudes in responsible conduct of research. In Games and Narrative: Theory and Practice. Springer, 173–189.
Katelyn M Grasse, Edward F Melcer, Max Kreminski, Nick Junius, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. 2021. Improving undergraduate attitudes towards responsible conduct of research through an interactive storytelling game. In Extended ab- stracts of the 2021 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems. 1–8.
Designing v.2
Storytelling structure
Spectrum of storytelling in games. The circles represent plot points, and the solid arrows are hand-authored connections from one plot point to the next.
The dotted arrows represent the plot points connected at runtime by system rules informed by designer goals and the history of player choice.
Using StoryAssembler
Choice options in StoryAssembler are chosen dynamically from the pool of available storylets.
When selecting choices, the system looks at the precondition requirements for each choice (left) and attempts to find a storylet that satisfies that requirement.
Additional preference is given to storylets that also accomplish story and/or pedagogical goals.
Version Comparison
Academical v.1
Hand-authored
Static branching visual novel
Academical v.2
Dynamic narrative
Used procedural content generation
Experiment Design
Target: anyone 18 years or older with access to a PC
Recruitment: Convenient sampling through social media
Participants:
For 1.0 - recruited 49 participants, with 28 completing the study
(mean age: 28, SD: 2.85, 16 male, 9 female, 2 non-binary, and 1 preferringnot to answer).
For 2.0 - recruited 69 participants, with 22 completing the study (mean age: 20.9, SD: 3.37, 17 male, 5 female).
Final sample: 50 participants
Duration: 30 min. - 1 hr.
Between-subject experiment comparing v.1 and v.2 of the game
Focused on players' engagement and motivation using
Self-Determination Theory framework (autonomy, competence, relatedness)
📑
Approach
Collecting demographics Info
➡️
🎮
Pre-Survey
Randomly assigned to v.1 or v.2
📑
➡️
Post-Survey
Measuring performance & open-ended comments
Key Insights
1. More choice, better learning?
Dynamism -> More space to explore!
More exploration & possibilities
BUT looping in dynamic content
when learning goals weren't completed
-> negatively impacted players' feelings of competence
Risk of confusion
2. Visual Feedback Building Connection
Characters’ facial reactions to player choices
led to emotional responses
Competence (visible reactions) &
relatedness (to the characters)
3. Consequential Choices Matter
Designed for exploration, but lacked
meaningful consequences/
long-term effects of each choice.
Without clear and visible consequences
⟶
reduced autonomy & engagement
Design Implications for DENs
1. Responsive Feedback
Visual/intuitive
feedback on choices
Repeated dialogue loops/
static hub and spoke design
Show players that their choices actually matter.
Immediate visual feedback is a crucial tool to illustrate consequences that players' choices create. This leads to higher competence and relatedness to the overall game and characters.
2. Consequential Design
Meaningful
consequences for
each choice
Ambiguous paths
To support autonomy and competence
The "Spoke and Hub" pattern should mostly be avoided or implemented with care and cleverness to provoke sense of constant progression and repercussions.
3. Role-Playing Elements
Humorous/engaging
role-playing factors
Rigid content
Integrate humor, emotion, and character interaction
Incorporating entertaining gameplay options for players to explore while interweaving educational content would maximize motivation.
Future Plans
-
Improve study retention by reducing procedural complexity
-
Create a new DEN system addressing design weakness
-
Add quantitative measurements
Dynamic systems can increase motivation
but needs careful design considering autonomy & clarity.
Design AI to adapt with the learner,
not just around them.
“[What I enjoyed the most about the game was] Clicking some of the silly options”
P33, v.2.0
shouldn’t just be fun – should also be meaningful!
“Clicking some of the silly options”: Exploring Player Motivation in Static and Dynamic Educational Interactive Narratives
+
2D character art assets design
Followed character descriptions from the design document and coordinated weekly
with scriptwriters and developers to ensure consistency.
Began with paper sketches before creating finalized digital versions on Procreate (iPad).
Reflections
Challenges
-
Coming from a UX background, I had to quickly learn the technical side of the AI narrative system. Reading some key papers provided by the dev team helped me catch up and collaborate more effectively.
-
Participants used a wide range of computers, and compatibility was a major issue. To solve this, we created a simple installation guide to go with the game, which fixed most of the setup problems.
Lessons
-
Small hurdles can have a huge impact on retention. We saw a high drop-off rate for the version that required a ZIP file download -- a powerful reminder that the user's journey starts way before they open the product.
-
I learned the value of a thorough Game Design Document (GDD) in keeping the team aligned, creating design assets for the next version of the game.
