Interactive Fiction

1. Interactive Fiction:
Game Design Across the
Curriculum
Matthew Farber
Steve Isaacs

2. mattfarber1@gmail.com
stevei2071@gmail.com
@MatthewFarber
@mr_isaacs
Links:
http://tinyurl.com/GIE-IF

3. What Are Games?

4. Games Are INTERCONNECTED
SYSTEMS
1. A goal
2. Challenge
3. Rules
4. Components
5. Space (The Magic Circle)
6. Core Mechanics

8. A Game’s Core Mechanics Set
the System of Play in Motion
Examples:
Arguing
Trading
Voting
Exploring
Jumping
Guessing
Role-Playing
Resource management (time is a resource)
Press your luck

9. Game Design Grammar
Games are designed with action verbs.
Similarly, Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher
Order Thinking is built around verbs.
Good games align core mechanics and
learning goals.

10. Oregon Trail

12. Would you have students
make the Globe Theater out of
Popsicle sticks to teach about
MacBeth?

14. A Brief History of
Text-Based Gaming

15. Choose Your Own Adventure

18. Bartle’s Player Types

19. Interactive Fiction Today

20. Device 6

22. Mass Effect

23. Choices MUST
Appear to Matter

25. The Walking Dead

31. Mission U.S.

36. Syrian Journey: Choose your
own escape route
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32057601

38. A Dark Room

39. A Dark Room

40. The Stanley Parable

41. The Stanley Parable

47. The Novelist

48. “Explorable Explanations”

49. Parable of the Polygons

55. Spent

58. 80 Days

60. Frankenstein

61. Authoring Tools

62. Inform 7

66. Twine

67. InkleWriter

71. Student Example—Grade 6

72. Fail/Lose State

75. Reward Reader When Chivalry
Choices are Chosen

76. Authentic Assessment
From: https://oakridgelmc.wikispaces.com/Choose+Your+Own+Adventure

77. “Create a player experience that’s
fun first. If you remove the fun,
[players] will feel like they’re being
preached to and it’s not a game
any more, there’s no agency.”
-Mary Flanagan, Tiltfactor

78. Questions?

80. mattfarber1@gmail.com
stevei2071@gmail.com
@MatthewFarber
@mr_isaacs
Links:
http://tinyurl.com/GIE-IF