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<p>When designing eLearning games using interactive stories, ask yourself the following six questions:</p><ol><li><strong>What’s the point?</strong> Be clear about the learning goal.</li><li><strong>Does it matter?</strong> Make sure the story is realistic, relevant, and tied to the learning goal.</li><li><strong>Is it fun?</strong> Slapping a leaderboard onto a course doesn’t make it a game. Games need to be fun. Test the fun factor by getting input from learners.</li><li><strong>Does it make sense?</strong> Take time to get the script right in the beginning, and check it with every change to make sure all the branching paths still make sense.</li><li><strong>Is it immersive?</strong> Don’t pull your learner out of the story. Show, don’t tell. Use high-quality visual design and audio (if narrated). And don’t preach.</li><li><strong>Does it exclude anyone?</strong> Include diverse characters and avoid stereotypes. Use inclusive language, and design with accessibility in mind.</li></ol>

This study turns for guidance to the expertise of narrative designers for games, where storytelling for interactive narrative has a long history of testing, iterating and perfecting. A collection of proven techniques described by game narrative practitioners will inform creative writing efforts to craft prototypes to test the transferability of those techniques to interactive narratives in a healthcare education context.

Now, this isn’t to say your scenario’s aesthetics are meaningless. It’s more that if you have a limited amount of time and resources, it’s best to focus on crafting the story and keep the look and feel simple.

<p>When it doesn’t take much thinking to identify the correct choice, it quickly becomes boring.</p> <p>Instead, it’s better to give your audience challenging yet realistic decisions to ponder. Things that make them think hard about what the best option could be. </p>

So what’s the best way to avoid clunky 90’s video game dialogue in your scenarios? Read your script out loud as you’re drafting it. If it sounds weird as you say it, that’s a good sign that it could use reworking.

Fun is a crucial part of what makes game-like experiences like scenarios so engaging. Just make sure that the majority of the fun serves to reinforce the project’s learning goals.

Although Twine is a tool for creating “games”, this project goes beyond games and gamification to think creatively about how the functions of Twine can be used to create activities that allow students to more directly engage with learning content in a hands-on experiential format that may not be possible in a traditional classroom learning space.

Instructional games seem to foster higher-order thinking such as planning and reasoning more than factual or verbal knowledge.

Specifically, learning from simulation games was maximized when trainees actively rather than passively learned work-related competencies during game play, trainees could choose to play as many times as desired, and simulation games were embedded in an instructional program rather than serving as stand-alone instruction.

Challenge, interactivity and continual feedback can be applied to a classroom exercises, a paper and pencil activity or used online. The design is universal while the delivery vehicle can change. It is not technology that makes a game a game—it’s the design, the inclusion of a challenge and interactivity that make a game a game.

The goal of the research was to compare learning efficiency and effectiveness from a narrative game to a slide presentation of the content. Students who played the Crystal Island game learned less and rated the lesson more difficult than students who viewed a slide presentation without any game narrative or hands on activities. Results were similar with the Cache 17 game. The authors conclude that their findings “show that the two well-designed narrative discovery games…were less effective than corresponding slideshows in promoting learning outcomes based on transfer and retention of the games’ academic content” (p. 246).

Often the features of a game are at counter-purposes to the learning objectives. For example, many games incorporate an onscreen clock requiring the learner to achieve the goal in seconds or minutes. For learning outcomes that are based on understanding and critical thinking, games with time goals that reinforce fast responses are a poor match.

Despite the uncontested popularity of commercial games and a lot of hype in the training community, the reality is that there is scarce credible evidence on how and when to best use games to improve instructional outcomes and motivation. At this stage, I recommend games to implement drill and practice exercises for tasks that require immediate and accurate responses.