Interactive Storytelling

This study used eye-tracking interaction to investigate how narrative influences players’ gameful experience and empathy in a virtual reality (VR) shooting game. Participants were assigned to either an empathy-driven condition or a neutral condition. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a questionnaire, open-ended responses, and interviews. Results showed that the empathy-driven narrative significantly enhanced players’ sense of immersion but had no measurable effect on empathy-related reflections. These findings suggest that narrative can strengthen immersion in VR, even with minimal interaction methods like eye tracking. However, its potential to foster empathy may be limited in fast-paced game contexts without deeper narrative integration. The study highlights the importance of aligning narrative design with gameplay mechanics to support emotional engagement in VR experiences.

This article explores how extended reality (XR) reconfigures narrative focalisation by embedding the user within the perceptual frame of a storyworld. Drawing on foundational narrative theory as well as more recent scholarship, it analyses Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness (dirs. Arnaud Colinart, Amaury La Burthe, Peter Middleton, and James Spinney, 2016), Goliath: Playing With Reality (dirs. Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla, 2021) and Turbulence: Jamais Vu (dir. Ben Andrews, 2023) to show how voiceover, sensory stimuli, and user interaction co-create a shared field of perception in these XR works. Narration in this context is shown to be variable and relational, blending first and second-person strategies. Focalisation emerges as embodied, contingent, and interactive- no longer confined to text or image alone. This challenges traditional distinctions between narrator, character, and audience, positioning the user as a kind of co-focaliser. The article argues that XR invites an expansion of focalisation theory to accommodate hybrid modes of perception and highlights the medium’s potential for telling embodied and marginalised stories through immersive experience.

This paper presents a further exploration of a mixed initiative comic-making method that combines hand-drawn imagery with AI-generated visuals in a turn-taking, interactive manner. Initially developed within a personal artistic practice, the method was later tested in broader settings to understand how it might function as a public, co-creative method. As a first step, a pre-study was conducted at a public AI art exhibition, where casual participants were invited to engage with the method by producing short visual narratives.

Based on insights from this initial engagement, a structured workshop was carried out where participants created comics with the same method by alternating between analogue sketching and AI-assisted generation using a publicly available image generation tool appropriated for the task by the authors. Participants provided written reflections on their experience. The resulting comics and responses were collected and clustered to explore emerging patterns in narrative form and participant perception. This paper documents both phases – the pre-study and the workshop – and outlines the steps of the method and presents the comics created with it. Drawing from participant reflections, the paper highlights themes that arose in relation to the process. In particular, we examine how the authors’ method operates outside their studios in situated contexts and in relation to casual creative practices.

Bullying in early childhood remains an underexplored challenge despite its early manifestation and lasting impact. Social stories are a proven tool to teach appropriate behavior in young children. Social robots as storytellers offer an engaging medium, i.a. for children, for such interventions due to their embodied, interactive capabilities. This paper investigates the potential of a robot telling a social story as an anti-bullying intervention. Across two studies, we compared storytelling with an embodied robotic storyteller to a loudspeaker (Study I) and linear versus interactive robotic storytelling (Study II). Results from Study I showed that while story recognition and transportation did not differ significantly, robotic storytelling elicited significantly more empathy. Study II revealed that interactivity notably improved bullying awareness, though it did not affect empathy or transportation. These findings suggest that robotic storytelling – especially when interactive – can be an effective, engaging tool for early bullying interventions.

In large metropolitan areas, the urban heat island effect and growing urbanization pose health risks and deepen the disconnect between residents-especially children-and nature. This disconnection hinders public engagement with nature-based climate solutions. To address this, we present an educational approach grounded in dialogic and collaborative pedagogy, combining interactive, single-user immersive Virtual Reality (i-VR) with mobile app-mediated group dialogue. In VR, children explore future environmental scenarios shaped by human actions; outside VR, they discuss real-world environmental issues and sustainable solutions. An evaluation workshop with ten participants-five educators and five high school children-offered valuable feedback and design recommendations. Findings highlight the potential of an IDN paradigm combining embodied learning in VR with dialogue to reconnect urban youth with nature, foster environmental citizenship, and inform future use of social VR and in-VR dialogic elements.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools are transforming creative practices, yet their role in game poem design remains largely unexplored. Game poems serve as a bridge between interactive artwork and design for engagement. Although game poems themselves are a small genre, they serve as a microcosm for exploring how AI influences minimal, expressive, and human-centric design. This research was based on ten student-made game poems with GenAI tools. Using qualitative analysis, this study explores how student designers navigate, integrate, and revise GenAI in game poem making. Analysis of the ten included student projects demonstrates that the influence of GenAI accelerates technical implementation and ideation scaffolding, but human authorship and emotional intention play a vital role in game poem design. Students simultaneously engaged in iterative prompting, Human Creative Override, and manual curation to negotiate GenAI’s outputs.

Museums are important spaces for free-choice learning. However, historical objects are often emphasized without explicitly exploring the ongoing relevance of a domain, particularly when addressing emergent technologies such as GenAI. In this paper, we propose a two-layer cooperative game design that combines active exhibit exploration through puzzles with an NPC serving as a Bot of Conviction to promote reflective dialogue as a means of transformation. Playtesting sessions with 10 participants suggest that the puzzle component effectively supported learning about the history of Computer Science (specifically, Human-Computer Interaction), while the collaborative setup was widely described as enjoyable and engaging. Although some participants reported novel insights, others found that the dialogue echoed and helped clarify preexisting reflections, underscoring both the topical relevance of GenAI and the potential of narrative-driven design to support reflective learning.

This study examines culturally sensitive Interactive digital narrative (IDN) design to enhance bodily awareness and emotional well-being among Afghan women facing restrictive cultural norms. Existing Female Health Applications (FHAs) applications are often designed in liberal contexts that assume privacy and digital literacy, which are problematic assumptions where mobile devices are monitored. Our answer to this challenge is the Rah-e-Noor (“Path of Light”) mobile app prototype which incorporates feminist Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) frameworks as well as Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) theory and design approaches to promote user engagement as well as understanding of complex issues through metaphor-driven interactive storytelling employing stealth design principles. The research through design process included interviews with Afghan women and feedback from two experts. Key findings underscore the importance of symbolic safety and emotional resonance in developing culturally appropriate digital tools.

This study explores how the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) in story-driven video games may impact the social interactions and storytelling with non-playing characters (NPCs). We conducted a case study where participants experienced interacting with LLM-controlled NPCs in the roleplaying game Skyrim. Using the community based game modification Mantella, an alternative to the traditional scripted dialogue trees used for NPC that is substituted with LLM-powered conversations. The case study was conducted in three phases; first with a structured interview, second by an experiment where the participants interacted with LLM-powered NPCs, and finally by an in-depth semi-structured interview concerning the participants’ experiences. The data was thematically analyzed. Our findings indicate that LLM-powered NPCs enhance immersion and agency, as well as offering a sense of recurring novelty due to the unpredictable nature of LLMs. However, implementing a technology which allows for unrestricted dialogue and storytelling in a game not designed for it, poses challenges. For example, nascent technological issues with the integration of the LLM in the game mechanics may have a negative impact on players’ in terms of immersion and the believability of the NPCs. In addition, we examine the potential for LLM-powered NPCs to enrich game worlds in alignment with an appropriate game design. Based on the results, we suggest the suitable approaches for the usage of LLM-powered NPCs in future game development in regards to story-driven games and other applications where narration is key.

Indonesia faces recurring earthquakes, yet disaster education in schools often relies on lectures and drills that provide limited impact on preparedness and resilience. This paper presents the design phase of a virtual reality (VR) – based transmedia learning intervention for earthquake preparedness, developed in collaboration with Indonesian middle school students, teachers, and disaster risk reduction (DRR) practitioners. The intervention combines immersive VR scenarios with complementary classroom resources to create a multi-platform learning environment. Participatory co-design ensured cultural relevance, curriculum alignment, and practical usability, while addressing barriers such as limited infrastructure, device access, and teacher readiness. The paper details the project’s conceptual framework, narrative structure, and prototype assets, and positions the work within design-based research as an early stage in an iterative process. The planned evaluation will examine engagement, knowledge, and preparedness behaviors; however, the primary contribution lies in documenting the design rationale and strategies for integrating immersive narratives into disaster education. By highlighting lessons from this pre-production stage, the study offers guidance for researchers and practitioners seeking to adapt VR-based interventions to diverse educational and cultural contexts.

Mental health is a critical aspect of overall well-being, yet stigma and misinformation remain prevalent, particularly among college students who face unique stressors. The rising incidence of mental health conditions, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, underscores the need for accessible support systems. Digital mental health interventions, such as narrative-based games, offer a scalable, affordable, and engaging approach to promote mental health education. This study combines visual novels with Large Language Models (LLMs) to create a digital intervention aimed at improving mental health literacy by addressing literacy on depression and misconceptions about depression. We developed a visual novel using LLM-generated narratives and conducted a mixed-methods study with 28 college students, assessing the game’s impact at pre-test, post-test, and one-week follow-up, along with narrative transportation. Results showed no significant change in depression literacy, likely due to high baseline scores, but misconceptions of depression significantly decreased and were maintained at follow-up. Participants reported moderate to high narrative transportation. Qualitative findings emphasised emotional engagement, stigma reduction, the perceived value of digital tools, and participants’ scepticism regarding AI-generated narrative authenticity.

This paper details the participatory design and production of Realidad Helicoide, a virtual reality (VR) experience documenting human rights violations at El Helicoide, a Venezuelan detention and torture center. Originating from the testimony of journalist and former prisoner Víctor Navarro, the project expanded to include the contributions of over 30 survivors. Employing ethical storytelling and immersive narrative techniques, Realidad Helicoide strategically fosters empathy without sensationalizing violence, enabling users to morally witness past and ongoing injustices. The VR experience has engaged international decision-makers, prompting diplomatic and policy actions globally, and was selectively disseminated clandestinely within repressive environments. Its effectiveness underscores VR’s potential in mobilizing stakeholders and advocating for human rights. The paper significantly contributes to discussions on immersive journalism, digital memory preservation, and interactive storytelling, highlighting essential insights into designing emotionally resonant and politically impactful immersive media.

This study investigates how interactive digital narratives (IDNs) can foster systems thinking and ideological flexibility in secondary learners by engaging them with ideologically diverse stakeholder perspectives. Grounded in the Context–Learning–Game (CLG) framework, the intervention integrates Emily Short’s Track Switching Choice structure and a non-playable character (NPC) functioning as a more-knowledgeable other (MKO) to scaffold learner engagement while exploring a complexity representation tool called Transformation Maps. Set within a simulated organizational debate on artificial intelligence, the narrative prompts learners to explore and synthesize viewpoints from three stakeholders. Behavioral data from gameplay logs, including perspective-switching frequency, time-on-task, and MKO interactions, were analyzed as indicators of ideological flexibility. Results show that most learners reconsidered their initial positions, with a significant number adopting more moderate viewpoints. Learners who switched perspectives spent more time in the experience, and MKO engagement strongly predicted final viewpoint change. A specific narrative moment, tagged Dhwani8, emerged as a cognitive inflection point associated with epistemic shift. These findings suggest that well-designed IDNs can reduce cognitive overload, support ideological exploration, and serve as analytic instruments for measuring learning behavior and epistemic development in complex decision-making contexts.

This study investigates the use of brief post-game Interactive Digital Narratives (IDNs) to enhance character identification in tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), aiming to support historical empathy in history education. While previous research highlights the educational value of TTRPGs, challenges remain—particularly the limited character identification often observed in short, one-shot game sessions. To address this, we propose a supporting activity that strengthens characterisation and deepens players’ connection to their roles. The activity introduces a post-game IDN, designed as a visual novel that presents the player character’s perspective in a prequel narrative to the TTRPG adventure. Grounded in theories from psychology, education, and game studies, we argue that character identification is central to fostering historical understanding and shaping identity. Offering the character’s backstory through an IDN encourages deeper perspective-taking and critical reflection, thereby amplifying the transformative potential of TTRPGs in education. This work serves as an exploratory step in refining educational TTRPG design through digital supplements and invites further empirical research to evaluate their impact.

In this work, we explore different narrative modes for logic grid puzzles. We test these environments with a user study recruiting two audiences: crowd-workers on the Prolific platform and volunteers from social media groups related to mysteries and puzzles. While volunteers found puzzles easier, they enjoyed them less than the Prolific workers. Across both audiences, an increase in narrative increased the time taken on puzzles and the challenge of the puzzles. However, while some participants found the narrative immersive and enjoyable, others did not want any story or did not like the increased challenge.

We present a case study that artistically adapts a model of emergence observed in video feedback to the design of an emergent narrative system for live performance incorporating generative artificial intelligence. We describe a methodological analogy between the creation of emergent visual patterns in video feedback and emergent narrative patterns created through narrative feedback. We explore emergent narrative through dialogical feedback loops between the improvised speech of human performers and textual summaries generated by a large language model. In this approach, the LLM is positioned as a signal path for narrative emergence rather than as a unitary source of narrative content. We encourage further artistic and theoretical exploration of narrative feedback by artists working with emergent narrative in socially interactive performance and audiovisual synthesis.

The interpretation of historical facts proceeds through the construction of narratives that place the historical events within some time period and socio-economic-cultural context. Historians proceed from the examination of sources to understand origins, perspectives and biases, to create coherent and meaningful narratives. While linear narratives have been at the core of historical research, interactive digital narratives have been mostly addressing public history initiatives (the so-called digital history), centered upon some place or topic, collecting source materials and original narratives arranged in cartographic or chronological displays.

This paper stems from the working hypothesis that historical research can benefit from the construction of interactive digital (non-fictional) narratives. We propose a methodology and a digital system that support historical research, by complementing narratives with conceptual maps. Conceptual maps are built by historians in parallel with narratives and serve the purpose to connect narrative (and thus interpretations) that address connected entities of the world. The system visualizes narratives and conceptual maps, highlighting connections and clusters around themes and topics, providing synoptic views on the conveyed knowledge and revealing the system competence. The system is an ongoing experience: we report on its usage with an ethnographic observation of the historians’ work application.

This research adopts a Practice-as-Research (PaR) approach to explore how cinematic virtual reality (CVR) documentary reshapes the representation of traumatic personal memory. The creative practice The Road to Yesterday (2025), a non-linear CVR documentary, reenacts trauma beyond photorealism through animation and tactile perception. Drawing on trauma theory and Laura Marks’ concept of haptic visuality, the project employs multisensory strategies of haptic visuality to represent traumatic memory. It further constructs an alternative therapeutic space to promote symbolic closure and personal remembrance after ritual disruptions.

Dominant accounts of interactive storytelling, long wedded to seamless immersion, struggle to explain the appeal of titles like Honkai: Star Rail that flaunt fourth-wall ruptures yet deepen attachment. We contend that this paradox signals a design philosophy best described as Reflexive World-Building. Crucially, this reflexivity is not a theatrical aside but a modality of realism: by openly staging its own constructedness, the game remaps lived coordinates—work–time discipline, risk governance, platformized affect—into playable form. In this sense the “wall” is less a surface to be smashed than a seam through which social experience continually threads, including pressures that animate contemporary Chinese youth cultures. Across character design, interface paratexts, and core mechanics, Honkai: Star Rail deploys meta-narrative and self-reference not as narrative failure but as a deliberate rhetoric of recognition—an Invitation to Conspiracy that converts the player from a passive immersant into a knowing co-conspirator. Immersion is thereby relocated: from the mimetic demand to “believe” a world to the relational experience of being seen by it. Our analysis systematizes this shift, articulating how reflexive cues can operate in concert to sustain a durable ludic contract grounded in shared literacy rather than fragile illusion. The resulting framework moves beyond the immersion paradigm while retaining its affective aims, offering practical insight for crafting narratively complex experiences that speak to media-savvy publics without forfeiting realism’s bite.

The immersive nature of Interactive Digital Narratives (IDNs) makes them a powerful platform for exploring underrepresented experiences. IDNs can reproduce or ‘simulate’ characteristics of a different point of view (POV), thereby immersing the interactor in the perspective of another. This approach has the potential to encourage deeper engagement with underrepresented or marginalized experiences but may also create unintended divides between the interactor and the represented group. In this analysis, I discuss the use of simulation in an IDN I recently created, One Art, which tells the story of a character living with aphasia, a language disorder. After analyzing the background, applications, and merits of simulation, I propose a methodology for revising my work, which includes co-designing with members of the affected community. This proposal draws on human-centered design and other participatory making methods.

This paper investigates what we can learn about a game’s design by analyzing retellings applying Eladhari’s framework [4]. Mystics Ablaze, a fighting game, is evaluated in its capacity of instigating retellings using a novel method including qualitative interviews for data collection and deductive thematic analysis. The results of the analysis show that the participants were engaged with the narrative layer of the game, both through retellings and other kinds of interpretations. The novel methodology is promising in its ability to evaluate retellings.

Dramatic arcs have long served as a critical lens for understanding narratives, charting rises and falls in tension and emotion throughout plot progression. Video games are unique in that the dramatic arcs present in their narrative are driven not only by aesthetics but also by the interaction and feedback produced by diverse interactive systems. Player actions, emergent outcomes, and systemic changes in game state create experiential arcs that dovetail with more straightforward narrative approaches. These arcs often take on forms more abstract than those found in conventional storytelling. This abstraction, combined with the unpredictability of emergent game systems, complicates a designer’s critical work of tuning such systems for desired dramatic arcs in their games. This work introduces an iterative design process using Playtrace Arc Search (PAS), a tool that leverages gameplay traces and designer-defined metrics to visualize and evaluate dramatic arcs. Using a turn-based RPG simulation testbed as a case study, we show how designers can rapidly identify global systemic arc patterns and search for local narrative structures. Our method also helps reconcile quantitative gameplay data with qualitative player feedback. Our approach highlights actionable design strategies for balancing game system-driven narrative against common dramatic arc patterns.

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has introduced new possibilities for human–AI collaboration in storytelling, spanning domains such as literature, education, media, games, and multimodal systems. However, current research remains fragmented, with few attempts to synthesize co-creative practices across these fields. This study presents a scoping review of 44 peer-reviewed publications (2020–2025), using Arksey and O’Malley’s framework to examine how AI-assisted storytelling is conceptualized, implemented, and evaluated. Through domain-based analysis, we identify distinct trajectories: literary systems focus on authorship and narrative coherence; educational applications emphasize engagement, creativity, and language development; game-based systems highlight adaptive narratives and player agency; media and film studies examine authorship and workflow transformation; and multimodal platforms enable accessible visual storytelling. Across these domains, AI is increasingly positioned as a creative collaborator, supporting ideation, personalization, and co-authorship. Yet challenges remain, including narrative inconsistency, limited user control, and questions surrounding authorship and agency. This review highlights the need for inclusive design principles, clearer conceptual frameworks for co-creativity, and interdisciplinary approaches to address ethical, cultural, and practical concerns. By mapping current trends and tensions, the paper offers a foundation for future research and responsible development of AI-assisted storytelling systems.

In this paper we propose further exploration into sound design as a narrative and affective tool within the “cozy” games genre, and assert that sound design is both an under-explored and potentially productive area through which difficult or sensitive topics may be further explored. For example, games broadly categorized as “cozy” such as Night in the Woods (infinite Fall, 2017) Gris (Nomada Studio, 2018) and The Wreck (The Pixel Hunt, 2023) already tackle difficult, emotional and potentially traumatic content within a game setting emphasizing comfort, warmth, connection and safety. Sound has long been established as integral to the interactive experience on psychological, physiological, social and cultural levels, and can be, we assert, further explored and expanded through more focused analysis and experimentation. Our research is based in part on a prototype developed in the context of a game development program, which we present as a basis for further research. In particular we are in the initial stages of exploring the character and mechanics of sound in cozy (and more specifically narrative focused cozy) games. Our work extends previous research developed in earlier interactive sound-based work.

Interactive narrative games are used in language education as a more engaging alternative to traditional reading activities. In addition, playing AI-driven narrative games can be a low-stake way to practice foreign-language writing.

This study introduces a pilot version of a text-based detective game with AI-powered characters, aimed at enhancing engagement and reducing writing anxiety in adult English learners. The characters adjust their language difficulty level (from A2 to B2) depending on the player’s choice. The game also provides in-context vocabulary explanation and on-demand feedback.

Seven participants of different language levels (A2–C1) tested the game and completed questionnaires about their experience, and three of them participated in semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire and the interview results suggest that mystery solving made the writing process more engaging for the participants, though no statistically significance was found in the anxiety effect. Although for some participants writing tasks seemed too open-ended, in-game writing was not perceived as more stressful than everyday writing. The participants’ feedback will help to further adapt the game for writing-anxious English learners.

What happens when an AI and your human boss vie for your trust in a game of survival, manipulation, and control? This paper uses Fides Machina, an interactive digital narrative powered in real-time by large language models (LLMs), as a case study to explore how trust and agency emerge in narrative systems involving both human and machine actors. Inspired by Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland, 2014), the project reimagines the film’s psychological triangle as a playable system: a branching speculative narrative where players navigate shifting alliances between an adaptive AI and a human institutional agent, each with conflicting goals. Through real-time modulation using control vectors, our system models trust not as a binary condition, but as an unstable, context-dependent negotiation. Drawing from science fiction narratives and social psychology, the paper examines how interactive systems like Fides Machina can simulate and reflect on the entangled and fluid dynamics of power, motivation, and collaboration in human-AI relationships.