Class Experimental Game Design

This unit deals with interactive narratives as advanced game design techniques, including emergent and procedural techniques. Bringing together narratives and games opens up a range of expressive and experimental possibilities which is highly relevant for the kind of project intended for students in this study cycle. Contrary to what may be the impression of many game consumers, narrative in games does not necessarily require an expensive production. In demystifying narrative in games and showcasing its flexibility, students are helped in achieving greater expressiveness with fewer means, helping experimentation. Addressing these issues in the first semester of the second year of the study cycle rounds out the set of game design approaches explored in the study cycle and which the students can use for their thesis or final project.

1, Basics of Screenwriting

• Unit Introduction;
• Narratives vs. Plots;
• Satisfying Storytelling.

2, Interactive Narrative Techniques

• The Interactive-narrative Paradox;
• Authored vs. Emergent Narratives;
• Conventional Interactive Narrative Techniques;
• Non-conventional Interactive Narrative Techniques.
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3, Digital Interactive Narratives

• Practical Application of Tree Diagrams in Narrative Engines;
• Working with Emergent Elements.

The unit is highly oriented towards project-based and experimental learning. It is particularly relevant that lecturers play the part of producers in students' creative processes, by monitoring these processes, suggesting alternatives and options for project directions, encouraging students to define a concrete project vision through iteration, experimental creativity, and planning, and by requiring design and production milestones (to be compiled by each student project group as part of the final semester project hand-in).

• ADAMS, E. W. (2005). Interactive Narratives Revisited. In Lecture at Games Developers Conference. Disponível em http://www. designersnotebook. com/Lectures/Interactive_Narratives_Revisit/interactive_narratives_revisit. htm.
• ADAMS, E. W. (2013). Resolutions to some problems in interactive storytelling. Tese de Doutoramento. Teeside University, Middlesborough,Reino Unido.
• ANTHROPY, A., CLARK, N. (2014). A Game Design Vocabulary. Addison-Wesley Professional.
• LAUREL, B. (2014). Computers as Theatre. Addison-Wesley.
• MURRAY, J.H. (2011), Hamlet in the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.