Interactive Narratives in the form of Interactive Theater have the potential to offer a transformational learning experience on societal and political topics. The purposive interactive installation Angstfabriek (Dutch for fear fac-tory) lets visitors experience fear-mongering and the related safety industry, with the goal of eliciting reflection, insight, and discussion. As a case study for a potentially transformative experience, the installation is described and evaluated by means of a focus group interview and a pilot user experience study (N = 32). Findings show the importance of sufficient scripting of interactions regarding their role and agency, highlighting the conceptual connection between interactive digital narrative design and interactive theater design.

The Netflix production Bandersnatch represents a potentially crucial step for interactive digital narrative videos, due to the platform’s reach, popularity, and ability to finance costly experimental productions. Indeed, Netflix has announced that it will invest more into interactive narratives-moving into romance and other genres-which makes Bandersnatch even more important as the first step and harbinger of things yet to come. For us, the question was therefore how audiences react to Bandersnatch. What are the factors driving users’ enjoyment and what factors might mitigate the experience? For example, the novelty value of an interactive experience on Netflix might be a crucial aspect of the combination with the successful series Black Mirror. We approach these questions from two angles-with a critical analysis of the work itself, including audience reactions and an initial user study using Roth’s measurement toolbox (N = 32).

The practice of designing Interactive Digital Narratives [IDN] is often described as a challenge facing issues such as the “narrative paradox” and avoid-ing the unintentional creation of “ludonarrative dissonance”. These terms are expressions of a perspective that takes narrative and interactivity as dichotomic ends of a design trajectory, mirroring an enduring discussion in-game studies be-tween positions often cast as ludologists and narratologists. The dichotomy of ludo versus narrative is, in itself, problematic and is often the source of the very conflict it describes. In this paper, we investigate this issue through the example of the cooperative game A Way Out, in which two players team up to break out of prison. The game is designed with a narrative twist, involving the escalation and final resolution of the game’s competitive motif in the final scene. To understand the user experiences of this reveal, and the concomitant consequences, we engage in a discursive analysis of “Let’s Play” videos as a largely untapped re-source for research. By analyzing the interactions and performances in these videos, we can more clearly understand player responses to unsatisfying IDN design. As a result, we introduce the notion of a ‘hermeneutic strip’, extending Koenitz’ SPP model to locate and describe the involved processes of narrative cognition in IDN work.

This paper shares the results of an interactive digital narrative (IDN) project, conducted at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht. We consider the potential of ‘IDN for change’, before we describe the project, the underlying design approach, and the educational approaches. A particular focus of this paper is on pedagogical considerations. We describe the educational challenges we have encountered during the project as well as the pedagogical interventions we have implemented to counter these difficulties. On this basis, we discuss a more general perspective on the state and issues in IDN-focused pedagogy.

Many virtual and alternate reality projects create narrative experiences in the digital medium. These are Interactive Digital Narratives (IDN), a form of expression at the intersection of different artistic approaches, research fields (humanities, computer science), and emerging technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, virtual reality, generative content), with a wide potential for different applications. A key element towards fulfilling this potential is the creation of satisfying user experience. In this paper, we present a toolbox for the evaluation of the user experience that connects which enables the systematic and quantitative study of IDN user experiences. This approach connects research in psychology based on Entertainment Theory with a humanities-based perspective. Specifically, we map Murray’s influential theoretical framework to Roth’s empirical dimensions and thus connect an analytical framework to empirical research.

This study investigates whether an interactive surround video is perceived as more enjoyable when there is some auditory feedback on interactive moments. We constructed a questionnaire that measured presence, effectance, autonomy, flow, enjoyment, system usability, user satisfaction and identification, filled in by two groups of respondents who had either watched an interactive movie on Oculus Rift with feedback sounds, or a version without. Our results show that users rated presence significantly lower in the feedback condition. We rejected our hypothesis, that auditory feedback would increase the perception of effectance.

Using both manual and automatic content analysis we analyzed 100 collected screen plays of 50 users of the IS system Façade, coding the extent to which users stayed “in character”. Comparing this measure for first and second exposure to Façade revealed that users stay significantly less in character during second exposure. Further, related to a set of independently collected user experience measures we found staying in character to negatively influence users’ affective responses. The results confirm the notion that the more Façade users keep to their assigned role, the easier they become dissatisfied with the system’s performance. As a result, users start exploring the system by acting “out of character”.

Interactive Storytelling (IS) is a promising new entertainment technology synthesizing pre-authored narrative with dynamic user interaction. Research on user experiences in IS is sparse. The current experiment tested whether different player expectations regarding the impact of their actions yield different user experiences by framing user agency as “local” vs. “global” in the introduction to the story. Local agency influences character behavior and story events, whereas global agency influences story development and outcomes. A between-subject design involved N=46 participants playing the interactive story “Dinner Date”. Findings suggest that experiential qualities (autonomy, flow, curiosity) reached higher levels when players believed to have an impact on the story outcome (global agency). Enjoyment did not differ between conditions. Systematic gender differences in user experiences are discussed.

Identifying with video game characters is one potentially important process in game enjoyment. Based on a theoretical model of video game identification as transformed self-perception, cognitive processes in video game identification were explored. An experiment with N = 60 male players revealed that increased cognitive accessibility of character-related concepts should be considered as element of the identification process. Moreover, shifts in players’ self-perceptions were observed so that players of a shooter video game (Call of Duty 2 ^TM) described themselves as less gentle and more soldier-like than a control group. Overall, the study suggests that shifts in self-related cognition occur as part of the gaming experience. Implications for future research on game enjoyment and long-term game effects are discussed.

At the intersection of multimedia, artificial intelligence, and gaming technology, new visions of future entertainment media arise that approximate the “Holodeck” ® idea of interactive storytelling. We report exploratory experiments on the user experience in a ‘classic’, foundational application of interactive storytelling, “Façade” (Mateas & Stern, 2002), and compare results with an identical experiment carried out with users of the adventure game “Fahrenheit”. A total of N = 148 participants used one of the systems interactively or watched a pre-recorded video sequence of the application without interactive involvement. Using a broad range of entertainment-related measures, the experience of Interactive Storytelling was found to depend strongly on interactivity (mostly in “Façade”) and to differ substantially across the systems, with “Façade” achieving a stronger connection between interactive use and the resulting profile of entertainment experiences.

With the increasing number of prototypes and market applications of interactive storytelling, the understanding and optimization
of how end users respond to computer-mediated interactive narratives is of growing importance. Based on a conceptual model
of user experiences in interactive storytelling, a measurement instrument for empirical user-based research was developed.
We report findings from an initial test of the self-report scales that was conducted with N = 80 players of the adventure game
”Fahrenheit”. Interactivity was manipulated experimentally in order to validate the measures. Results suggest that the scales
will be useful for comparing user responses to ‘real’ interactive storytelling systems.

With the increasing number of prototypes and market applications of interactive storytelling, the understanding and optimization
of how end users respond to computer-mediated interactive narratives is of growing importance. Based on a conceptual model
of user experiences in interactive storytelling, a measurement instrument for empirical user-based research was developed.
We report findings from an initial test of the self-report scales that was conducted with N = 80 players of the adventure game
”Fahrenheit”. Interactivity was manipulated experimentally in order to validate the measures. Results suggest that the scales
will be useful for comparing user responses to ‘real’ interactive storytelling systems

A conceptual account to the quality of the user experience that interactive storytelling intends to facilitate is introduced.
Building on social-scientific research from ‘old’ entertainment media, the experiential qualities of curiosity, suspense, aesthetic
pleasantness, self-enhancement, and optimal task engagement (“flow”) are proposed as key elements of a theory of user experience
in interactive storytelling. Perspectives for the evolution of the model, research and application are briefly discussed.

An experiment (N = 74) was conducted to investigate the impact of game difficulty and player performance on game enjoyment. Participants played
a First Person Shooter game with systematically varied levels of difficulty. Satisfaction with performance and game enjoyment were assessed after playing. Results are not fully in line with predictions derived from flow and attribution theory and suggest players to (1) change their view on their own performance with its implications for enjoyment with increasing game experience and (2) to switch strategically between different sources of fun, thus maintaining a (somewhat) positive experience even when performance-based enjoyment is low.