Interactive Narrative Design：FINAL TASK
ZHOU YUTONG / 0378676
Interactive Narrative Design / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Project 1: INTERACTIVE NARRATIVE PROPOSAL
Project 2 Prototype
Project 3: Final Interactive Narrative Experience
TABLE OF CONTENT
INSTRUCTIONS
WEEKLY
TASK
FEEDBACK
INSTRUCTIONS
WEEKLY
Week 2 Exploration &
Environmental Storyteling
I. What is Environmental Narrative?
The story is conveyed through the game world, not through direct narration.
Players piece together the plot by exploring objects, spaces, and atmosphere.
It emphasizes player autonomy, allowing them to freely discover the story.
II. Key Elements of Environmental Narrative
Objects and props (e.g., letters, graffiti, broken furniture)
Spatial layout (e.g., empty rooms, blocked passageways)
Atmosphere creation (lighting, sound effects, weather)
Player initiative (exploring at their own pace)
III. Exploration as a Narrative Structure
The story unfolds through discovery, not linearly.
The order of discovery is non-linear.
Players construct the narrative themselves.
IV. Case Study Task
How the story is presented (sound, light orbs, notes, items)
Player role (observer or detective)
How clues guide the narrative
Linear vs. non-linear storytelling
Emotional impact and design techniques (lighting, sound, layout)
V. Key Points for Designing an Environmental Narrative
Clear clues: Items should have a clear meaning (e.g., a diary = a personal story).
Layered narrative: Combining surface information with hidden clues.
Audiovisual guidance: Using light, sound, and layout to guide attention, avoiding over-interpretation.
Balance between guided and free exploration:
Guided exploration: Ensuring key plot points are seen and the emotional thread is coherent.
Free exploration: Players decide the order themselves, resulting in a greater sense of participation.
Emotional design: Utilizing lighting, color, sound, and a sense of spaciousness to create mood.
Exploration rewards: Providing new clues, story details, or emotional rewards.
Week 3 Simple Interactions
After watching several example films, I learned the importance of environment in storytelling, and then I did some initial research on building environmental scenes.
Week 4: Programming Interactivity in Unity3D
Practical Project: Build a small scene in Unity to implement functions such as turning on lights, collecting glowing blocks, and counting. Collecting enough blocks unlocks new content (a large tree appears).
Key Concepts: Introduced "gated progress"—where players must complete specific objectives to unlock subsequent story or content (common in story-driven games).
Course Review: Covered interactive narrative, environmental narrative, and the five major narrative elements (characters, background, conflict, plot, and theme).
Week 5 Recap: Key Patterns and Syntax
I. Core Interaction and Feedback Patterns
Interaction Pattern
Use triggers to detect if the player is within the interaction range.
Record the state using a boolean variable `playerInRange`.
Detect key input (e.g., the E key) in `Update()` and trigger the interaction function.
Feedback Loop Pattern
Use visual (e.g., material changes) or auditory (sound effects) feedback to let the player know that the interaction has taken effect.
Game Manager Pattern
Use a central script, `GameManager`, to manage shared data (e.g., a counter) and game state.
Other scripts can call `GameManager` methods to update the state and trigger events (e.g., activating a new object).
II. Conditional Logic and State Tracking
Use `if` statements to control the game process based on conditions (e.g., triggering new content after collecting enough items).
Week 6-15
There are no foundational theory courses; the focus is on Unity practice and code execution.
For Task 3, I rebuilt the scene, changed the dialogue system (e.g., from autoplay to click-to-play), added a fire effect, and fixed some bugs.
TASK
Project 1: INTERACTIVE NARRATIVE PROPOSAL
Project 2 Prototype
Scene 1:
Bug 7 wakes up in Scene 1. Scene 1 is a void, with broken fragments floating in it. An AI voice sounds, followed by a text dialogue. After the dialogue ends, three doors appear, and the AI explains that these are three important locations for Bug 7. The item picked up in Scene 1 is a blank piece of paper; its yellowed surface symbolizes blank, sealed memories.
Scene 2: The lighting is brighter, as it's a laboratory. The three items are: a letter (placed on the table; approaching it reveals a text prompt to press Q to read; the text reads "Experiment Successful"), a pack of cigarettes (text reads "Lab-Special Cigarettes"), and a piece of clothing (text reads "Researcher's Outerwear"). After exploring, a portal appears, returning to Scene 1.
Interactive elements in Scene 2 include opening and closing doors, pushing and pulling drawers, the backpack system, picking up items, and clicking to continue the dialogue.
Project 3: Final Interactive Narrative Experience
FEEDBACK
Project 1
Ambitious and visually well-defined sci-fi concept showing solid structure and branching design. However, the idea seems to lack a personal creative voice. Introduce more subjective or emotional grounding to strengthen authorship and originality.
Project 2
Really good first attempt,I can see that you put a lot of effort into this project! Your prototype has quite a lot of features such as an inventory menu and animations for doors. Be careful with scale when importing assets as some items appear too big within the scene. Also the layout of the scenes is a bit tight and hard to navigate. Fixing this and adding some sound design will add more polish and immersion into your final project.
Next Steps
-Add sound feedback for interactions and ambient background music for greater immersion
- Pay more attention to scale and layout to make navigating your scene easier for players.- Consider building worlds yourself and importing props to give yourself greater control over layout and narrative space.
-Think about revealing clues about your story piece by piece to enhance the narrative pacing and overall experience
REFLECTION
Through this course's systematic learning, I gained a comprehensive understanding of interactive narrative design, from theory to practice:
Environmental narrative theory taught me that stories can be conveyed through space, objects, and atmosphere, rather than relying on straightforward dialogue or text. This "showing rather than telling" design mindset profoundly influenced my scene construction and narrative pacing.
Simple interaction mechanisms (such as collection, triggering, and state management) are the foundation for building immersion. I learned how to implement feedback loops between the player and the world through code, ensuring that every interaction has a clear result and emotional response.
Unity practice allowed me to transform theory into an interactive experience. From trigger detection to game state management, I gradually mastered how to use technology to support narrative intent.
In Project 2, I successfully implemented the backpack system, animation triggers, item interaction, and scene transitions, building a multi-scene prototype with a sense of exploration.
Through object placement, text prompts, and environmental atmosphere (such as the bright lighting in the laboratory and the fragmented feel of the empty scene), I initially created a narrative tone of science fiction and memory loss.
Challenges and shortcomings:
Scene layout and proportion control:Some imported models are disproportionately sized, making the scenes too cramped and affecting player movement and exploration.
Narrative pacing and clue distribution:Current clues are presented in a concentrated manner, failing to fully utilize the advantages of "fragmented narrative," resulting in insufficient surprise and reasoning space during exploration.
Emotional and authorial expression:Feedback on Project 1 indicated a lack of personal creative voice, suggesting the need to inject more distinct emotional themes or subjective perspectives into the science fiction framework to enhance the work's uniqueness and appeal.
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