From immersion to metagaming: Understanding rewind mechanics in interactive storytelling

Abstract

An increasing number of recent narrative games have incorporated the metagaming elements of rewinding and remaking choices as their core mechanics. Traditionally, narrative game designers were concerned that rewinding would break immersion and negatively affect players’ narrative experience. Although there has been research on metagaming as a whole, relatively little has been focused on the design of the rewinding mechanics and even less on empirical data regarding their impact on players. In this article, we present a theoretical framework on the structure of rewinding in narrative games, consisting of Restricted Rewind, Unrestricted Rewind, and External Rewind. To evaluate the impact of some of the main types of rewind structure, we developed three versions of an interactive narrative game called Rough Draft: a restricted rewind version, a parallel unrestricted rewind version, and a traditional no-rewind version. In a user study (n = 60), we evaluated the player experience of these three versions of Rough Draft in terms of gameplay engagement, narrative engagement, narrative transportation, and overall perceptions. Our results indicate that rewind mechanics do not negatively affect player engagement as previously believed. We also present our reflections and suggest design considerations for narrative games around rewind mechanics.