Non-linear Storytelling Research Articles

Reshaping Suspense Web Dramas: A Study of Nonlinear Narrative Strategies and Audience Feedback in Tencent Video’s 2022 Suspense Series

In recent years, China's streaming platforms have increasingly invested in the production of original suspense web dramas, making suspense dramas a popular genre that frequently sparks social discussions and crosses audience boundaries. In 2022, Tencent Video released six major suspense series, including Under the Skin, Are You Safe?, Talking Bones 2, The Neuron Doctors, The Fight, and Reset. This study delves into the programming strategies and audience feedback of these series, analyzing their unique narrative structures, script content creation, and their alignment with real-world social issues. Additionally, the paper examines audience reviews on platforms such as Weibo, Douban, and Tencent Video, revealing how these phenomenon-level suspense dramas successfully captivate viewers through their realistic themes and innovative nonlinear storytelling methods, showcasing their strong appeal and market competitiveness.

The Ascendancy of Video Games: Can They Eclipse Literary Works?

This article investigates the factors contributing to the rise of video games and their potential to surpass literature in narrative expression. By examining extensive research on the intersection of video games and literature, the study dissects their complex interrelationships, mutual impacts, and shared evolution. Video game narratives, often inspired by literary predecessors, have become increasingly complex and engaging, drawing on literary techniques and non-linear storytelling methods from postmodernism and metafiction. These narratives challenge players to actively construct meaning, enhancing emotional resonance through character development, evocative prose, and carefully crafted dialogue. Technological advancements have played a crucial role in the evolution and rising popularity of video games, offering immersive, interactive experiences that empower players to shape the narrative and storyline, contrasting with literature, which relies on the reader's imagination and interpretation. The future of storytelling is likely to be shaped by the ongoing interplay between video games and literature. The integration of literary techniques and interactive elements across these mediums will continue to evolve, resulting in innovative hybrid entertainment forms that leverage the strengths of both literature and video games. This dynamic interaction ensures a diverse and vibrant future for storytelling, reflecting the multidimensionality of human creativity and imagination. As video games continue to incorporate more sophisticated literary techniques and storytelling methods, they become more capable of delivering rich, nuanced narratives that rival those found in traditional literature. This evolution opens up new possibilities for hybrid forms of storytelling that combine the best elements of both video games and literature. By embracing these hybrid forms, creators can push the boundaries of narrative expression and create new, immersive experiences that engage audiences in ways previously unimaginable. The article concludes that the future of storytelling lies in the continued convergence of video games and literature, promising a diverse and dynamic landscape that celebrates human creativity and imagination in all its forms.

MURDER OFFLINE AND ONLINE: COMPARING E-PISTOLARY AND TRADITIONAL NARRATIVES IN THE APPEAL AND BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD

This study examines the evolving nature of epistolary narratives in the digital age by comparing traditional and e-pistolary storytelling techniques in two contemporary crime novels: Janice Hallett’s The Appeal and Attica Locke’s Bluebird, Bluebird. Employing a theoretical framework combining digital narratology (as developed by scholars like Marie-Laure Ryan and Janet Murray) and media-specific analysis (proposed by N. Katherine Hayles), the research paper explores how the shift from traditional to digital communication impacts narrative structure, character development and reader engagement in murder mystery narratives. It investigates the unique attributes of e-pistolary writing, including the use of emojis, internet slang and multimedia elements, analysing how these digital affordances influence narrative voice, pacing and the reader’s interpretative process. The study also considers the potential for augmented reality and interactive narratives in digital epistolary works, examining their implications for the genre’s future. The comparative analysis reveals that while The Appeal leverages e-pistolary techniques to create a multi-layered, interactive reading experience, Bluebird, Bluebird employs traditional narrative methods to evoke a sense of place and history. This juxtaposition highlights the strengths and limitations of both approaches in crafting compelling murder mysteries. The findings suggest that e-pistolary narratives offer new possibilities for reader immersion and non-linear storytelling, while traditional narratives maintain their power in delivering atmospheric, character-driven tales. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse on the evolution of literary forms in the digital era and provides insights into the future of crime fiction storytelling.

Technology-enhanced learning in Pharmacology through non-linear storytelling

There is a growing body of literature highlighting the potential of game-based learning (GBL) in creating immersive, highly engaging, active learning experiences. Furthermore, advances in digital technology along with the demand for online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has brought digital GBL to the forefront of innovative teaching practice. Here, I share some of the digital GBL strategies we have developed to support our pharmacology teaching. In collab¬oration with our students, we have co-created a series of “choose your own adventure” style games using Twine; an open-source storytelling game engine. Importantly, we have shown that adoption of these GBL approaches is highly effective in promoting student engagement, subject understanding, and learning community. Furthermore, I also dis¬cuss how AI tools can allow educators with little knowledge or experience of game development to create unique and engaging learning experiences for their students.

Understanding children’s use of a mobile digital storytelling app

ABSTRACT Storytelling plays an important role in early childhood education. Advances in digital technology have allowed storytelling to expand into shared and collaborative experiences. While mobile apps have enabled children to engage in creating digital stories, there has been relatively limited research on how children create and engage in digital storytelling experiences in ‘in the wild’ mobile environments. In this study, we developed Animation Kit, a digital storytelling application that enables children to create and share short and simple animated stories. We conducted a thematic analysis on a random sample of 200 animations submitted to the app's gallery and conducted semi-structured interviews with three heavy users to gain insights into their creative appropriation, sharing, and collaboration behaviours. Our analysis revealed several interesting forms of appropriation of sharing and collaboration and strong demand for communication. Based on the insights gained through data analysis, we propose design implications for digital storytelling platforms, such as a nonlinear storytelling approach contests and an asset-sharing system that empowers users to share their creations with others and one that can maintain a history of user edits.

Role-Playing in Teacher Education with InCoLearn and its Qualitative Usability

Role-playing has long been a method in the professionalization of educators to emulate or anticipate everyday school and teaching situations. This paper introduces InCoLearn, the first multiplayer online role-playing game (RPG) developed for student teachers to facilitate professional and action-based knowledge of inclusion and heterogeneity in the classroom with non-linear storytelling through individual quests. A qualitative usability study conducted via focus groups aims to provide insights into usability. It seeks to answer the research question of which aspects are perceived as the most important and problematic to student teachers using InCoLearn. To answer another research question, whether previous quantitative usability results can be confirmed and explained by the qualitative results, the qualitative results are set into the context of a quantitative usability study.

Remediated memory, digital witnessing and engagement: A qualitative analysis of the interactive documentary ‘The Space We Hold’

This paper sets out to study how creative documentary practices deconstruct traumatic memory, and then digitalise witnessing and engagement afforded by digital technology in the award-winning online interactive documentary The Space We Hold. Premised on culture memory studies and documentary studies, the social function of the documentary in reshaping narratives and forging public engagement has been discussed in this research. Interactive documentary becomes the unique visual artistic medium that allows the wider public to bear witness and emotionally experience the meaning of a traumatic past. This interactive project is reviewed as one site of memory to answer the main research question: ‘How does hypermediacy in an interactive documentary enable this non-linear storytelling structure to reframe the narrative and identity of a community that struggles for social justice?’. Along with presenting direct provocation through the innovative hypernarrative, this interactive documentary focuses on victims’ current lives, familial feelings and their contribution in pursuit of justice, showing depth in reflection and density in life. By exploring how The Space We Hold acts as a bear and agent to enhance audience engagement, I contend that the documentary is restyled as a space that allows individual memory to intertwine with collective memory through the combination of authorial expressivity and interactive participatory. In this pragmatic and reflexive approach to bear traumatic witness, we sense the constant battle between stigmatised communities and their reinterpreting narratives.

Temporal Journeys and Human Perception: Analyzing Nonlinear Narratives and Scientific Fantasy in the Film Arrival

This paper explores the nuanced interaction between temporal journeys, nonlinear narratives, and human perception, using the highly acclaimed film Arrival as its focal point. Drawing from theoretical frameworks in time perception, cognitive psychology, and narrative theory, we investigate the convergence of these perspectives in the analysis of nonlinear storytelling. The literature review encompasses studies on the impact of nonlinear narratives on audience perception, relevant theories on time cognition, and scholarly works dissecting Arrival within the science fiction genre. The film analysis section dissects Arrival, highlighting its nonlinear narrative structure, the portrayal of temporal journeys, and the role of language in shaping temporal perception. The paper explores how Arrival challenges traditional notions of time and reality, scrutinizing cognitive aspects like memory and consciousness, and the linguistic impact on temporal understanding. The scientific fantasy within Arrival, notably linguistic relativity, is scrutinized for its balance between scientific grounding and fantastical elements. Audience reception and impact investigate how nonlinear narratives, exemplified by Arrival, influence audience expectations, preferences, and broader cinematic trends. The paper concludes with reflections on the implications of Arrival within the context of temporal journeys, human perception, and the lasting impact on the science fiction genre.

Influence of Non-linear Storytelling in Video Games on Cognitive Development among Students with Learning Disabilities

This study seeks to answer the question, aiming to investigate whether playing video games affects the cognitive development of students with learning impairments in Saudi Arabia" by looking at the possibility of gender differences in the cognitive results of video game play. A quantitative method of research was used to investigate whether or not certain aspects of video game play, such as playing frequency, game genre, and length, are associated with cognitive growth in memory, attention, and problem-solving among a sample of 350 students. The results showed a link between frequent play and involvement in certain game genres, such as action and role-playing games, to the improvement of students’ cognitive development. It was also noted that female participants consistently outperformed male participants on tests of memory, attention, and problem-solving, highlighting the moderating influence of gender. These results have major ramifications for educators, parents, and policymakers. Thus, the need to develop healthy gaming habits and apply strategies that are welcoming to students of both sexes, illuminating the potential of video games as tools for fostering cognitive growth is deemed necessary.

The Impact of Non-linear Narrative Structures on Better Character Development in Animated-short Movies

Nonlinear narrative structures are infrequently used in animated short films and their benefits seems to be relatively neglected in comparison with cinema. Yet, the revolutionary potential of utilizing such structures in animated short films is endless. Nonlinear narratives provide techniques and tools which helps in better introduction and development of characters, resulting in in-depth emotional involvement of the audience. Such engagement is viable without the emphasis which classical structure puts on irrevocable principles such as linear timeline. This paper discusses the impact of nonlinear narrative structures in four animated short films, “The coin” (2019), “Negative Space” (2017), “Late afternoon” (2017), “The boy who saw the iceberg” (2000), which demonstrate a restructure of temporal factors. Each of these films is not only taking advantage of an exclusively tailored nonlinear structure using time distortion, they are also enforcing the impact they have on the way characters are delineated which could be inspired by other film-makers in animation. This paper discusses such innovative potentials in narrative structure of animated short films by relying on David Bordwell classical narration theories in “Narration in the fiction film” (1985), which are then diversified into nonchronological structures according to temporal feature of the narration. The present study argues that not only applying various nonlinear storytelling structures is possible in the context of animated short films, it also provides film-makers with measures and capabilities to achieve memorable and engaging characters.

Interview with Mariusz Pisarski

Dr Mariusz Pisarski is a hypertext scholar, translator, publisher, the chief editor of "Techsty"---a Polish journal on new media and literature. He teaches creative writing, hypertext, Twine and non-linear storytelling. His translation and media translation projects include Polish editions of Michael Joyce's hypertext fictions, poetry generator "Sea and Spar Between" by Stephanie Strickland and Nick Montfort and "Hegirascope" by Stuart Moulthrop. Recently he has created the online English edition of "Twilight. A Symphony" (2022) by Michael Joyce. His forthcoming publication is "The Challenges of Born-Digital Fiction: Editions, Translations, and Emulations" (co-authored with Dene Grigar) by Cambridge University Press. He is an assistant professor at Chair of Media and Journalism, University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów, Poland and the secretary of Electronic Literature Research Center at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań.

Understanding the Impacts of Storytelling and Player Perspective on Learning Outcomes: The Mediating Roles of Engagements

This study leverages the framework of game-based learning to investigate the effects of storytelling and player perspective on learning outcomes of perceived learning effectiveness and performance. The study also explores the potential mediating roles of four distinct types of engagement: behavioral, cognitive, affective, and social. A 2*2 + 1 between-subjects experiment (linear versus nonlinear storytelling * first-person versus third-person perspective + non-game-based learning) is employed to investigate the impacts of these factors on learning outcomes. The results reveal a significant increase in perceived learning effectiveness and performance when game elements are added. Contrary to expectations, linear storytelling and third-person perspective have significantly higher positive impacts on learning outcomes compared to nonlinear storytelling and first-person perspective. The four types of engagement significantly mediate the relationships between storytelling, player perspective, and learning outcomes, indicating that the four types of engagement play critical roles in explaining the effect mechanism. The study sheds light on the theoretical and practical implications of these results.

A line connects the void

The following piece is the script and a selection of still frames of an experimental 16mm film that considers the space of grief and absence held in the everyday. Filmed in the artist’s family apartment on the edge of Parkdale in the city of Toronto, this work follows in the tradition of woman artists depicting interior spaces and domestic life. It explores the poetics of grief and precarity for the family around the time of death and dying regarding the artist’s sister. With non-linear storytelling and fragmented images, the work moves between speculative fiction, documentary, and experimental film. Referencing Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee (1982) and Anne Carson’s poem “On Walking Backwards” (2015), it considers the space and metaphor of a void and the desire that moves between the dead and the living. This work is funded by the Canada Council of the Arts.

GDOM: An Immersive Experience of Intangible Heritage through Spatial Storytelling

This paper presents the design, development, and evaluation of GDOM (Geelong Digital Outdoor Museum) application that integrates intangible heritage stories into places of public significance through a 3D virtual immersive environment. The project makes an important contribution to community-centered intangible heritage, while bridging the gap between theory and practice of location-based, non-linear storytelling. Research by Design methodology has been adopted to integrate highly cross-disciplinary insights into the creation, reproduction, and evaluation of a tangible application. A web-based 360° panoramic image viewer platform has been utilised to design and curate an interactive heritage experience, by spatially linking stories (content) to specific locations. The key innovation is the location-based, non-linear and spatial storytelling inside a 3D immersive virtual space where users have the opportunity to interact with intangible heritage stories. GDOM application opened up new opportunities to connect people with intangible heritage to facilitate new forms of environmental knowing, spatial and cultural understanding, and the creation of a sense of place. An in-depth evaluation of GDOM, with both expert and non-expert user groups, confirmed the GDOM application as an effective tool to experience intangible heritage to facilitate better understanding of places compared to a physical experience of heritage in a museum. Potential context of application with immediate benefits have been reported as education and cultural tourism sectors.

Gamified Mobile Sensing Storytelling Application for Enhancing Remote Cultural Experience and Engagement

Previous studies have highlighted a lack of practical strategies in mobile learning that effectively enhance learners’ agency with mobile technology. The paper aims to engage and interest learners in cultural issues by exploring the capacity of mobile technology. In this paper, we report the design and development of a prototype story game app, The Story of Praya Lane that combines use of mobile sensing, machine learning and augmented reality (AR) to engage users in physical mobile activities as part of a gamified, non-linear storytelling application. We took a multidisciplinary approach to involve cultural heritage stakeholders to preserve and share the cultural stories of the Kristang community in Praya Lane, Malacca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The results of user study show promise in promoting interest and engagement in cultural learning and reflection. From our findings, we recommend design guidelines for future interactive story games to support cultural learning and engagement.

Inter-Twine-d: Combining Organic Chemistry Laboratory and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Games

Remote delivery approaches to laboratory courses in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic have included a spectrum spanning passive options such as providing students with prerecorded videos of experiments to replacing in-person laboratory experiences with immersive virtual reality environments. While interactive activities that require students to make choices about experimental design or procedure, mimicking levels of inquiry present in in-person laboratory experiments, are preferred, creating custom activities of this type often require expensive equipment, a media production team, and knowledge of multiple programming languages. The open source, nonlinear storytelling platform, Twine, provides a free alternative that allows instructors to create custom interactive choose-your-own-adventure activities based on their existing laboratory curriculum and inclusive of text, images, and video clips. We used Twine to create a choose-your-own-adventure laboratory activity as the final experiment in a remote delivery format organic chemistry laboratory course that allowed students to obtain customized data based on their experimental choices. We expanded this work to create an entire course of Twine choose-your-own-adventure laboratory activities for a third term organic chemistry laboratory course.

Review: Ludified, edited by Marko Ciciliani, Barbara Lüneburg, and Andreas Pirchner

Review: <i>Ludified</i>, edited by Marko Ciciliani, Barbara Lüneburg, and Andreas Pirchner

Interactive Documentary as Form of Public Narrative in Digital Age

This paper examines how migration crises in North America are represented in two award-winning interactive documentary projects—Borderland and Roxham. Through various combinations of images, texts, video, surface designs and visual presentation, those two both portray detailed stories and imply critical point of views. Based on reflection on interactivity, hypertextuality, multimediality that afforded by digital technology, this project is guided by the main research question: how do features of interactive documentary enable this non-linear storytelling structure to be a new form of public narrative? With the analysis of Borderland and Roxham as case studies, remixes of multimedia visual elements, narrative structures, contributions from users and variation in user’s narrative routes are also discussed within sub-questions: how does the story of individual open emotional dialogue in those two projects? In what way users can experience the shared values through emotion that may lead to moral choice?&#x0D; &#x0D; Two projects are analyzed by Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis to evaluate the structure of stories and interactivity constructed by moving images, perspectives, and storytelling. By tapping into the interlocking plots and the power of narrative, I argue that interactive documentary forms a unique public narrative when tackling social issues, allowing self-experience to intertwine with collective experience, and let individuals meet in this temporal public sphere through authorial expressivity, narrative routes and interactive participatory.

Interactive Data Comics

This paper investigates how to make data comics interactive. Data comics are an effective and versatile means for visual communication, leveraging the power of sequential narration and combined textual and visual content, while providing an overview of the storyline through panels assembled in expressive layouts. While a powerful static storytelling medium that works well on paper support, adding interactivity to data comics can enable non-linear storytelling, personalization, levels of details, explanations, and potentially enriched user experiences. This paper introduces a set of operations tailored to support data comics narrative goals that go beyond the traditional linear, immutable storyline curated by a story author. The goals and operations include adding and removing panels into pre-defined layouts to support branching, change of perspective, or access to detail-on-demand, as well as providing and modifying data, and interacting with data representation, to support personalization and reader-defined data focus. We propose a lightweight specification language, COMICSCRIPT, for designers to add such interactivity to static comics. To assess the viability of our authoring process, we recruited six professional illustrators, designers and data comics enthusiasts and asked them to craft an interactive comic, allowing us to understand authoring workflow and potential of our approach. We present examples of interactive comics in a gallery. This initial step towards understanding the design space of interactive comics can inform the design of creation tools and experiences for interactive storytelling.

Adapting Complex Time: Story of Your Life (1998) and Arrival (2016)

In both literature and film, we’re faced with complex characters, complex plots, complex themes, complexity in narration and, occasionally, complexity in narrative structure, all of which have been long present in fictional works and all of which have been addressed extensively by scholars (we’ve witnessed a resurgence of these terms in academic circles in recent years following the rise of the puzzle film in the 1990s).But what can be inferred when we consider narrative complexity in terms of adaptation?For this study, I consider complexity in relation to nonlinear storytelling and apply stylistic methods of analysis to the blockbuster film Arrival (2016) and its source text - Ted Chiang’s short story, Story of Your Life (1998). The aim of this paper is to examine narrative complexity in adaptation and address questions surrounding what is adapted in such cases, how it is adapted, and the effects both versions of such a text can produce.The argument that I advance is based on the premise that by breaking down the text (moving image and printed text) into its narrative components, we can develop a better understanding of how complex narratives such as this operate across platforms. My analysis focuses on the nonlinear narration, narrative focalisation and the presentation of coinciding narrative frames that are present in the source text and its film adaptation.