Authors: Anna Musina, Pavel Zhukov
Digital gamification opens up an new unprecedented field to implement various game worlds, which, undoubtedly, can also affect the field of education. The word "gaming" obviously defines not only overall product focus, but also the presence of mechanics implemented to increase user engagement. Widely known mechanics include: accumulative systems, achievements and badges, deadline systems, etc. Each of them has long been practiced in the gamification field far beyond the digital world. Teachers in the classroom give children stickers for a job well done or offer them to play an educational mini-game with the help of drawings on the blackboard. There are a lot of mechanics used not only in education, but also in alternative business areas, but, unfortunately, it is not often possible to find examples of storytelling among them. It is important not to confuse storytelling with the role model, because although the player can take on the role inсluded in the script, games do not always provide such an opportunity.
Why using scripts in gamification is cool?
Stories are better remembered (it is much more interesting to tell classmates not about the lesson passed, but about what the characters lived through and experienced in the game);
Stories evoke emotions (thanks to the characters and plot twists, users are emotionally attached to what is happening on the screen);
Stories engage ("it's impossible to break away”, so they say about catchy movies or books, games are able to cause similar feelings);
Stories support and develop the main goals and objectives of business (scripts do not replace business goals and objectives, but, on the contrary, support them; for example, in education, a script will never replace educational material);
Stories are constantly being retold (people adore sharing stories and talk about their experiences).
Stories can be applied in any field (it doesn't matter which field the business belongs to, you can tell amazing stories in any one);
Stories are inexpensive (design of a full-fledged script can cost a reasonable price, for example, some time ago simple chatbots in the choose-your-adventure genre were incredibly popular).
In fact, the advantages of storytelling can be listed endlessly, but the most convincing, probably, is the argument previously mentioned in the article: stories are a great way for sharing experiences and making a dialogue. That is why one of the key decisions for the education project was the availability of scripts in each of the six subjects, among which there is also history.
What does a historian and a scriptwriter have in common? At the heart of both professions is the ability to tell stories. What, then, is the difference between a historian and a scriptwriter? In the use of artistic fiction. Turning to the medium of video games, we can notice how classic historical stories (commonly myths) are interpreted, quoted and transformed, for example, in the series of games Assassin's Creed, God of War, Hades and others. These examples can hardly be fully used in history lessons, because they don’t draw any distinctions between historical reality and fiction.
In this way, it is difficult for the user to separate the fiction of the scriptwriter from the truth. With this perspective, one gets the impression that there are too many scripts in the educational process, especially when it comes to humanities, where the borders between the real and the imaginary are not always obvious. History is a very romantic science and in some ways even resembles the genres of fantasy and science fiction when people, flipping through the pages of textbooks, seem to be carried back into the past imagining ancient lands and civilizations. Thanks to this experience, as well as the desire to relive it, there are video games based on historical events. Due to the emerging dissonance, a curious task appears: how to preserve historical authenticity and, at the same time, allow students to live through the magical experience of travelling to the past?
Our goal is education.
When creating a game guide on history, we followed the rules that helped us to keep historical authenticity:
Our goal is education. And all scripts created within the project should strictly stick to this purpose. Any component, whether it is a plot move, a character or an interactive element, etc. work exclusively for the child's education;
Our basis is the methodical material. The scripts were based on lectures, lesson plans, tests and assessments, as well as additional recommendations specially prepared for the course exclusively by the project's methodists;
Our way is the structuring. When creating scripts, the team created packages and mock-ups for more effective design and gamification of methodical material;
Our key is communication. Each plot element was carefully coordinated and discussed with professional historians to avoid breaking the logic and historical authenticity;
Our inspiration is love. All the teams that were involved in developing an educational project on history sincerely believed in the product.The methodists highly appreciated the professionalism of the scriptwriters and considered that high-quality scripts would help children feel and get in touch with the history.
All of the above principles helped to work as effectively as possible on the concept of an educational product on History, as well as to avoid possible inconsistencies and mistakes.
We gather here today
Each writing team within the "Education" project consisted of 3 to 5 scriptwriters and had three main positions: 1) a scriptwriter; 2) a lead scriptwriter; 3) a narrative director.
The duties of the scriptwriter were: developing the concept of the module and writing a script for it. The lead scriptwriter approved concepts, developed the interactives, communicated with methodists, as well as proofread the scripts. The narrative director approved (or issued critical edits) two main iterations of the development-the draft and the final version, carefully studying each element of the training module.
The plan of script developing usually was as such:
introduction (getting to know) to the methodical material;
writing a draft of the plot for the lesson and identifying key characters;
drawing up a detailed script map;
designing educational interactives;
creating a mock-up of the script;
editing and proofreading
Setting
History is a discourse about the past, so, when choosing a setting, we decided to allow children to plunge into the atmosphere of antiquity, carrying out a kind of time travel. The target audience of the project were fifth grade students aged 10-12 years. Such an audience is already familiar with a huge number of modern video games, among which there are such titans of the industry as Fortnite and Minecraft.
Certainly, it was not our goal to compete with the above games, but we must take this factor into account when creating our projects. Most of the modern titles take place in alternative realities, in such worlds where there is obviously a place for something incredible and a little hyperbolized. That's why we chose fiction, not realism. And in order not to "go too far", because we have to work with a humanitarian subject, we have provided game scripts with two stable tropes (a popular formula used in pieces of art, for example, a plot move): time travel and the chosen player.
Time travel
To justify the constant time travel for young players, the scriptwriters created a detailed exposition in the chapter “Introduction to history”, where the student had to help the teacher who had lost his memory, going on expeditions deep into the historical worlds for special tablets of knowledge — magical objects, studying which the historian could restore the lost knowledge. After the introduction, the student chose any of the sections of history that interested him: Egypt, China, India, the Primeval world, Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia.
The chosen player
In many games, you can find this typical character, because players really like to be special and important. We decided not to deprive the students of such pleasure, and focused on the supremacy of the user. Most of the problems that arise can be solved only by the student, and only he has incredible abilities, for example, understanding the speech of ancient deities. In the case of educational gamification, such egocentrism works for the benefit of the student, because many game actions and situations perform an educational function. In this situation, this principle worked well: “I act, I learn, I perceive”.
Game genre
It is worth paying a little attention to the conversation about the chosen game genre for all projects within the framework of “Education", namely visual novels. Visual novels are a genre of video games that come from Japan, originated from text quests, where the image (what happens on the screen), music and narration are central.
The degree of interactivity in this genre usually varies: it may not exist at all (kinetic novels) or it may include a variety of mini-games with additional mechanics in the form of, for example, "hidden object". There can be a huge number of such modifications.
Why did we stop at visual novels, as there are many other, much more “advanced” game genres, for example, adventure, shooter or RPG (role-playing game)? This is due to the technical equipment of users. The project assumed the possibility of implementation during the classroom. Unfortunately, not all schools in Russia have good equipment and the Internet that can pull the launch of a powerful application. So, educational games had to be launched via the web, without bugs and lags. The visual novels perfectly fit the given conditions.
Plot
Each lesson was accompanied by extensive methodical material, after getting acquainted with which the scriptwriters began to suggest ideas for future scripts. Certain topics were assigned to the modules, for example, religion, social system, political system, world view, etc. Based on this, the appropriate plots and characters were selected for the lesson. Here is a part of the storyboard of one of the modules on Ancient China “The Sovereign is like a boat, and the people are like water: they can carry, they can drown”:
The draft of the script included not only the plot edging, but also all the various interactive (and not so much) elements, such as: a comic book, a VN-dialogue, a mini-game and methodical material.
Pace and rhythm
Visual novels are a very static genre (due to the large amount of text), which can quickly cause boredom in a student. To avoid losing the user's attention, the team of scriptwriters carefully approached the development of the pace and rhythm of the game to maintain the balance between study and entertainment. To do this, interactives were applied and all the possible ways of presenting the material were tested.
