Developing Digital Narrative for Quest-Based Learning

Quest-Based Learning is a transformative, 21st-century type of learning that integrates educational principles and game design into a dialogue. It is designed to focus on a deep exploration of content through design thinking and play. 

It relies on virtual reality to produce an immersive experience that greatly contributes to learners’ motivation for learning.  

This workshop focuses on building up practical skills so that the participants can work towards creating their own educational games having Quest-Based Learning as a methodology. 

The workshop is based on a year-long research and development project of creating and cultivating a Quest-Based Learning Environment at ITMO University. The findings of this research indicated that learners actively participated in the game, utilized different types of strategy to manage their interaction, undertook collaborative dialogues exclusively in the L2 in order to solve puzzles, and had positive attitudes, claiming that interaction in a Quest-Based Learning Environment was engaging, motivating, and enjoyable and improved their fluency and discourse management practice. 

The workshop is in three parts: first, an overview of theoretical background and the exploration of a case study; second, a detailed explanation of Python statements (menu, label, jump) used for creating dialogues and choices within the narrative; and third, a walk-through of interpreting and writing these statements using a sample ‘sprites set’. Participants can follow along with the walk-through by using this provided set. 

Therefore, participants can learn from real examples that lead to real results. No prior experience with games design or programming is needed, and people of all experience levels are invited to join.

• Use python for developing Digital Narrative
• Use python statements for dialogues and choices (menu, label, jump)
• Read and write simple code

Göbel, S., de Carvalho Rodrigues, A., Mehm, F., Steinmetz, R. (2009) Narrative game-based learning objects for story-based digital educational games. In: Proceedings of the 1st International Open Workshop on Intelligent Personalization and Adaptation in Digital Educational Games, 113-124. Graz, Austria (PDF).