Gareth W. Young, Nour Boulahcen (Author)
Video games are increasingly recognized as powerful tools for exploring complex human-nature relationships through interactive narratives and immersive storytelling. This paper examines the intersection of eco-horror and Human-Plant-Computer Interaction (HPCI) in game design, focusing on how interactive representations of plants as autonomous, sometimes antagonistic agents can foster ecological empathy and critical reflections on human-nature interactions. Traditionally, plants in games have…
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Renske van Enschot, Christian Roth, Libby van den Besselaar (Author)
This study investigates whether people’s mindsets can be transformed (i.e., transformative learning) through a geolocalized narrative news game. An online 2 (agency: high/low) x 2 (personal relevance: yes/no) between-subjects experiment was done (n = 215) using the newsgame I am Mosul. The participants experienced the impact of war in a personally (ir)relevant Dutch city with or without the agency to make choices for the main character influencing the storyline. The results show a positive e…
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Terhi Marttila, Andrés Isaza-Giraldo, Rafaela Nunes, Paulo Bala (Author)
Being Water is an interactive art experience that explores water’s ways of being through 360° video, artifact-beings, voice-over, and atmospheric sound. After an initial version focused on guided navigation and authorial text, the second iteration experiments with generative AI. Large language models use scene context and authorial material to augment interaction, enable replayability, and sustain a narrative. The paper shares preliminary findings on collaborating with LLMs to make additions…
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Sarah Anne Brown, Jade Arbo, Mauro Colarieti, Sathaporn “Hubert” Hu, Jasmine Mattey, Samya Brata Roy, Anca Serbanescu (Author)
The inaugural Future Directions in Interactive Digital Narratives (FIDN) Student Research Symposium, convened virtually on June 7, 2025 by the Association for Research in Digital Interactive Narratives (ARDIN) Graduate Research Committee, provided a dedicated venue for emerging scholars to articulate near-term trajectories for interactive digital narratives (IDNs). Eight Master’s and doctoral students and early-career researchers presented work and received feedback from established scholars…
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Sarah Anne Brown (Author)
Applied IDN research in health and education lacks consistent, rigorous evaluation, making it hard to link specific design features to outcomes like immersion, engagement, or learning. A survey of 66 studies found only 17 with evaluations, which were often heterogeneous in design and rarely isolated the characteristics of IDN, highlighting the evidence gap. The paper advocates richer, in-experience methods (e.g., screen recording, action logging, retrospective video interviews) and qualitati…
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Pratama Wirya Atmaja (Author)
To meet the demands of “Big-G” GBL for complex issues (e.g., sustainability), the paper identifies four design gaps—conceptual robustness, scientific precision, technical realizability, and practical adaptability—insufficiently addressed by current methods. It proposes a “ludonarrative universe” model: a multi-dimensional system spanning nested media (supersystems), ecological counterparts (competing elements), meta-gaming layers, and experiential layers (world, storytelling, assets/UI) grou…
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Anurak Chandam (Author)
This work proposes an integrated framework—counter-narratives, participant agency, co-creation, and sensory engagement—to challenge Authorized Heritage Discourse at sites of conflict, using Thailand’s People’s Party monuments as a focal case. By leveraging IDN structures and AR/VR, it aims to foster emotional connection, youth participation, and critical reinterpretation of politically sensitive histories. The model emphasizes collaborative authorship and embodied, spatial storytelling over …
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Jacopo William de Denaro (Author)
Positioning immersive installations as IDNs for civic imagination, the project explores how groups can co-author possible urban futures—focusing on mobility in Milan. An initial data-driven installation elicited aesthetic emotions and reflection, but it felt paternalistic and abstract. A second iteration replaces nudging with a shared, first-person environment that transforms in real time based on participants’ movement choices. The work reframes narrative as emergent, privileges imagination…
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Jonathan Barbara (Author)
The paper argues that IDNs’ multiperspectivity can make scholarly debate accessible, enabling visitors to compare published interpretations and co-develop their own views—demonstrated through a VR case on Malta’s Tarxien prehistoric complex. Source paragraphs from historians are structured into dependency-linked conversational narratives, staged in situ via environmental storytelling and interactive discovery. This approach encourages either narrative closure (choosing a most plausible accou…
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