This paper explores the concept of physical materiality within interactive storytelling, focusing on Tangible Narratives (TN). Building upon the material turn, it discusses the critical role physical artefacts play in shaping user experience, narrative impact, and meaning making. It presents key conceptual frameworks that offer structured approaches for analysing the distinct roles of interactions, users and artefacts in TN, focusing on critical dimensions like diegesis, embodiment, narrative function, and user position. The paper illustrates these frameworks by showing how the incorporation of physicality influences key aspects of the narrative experience through various examples. It reflects on the current state of the field and the interdisciplinary significance of tangible storytelling, emphasising its potential to inform the design practice and deepen the understanding of interaction phenomena. The paper concludes by identifying future research, including further phenomenological inquiry into embodied narrative experience and authoring methodologies.
We introduce the term “distant coding” to describe the trend toward agentic programming in the context of interactive digital narrative pedagogy. The paper reviews these trends and offers two case studies of Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) development that was created for courses by the authors and which embody the principles we have integrated into our own teaching practice. As programming capabilities increase, it is important to carefully navigate the tension between creativity, necessary knowledge and discovery and to avoid excessive reliance on tools even as they become more capable of independent and even autonomous development of IDNs.
This scoping review examines how narrative features and game mechanics intersect to shape emotional engagement, motivation, and health outcomes in serious games designed for children and adolescents. Analyzing 18 empirical studies published between 2015 and 2025, this review identifies recurring patterns across narrative genres, plots, structures, and character archetypes, and highlights how game mechanics are systematically integrated with narrative to construct coherent, engaging, and developmentally appropriate storytelling experiences. To synthesize the findings, we introduce the Narrative–Mechanic–Outcome matrix, a design-facing tool that maps how specific narrative–mechanic configurations are associated with different engagement and behavioral outcomes. The matrix enables researchers and developers to position their design strategies within an evidence-informed context and consider potential underexplored intersections. Findings highlight the importance of aligning narrative tone and mechanic complexity with developmental stages, particularly when addressing sensitive health topics such as mental health or identity. This study contributes both a conceptual vocabulary and a NMO matrix to reference future design and evaluation of narrative-driven serious games for youth health promotion.
How can generative AI (GenAI) be integrated in educational practices? This paper describes an approach combining problem-based learning with the creation of Interactive Digital Narratives (IDNs) using GenAI, applied during a training school for which the concrete task was to represent Malta’s complex Neolithic history. After introducing the topic, the concept of IDN, and GenAI tools, the educational journey continued by interweaving contextual information such as site visits with iterative design steps facilitating trainees to create their own IDN projects. This approach was applied during a five-day course, resulting in four IDNs incorporating the specific perspectives of the respective teams. The paper describes the pedagogical approach as well as the different ways the trainee teams found to address the limitations and challenges of current GenAI tools.
Representing uncertain history through Interactive Digital Narratives offers interactors the opportunity to challenge the grand narrative through engagements with the historical record. A gap in the literature exists in the evaluation of IDNs’ ability to teach interactors how to navigate historical uncertainty, while a demand for diegetic procedural knowledge learning exists. We propose an evaluation framework that helps determine the effectiveness of an IDN to deliver knowledge in the context of historical uncertainty and seek to evaluate not only the acquisition of declarative knowledge but also procedural knowledge learning needed to handle such conflicting perspectives. This evaluation framework is supported by a VR IDN implementation of a prehistoric complex, presenting alternative interpretations based on published research upon which the interactor is invited to answer questions about the historical site. Validation through cultural heritage experts supports the IDN’s ability to empower interactors to question the grand narrative and take an active role in the interpretation of the site.
