Planning and Storyboarding

Before you start developing an educational game, it’s a good idea to come up with a plan. This guide includes tips for planning and storyboarding a Twine game.

Planning

There are a few questions you should answer when you begin developing an educational game:

1. What is your pedagogical goal?

In other words, what do you want players to learn? Consider whether a game be used to achieve that goal.

2. How will you design the game to meet that goal?

What kinds of choices or mechanics will you include in the game, and why? Will your game focus on storytelling, exploration, decision-making, or something else? How will you incorporate choices, rewards, branching narratives, and other game elements to support your pedagogical goal?

3. What is the player’s goal?

What does the player strive to do? What motivates them to keep playing? For example, the player may strive to progress the story, solve a mystery, or increase their score.

4. How will the game end?

Does your game or narrative have more than one possible ending? Do all paths lead to the same ending? Does the player have to meet a certain set of conditions before the game will end? Does the game ever end? What happens when the game ends? Can the player “win” the game?

For example, if I wanted to design an educational game about keeping pet betta fish, my answers to these questions might be:

  1. I want players to learn about how to build an aquarium with the right equipment and parameters to keep a healthy, happy pet betta fish. I want them to learn about the time and material costs associated with responsibly keeping pet fish.
  2. Game elements:
    • Roleplay: Players play as an aspiring aquarist hoping to adopt a betta fish.
    • Choices: Players can make choices about what to do first and how to build their aquarium. Their choices affect the stress level of their fish, as well as the time and material costs associated with keeping the fish.
    • Customization: Players can customize and name their fish. This serves to increase the player’s investment in their fish’s wellbeing.
  3. The player’s goal is to build a home for their betta fish and minimize their fish’s stress level.
  4. The game ends when the betta fish’s minimum needs are met or when the player chooses to be done building their aquarium. Then, the game summarizes the player’s performance and displays the time and material costs they have paid so far and can expect in the future. It also provides an epilogue for the fish.

This example game would rely heavily on player input and variables to keep track of scores and statistics, but Twine can also be used to create more narrative- or exploration-centered experiences.

Storyboarding

Before you jump into editing a Twine story, it can be helpful to create a storyboard or map to help visualize how a user will navigate through the story. This can be done with a pencil and paper, on a digital whiteboard, or in Twine itself.

Note

At this point, it is helpful to have an understanding of how Twine works and what the editor interface looks like. See Twine Basics for an introduction.

Passages are the building blocks of Twine stories and can also be thought of as scenes or rooms. Players navigate between passages using links and other interactive elements.

It’s possible that your finished story will not resemble your initial storyboard or map. While you are developing and testing the story, you will see what works and what does not. You might also implement features in phases, starting with the most basic functionality, then working up to more advanced features. Game design is an iterative process! You might create a game, test it, maybe even use it in a class, then come back later to make tweaks or add new features.