Narrative Design (GMD 298.01)
About
This is the class site for Narrative Design, taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Fall 2025.
Course Description
This course is an introduction to narrative design strategies for digital games. In this course, students will learn how to analyze, design, build, and test compelling game narratives.
Syllabus
Weekly Class Notes
Week 1 (08/26):
- Welcome! What to expect this semester. What is Interactive Fiction?
Week 2 (09/02):
- Interactive Fiction. Ink basics.
Week 3 (09/09):
- Plotting, outlining, and playtesting.
Week 4 (09/16):
- Conditional choices and variables in Ink, Patterns for choice-based games.
Week 5 (09/23):
- Working with multimedia (sound, images). Introduce Project 1
Week 6 (09/30):
- Interactive Fiction planning documents due for review. Work session
Week 7 (10/07):
- Playtesting session. Exporting Ink to the web.
- CSS
Week 8 (10/14):
Week 9 (10/21):
- Play your completed Interactive Fiction games.
Week 10 (10/28):
- Worldbuilding. Play The Quiet Year.
Week 11 (11/04):
- Worldbuilding exercises. Ren’Py basics (1/3). What are visual novels?
Week 12 (11/11):
- Ren’Py basics (2/3). Visual Novel Workshop
Week 13 (11/18):
- Developing characters. Ren’Py basics (3/3)
- Begin Visual Novel
Week 14 (11/26):
- Visual Novel planning documents due for review. Work session
Week 15 (12/02):
- Playtesting session. Sharing Ren’Py builds
Week 16 (12/09):