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Building the labyrinth: embracing and overcoming complexity in interactive narrative creation

Building the labyrinth: embracing and overcoming complexity in interactive narrative creation
Building the labyrinth: embracing and overcoming complexity in interactive narrative creation
The nature of interactive narrative creates various kinds of authorial burden, where the workload increases with the complexity of the project. This makes authoring long-form interactive narrative a difficult undertaking. Authors use different strategies to manage this burden. Using thematic analysis of a series of qualitative author interviews, I developed a conceptual model of the authorial burden. Using this model, I then undertook a process of Research through Design, seeking to implement this promising strategy through the completion of a long-form commercial interactive novel. This has resulted in a promising design strategy, the Stage Lights approach.
University of Southampton
Jones, Joey Donald
016c1758-3c63-4a4a-908e-7663e4801d5d
Jones, Joey Donald
016c1758-3c63-4a4a-908e-7663e4801d5d
Millard, David
4f19bca5-80dc-4533-a101-89a5a0e3b372
Ashton, Daniel
b267eae4-7bdb-4fe3-9267-5ebad36e86f7

Jones, Joey Donald (2025) Building the labyrinth: embracing and overcoming complexity in interactive narrative creation. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis, 149pp.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

The nature of interactive narrative creates various kinds of authorial burden, where the workload increases with the complexity of the project. This makes authoring long-form interactive narrative a difficult undertaking. Authors use different strategies to manage this burden. Using thematic analysis of a series of qualitative author interviews, I developed a conceptual model of the authorial burden. Using this model, I then undertook a process of Research through Design, seeking to implement this promising strategy through the completion of a long-form commercial interactive novel. This has resulted in a promising design strategy, the Stage Lights approach.

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More information

Published date: 2025

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 503601
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/503601
PURE UUID: b0adfcaf-0255-4eed-b568-5f0b7de9fcdd
ORCID for Joey Donald Jones: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1146-1668
ORCID for David Millard: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7512-2710
ORCID for Daniel Ashton: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3120-1783

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 06 Aug 2025 17:07
Last modified: 26 Sep 2025 02:19

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Contributors

Author: Joey Donald Jones ORCID iD
Thesis advisor: David Millard ORCID iD
Thesis advisor: Daniel Ashton ORCID iD

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