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A Refinement-Based Narrative Model for Escape Games

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Interactive Storytelling (ICIDS 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14383))

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Abstract

This paper presents a model for comparing narratives in digital and non-digital escape games. The live-action escape room is a massive industry, but theoretical academic research on the games is lacking. Other forms of the escape game, including point-and-click games and portable escape boxes, are generally understudied. The cross-media genre of escape games has two parallel stories: the backstory embedded in the game’s setting, and the player narrative that unfolds during play. These stories can be individually refined to different levels, creating four categories of escape games: puzzle games, thematic games, narrative games, and the newly identified setting-agnostic games. The model demonstrates how existing interactive narrative models can be expanded to include non-digital games, revealing commonalities and differences between escape game formats and illuminating future directions for escape game narratives. This work lays the foundation for future research investigating the relationships between narrative and space in various game formats. Finally, the narrative model has additional applications outside of the escape game genre. It can be used to analyze any interactive narrative’s relationship with its fictional space, as well as the relationships between fictional and non-fictional space more broadly.

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  1. University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, 32816, USA

    Mirek Stolee

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  1. Mirek Stolee
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  1. University of Skövde, Skövde, Sweden

    Lissa Holloway-Attaway

  2. University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    John T. Murray

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Stolee, M. (2023). A Refinement-Based Narrative Model for Escape Games. In: Holloway-Attaway, L., Murray, J.T. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14383. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47655-6_3

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