Outline – Simple

Using Social Media for Interactive Storytelling

1. Intro
   1. Thesis statement and design context – Interactive stories are usually a solo experience; with today’s technology interactive stories can evolve to include more than one user to interact with the story. By providing a means of collaboration through social media to unlock/solve/choose the path of the interactive story it will allow users to gain different perspectives and share the experience with their friends, colleagues and family.
   2. Problem Statement – Interactive stories are left to the individual to decide the fate of the story with no one else’s input unless the story is read in group setting but still the choices are left to the individual who is controlling the story’s navigation.
   3. Proposed Solution – By introducing social media into the equation we are opening up the story world to a wider audience and allowing the story’s end point to be varied better.
   4. Project Introduction – Design a website where users can interact with one another’s stories and either hinder or help their progress along the way.
2. Historical References
   1. Interactive Storytelling and Games
      1. Chris Crawford’s explanation of interactive storytelling
      2. Carolyn Miller’s viewpoint on interactive storytelling
      3. Social Media and the games
         1. Rise of social media and the social game boom
         2. The decline of social media games
   2. Predecessors of “Legendary Quests”
      1. Chris Crawford’s projects “Erasmatron and Storytron”
         1. Erasatron
            1. What it is and what it does
            2. Pros
            3. Cons
            4. Lessons Learned
         2. Storytron
            1. What it is and what it does
            2. Pros
            3. Cons
            4. Lessons Learned
      2. Kings Quests series by Roberta Williams
         1. About Kings Quests
            1. Interweaving timeless fairytales and lore into the story and game
         2. Interactive Story portion
         3. Game portion
      3. Never Winter Nights World Builder by BioWare
      4. RPGMaker
      5. Zynga’s games
      6. StoryBird
      7. SpyFeet
3. Current Trends
   1. Example of applications such as StoryBird, RPGMaker and CandyCrush Saga
   2. Social request overload (making users turn a blind eye to requests)
   3. Contrasting school of thoughts (if any) – Chris Crawford vs Carolyn Miller
4. Project Description
   1. Overview
   2. Target Audience
      1. Personas
      2. Needs
      3. Scenarios
   3. Design Goals
      1. Increase outside influence
      2. Allow outside user interaction
      3. Stories
         1. Boring linear storyline
         2. Continuous story lines
         3. Character Mixins
   4. Solution
      1. Description of visual project “Legendary Quests” and how it will function
      2. Explanation of why “Legendary Quests” offers a unique solution
   5. The process
      1. Gathering information on Facebook and Twitter through polls and questionnaires
      2. Methodology of Solution
         1. Method
            1. Programming Environment
            2. Programming Language
            3. Tools
         2. Design Process
            1. Sketches
            2. Target Audience research
               1. Personas
               2. Surveys to figure out their needs
               3. Scenario development
               4. Observation based on set scenarios
            3. Navigational flow diagram
            4. Wireframes
            5. Low-Fidelity Prototype (proto.io)
               1. Discovery of user paths
               2. Build initial layout
               3. User Testing
               4. Results
            6. Mid-Fidelity Prototype (proto.io)
               1. Refinement of user paths and prototype based on findings from the previous prototype
               2. User Testing
               3. Results
            7. High-Fidelity Prototype
               1. Refinement of user paths and prototype based on findings from the previous prototype
               2. Test Social API connections
               3. User Testing
               4. Application Stress Test
               5. Results
            8. Final Prototype
               1. Refinements of user paths and prototype based on findings from the previous prototype
               2. Refine Social API connections
               3. Application Stress Test
               4. User Testing
               5. Results
   6. Validation of solution (or lessons learned from solution)
      1. Story creation benefits – easy to use with little no hassle
      2. Social media benefits – allows for easy sharing of events that happen in their stories and encourages a conversation between users on social media
      3. Lessons learned
5. Reception of “Legendary Quests”
   1. Feedback
   2. Area of improvement (if any)
6. Conclusion
   1. Attribution of best practices
   2. Reiteration of whether thesis goals have been satisfied