Between Game Mechanics and Immersive Storytelling: Design Using an Extended Activity Theory Framework

Abstract

This paper outlines the latest work of an on-going long-term sustained research effort to extend and operationalise Leontiev’s original hierarchical activity theory framework to model and support the design, development and analysis of games, virtual environments and virtual reality for purpose. While previous work extended Leontiev’s activity theory to incorporate both task-based and experiential-based activities and actions performed within a sphere of engagement - corresponding to Huizinga’s “play-grounds”, “arenas” and “magic circle”, and mechanism to analyse and assess the success of purpose, the focus of this earlier work was largely on narrative, scenario and story-based activities, and didn’t capture or extend well to gameplay mechanics. The framework described herein describes initial work that builds on and extends earlier work to provide a tool, notation, grammar and building blocks that informs both HCI and practice-based approaches to represent gameplay mechanics and narrative, scenario, story-based activities; from game design concepts and ideas, through modelling and analysis, to informing implementation, development and creative practice. The framework is intended to support all delivery platforms and extend to all purposes/sectors (education, health, esports, business, documentary, tourism, social impact, culture, etc.) across the serious games continuum: from games for purpose to experiential environments for purpose. To highlight the versatility of the initial work to extend the activity theory framework, described herein are several examples of serious games, interactive storytelling and immersive VR for purpose developed in research projects, and in the professional immersive storytelling content creation Singapore-based studio Warrior9 VR.