Using Ink and Interactive Fiction to Teach Interactive Design

Abstract

Fundamentals of Interactive Design is a large, mixed-mode, entry level course in the Games and Interactive Media program at the University of Central Florida. In the course we use Inky, an interactive fiction scripting engine created by Inkle Studios, to teach interactive design by having students create a choice-based interactive fiction story as a major course project. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of our approach to teaching the course that others can build upon. We discuss the class itself, previous research related to teaching interactive fiction, and some of the assignments we created. We argue that interactive fiction is an effective framework for teaching interactive design and suggest that Inky facilitates teaching those concepts through code in an entry-level course very well.