by

Games Tell Stories

Learning Objectives

  • Lesson objectives
    • Consider the importance of stories in games
    • Practice telling a story
  • Socioemotional learning objectives
    • Creative
    • Planful

Materials

Instructions

  • What is your favorite story in a game? Many games have stories that determine your path to your objective. Stories in games help us learn about the world of the game and experience emotions as we play.

  • As game designers, we show how creative we are through storytelling

    Planful game designers use storyboards to plan out their games. A storyboard is a sequence of drawings that show the major events in a story.

  • [the story campers will tell is about their future career in game design, if they don't want to do that, they can do a story from a game]
  • Think about the story and choose 9 important moments or scenes in the story.
  • Start with the first box in the top left corner. Imagine the first scene or event from the game's story and draw a simple picture that represents that moment. It could be a character, an object, or a place. Use your imagination and creativity!
  • Continue this process for the remaining boxes, moving from left to right and then top to bottom, until all nine boxes are filled with drawings and descriptions of different scenes from the game's story.

Notes and Discussion

Discussion

  • As you play games with campers, note how stories (and characters) are important for creating emotions in games.
  • Remind campers to think about the emotions or actions that the story evoked in them and try to convey those feelings through their drawings and descriptions.
  • Encourage creativity and remind them that there are no right or wrong answers. They can interpret the story moments in their own unique way.