1 December 2006 (week 9)
Creating interactive stories in a 3D computer game environment is a very motivating activity for many young people, and can have educational benefits. Neverwinter Nights (NWN), a 3D role-playing game which includes an inbuilt toolset for game making, has been used investigate the benefits of interactive game creation for children's narrative skills. Whilst there are many features provided by the NWN toolset, more complex content is possible using NWScript, a scripting language built into the game. There are a number of narrative events possible using this language which children would like to include in their games, but cannot due to their lack of programming skills. This talk will describe Script Cards, a visual programming language which allows novice users to specify complex plot events using a combination of graphics and natural language. An initial evaluation of Script Cards suggests that young people found it easy to use.