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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Story and Narrative Development for Video Games by California Institute of the Arts

4.7
stars
1,263 ratings

About the Course

In this course, you will examine how storytelling acts as a vital mechanism for driving video gameplay forward. Looking at several historical and contemporary games, you will be asked to evaluate and interpret different story styles with the goal of identifying themes and procedures for your own game ideas. We'll examine traditional narrative story processes, such as three-act structure, and how they fit into game story flows and the strategic elements of gameplay. Ultimately, you will learn how to define character, setting, and structure to create a compelling game concept....

Top reviews

DA

Nov 7, 2017

This is so helpful. It covers all the essentials of developing a good story, applicable in any form of media, then it focuses on converting the story to a game by adding interactive gameplay elements.

CS

Dec 31, 2015

This is my favorite course ever. Dariush teaches in such an engaging way and it shows you how to have a creative yet objective and analyzed mindset for creating a story and narrative for a Video Game.

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226 - 250 of 299 Reviews for Story and Narrative Development for Video Games

By Bruno L D C

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Jan 20, 2016

Perfect!!

By Luis E

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Jul 5, 2018

loved it

By Anastasiya H

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Apr 8, 2018

Amazing!

By Christian T

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May 5, 2016

Amazing.

By Kevin M

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Jan 28, 2016

Perfect!

By Domenico S

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Jun 30, 2021

PERFECT

By Nicolas S R

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Mar 25, 2021

So nice

By Milos J

•

Apr 10, 2016

Awesome

By Nadezhda B

•

May 13, 2020

Super!

By Licínio S

•

Mar 19, 2018

great!

By Jefry E A L

•

Nov 18, 2024

Bueno

By EasyKaos 7

•

Oct 21, 2023

Good.

By Karime Y T M

•

Jun 8, 2025

Good

By B313111052

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Jan 9, 2025

good

By Xavior T

•

Nov 18, 2015

good

By Abdulaziz A A

•

Dec 13, 2020

Ok

By Santiago D

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Jan 19, 2021

The information in the course and the presentations were interesting and well-explained. I wish we had more of an opportunity to get more educated feedback from people involved in the making of the course. While peer feedback can be useful, it's not nearly as in-depth and peers don't have the same context for the goals of the course (and what constitutes a complete/effective turn-in) than the professors. At least one final instance of that kind of feedback would be appreciated. If not, then asking more detailed questions about the work might help make peer feedback better. Perhaps give an opportunity to incentivize interaction rather than giving feedback to complete the task? Something like incorporating a response feature for the feedback or an option to chat with the person who gave it. I don't know, but I wish I could've gotten a bit more out of that.

By Jenny F

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Sep 23, 2016

I feel that the course was great but I felt confused on the last assignment, we covered a lot of things during the last week but then I was unsure if I should've applied that on our assignment... Also I'm not sure if it is possible but if we could have a chance to ask the teacher questions would be great. I know that there is a lot of people going this courses and maybe it is not possible but still there are things that I feel only the teacher could answer. Overall the course was good :)

By Kilian S

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Jun 30, 2020

The course material was fine, I just imagined a bigger focus on narrative development *in videogames* not narrative development in general, which is like 70% of the course. I woudlve been interested in studying, how narrative design and mechanical design need to come together in video games.

I like the tasks that you get at the end of each week. They are fun and modular, allowing for little work, or quite the deep dive into the task, depending on what you want.

By Paul R

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May 22, 2016

Enjoyable content and presentation but the coarse seemed very short compared to others I've taken. Not a criticism but rather and observation. If it was short on purpose that is one thing but I believe there is more to be said on this topic fundamentally and hope to see this course expanded or a second one produced.

I would like to that those involved int its creation.

By Julian A

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Oct 30, 2018

I love the material on this course, it really helps to improve. However, the peer evaluation system is the worse option for this course, only one person evaluates your work, and sometimes you must ask for help for the evaluation because no one will do it for default as its supposed to happen. Coursera needs to find a solution for this.

By sean o

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Jul 16, 2017

At the end of the course I'm happy with it. I learnt about structure of stories and how they can be implemented in games, how to help people connect emotionally with a story and characters. I think the beginning was a little weak. I didn't like any of the example stories and I know there are a lot of great stories out there.

By Marcus J

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Jul 8, 2020

This course taught me a lot of important story-writing essentials and brainstorming techniques. However, it didn't really shift into video game storytelling and what makes that medium different until the very last project. I feel like the course could have gone more in depth about writing techniques specific to video games.

By Tania A

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Nov 22, 2015

The contents were comprehensive, and the assignments helped reinforce the theory. By using pre-existing references to other works, they were tighter, which I think is useful to focus on the objectives set for a particular week. Some additional creative freedom would also have been interesting.

By Deleted A

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Nov 25, 2015

Assignments are good-intended, but I am not sure how helpful they are, as they are really boring and unnecessarily time-consuming. I do not know how could one make them better. In contrast, the videos are really good, they are worth your time even if you know your way around these things.