The present diploma work describes the early development of digital narrative on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia in the 80's and at the beginning of the 90's of the 20th century. In that period, the text adventure game production and use were influenced by the socio-cultural and economic environment in the east-European Communist bloc, and by its following transformation into a democratic system with market economy. That brought about unique approaches to the computer game development and playing, and it also led to a formation of a cultural phenomenon of digital text games connected with the context of that time. The text deals with a brief historic development of digital game playing in the world, and a general situation in the information technologies on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia including direct participants' selected opinions. Within the framework of the present work, basic theoretical approaches have been presented, examining the adventure games genre, and especially their narrative part and the principles of intertextuality. The latter have been described using the examples of the respective Czechoslovak game production.

Writing is a notoriously time-consuming and challenging activity that is difficult to avoid during the development of a game, and the steady increase in complexity behind producing games is putting pressure on the industry to cut unnecessary costs and streamline processes. With recent breakthroughs in Neural Network research the capabilities of causal language models like the GPT models made by OpenAI have reached a level where they could be used to assist with creative assignments that previously only could be done to an acceptable level of quality by a human writer. This paper aims to combine the power of a language model with the versatility and control of the Mixed-Initiative Co-Creation approach. In order to limit the scope of the artifact to a manageable size the focus will be to generate a shorter biography with backstory for characters and items in a level made in the Evolutionary Dungeon Designer by Alvarez et al. The artifact was evaluated with a user study in which both quantitative ratings and qualitative feedback was collected. The results suggest that the artifact has potential as it has the ability to generate compelling narratives and users attested that it had a positive effect on their work.

In narrative-driven games, the story is an essential part of the gameplay, and understanding the story is of great importance. Given that what separates this genre from other storytelling media is interactivity, this thesis focuses on the elements in narrative-driven video games that effects the players' perception of narrative through interactivity. Using players' likes and dislikes from their previous experiences in narrative-driven games, this thesis aims to develop a heuristic approach for interactive narrative elements that offer the narrative through players' input to the game's system and create an effective gameplay experience that delivers the story to the players.

Vår utforskning av fiktionens världar kan fördjupa vår förståelse för oss själva, varandra och vår omvärld. Syftet för denna litteraturstudie är att nå en förståelse för hur narrativa datorspel kan ge upphov till dessa identitetsutvecklande insikter och hur litteraturundervisningen kan stödja elevernas vägar till att nå fram till dem. För att illustrera textgenrens lärandepotential används det narrativa datorspelet The Last of Us (2013) som ett studieobjekt. Med basis i kognitiv litteraturteori kring termerna immersion och narrativ experientialitet kan man utifrån denna litteraturstudie uttyda att de narrativa datorspelens upphov till identitetsutvecklande insikter bygger på ett slags fiktivt experientiellt lärande. Det inledande steget i detta lärande är spelarens inlevelse i spelets berättelse, den så kallade narrativa immersionen. Då datorspelsnarrativet etablerar ett känslomässigt engagemang gentemot spelarkaraktären möjliggörs ett delat erfarande inom fiktionsvärlden. Detta interaktiva och förkroppsligade tillstånd stimulerar spelaren att projicera sina egna kunskaper och erfarenheter för att förstå sina intryck av sin inlevelse i fiktionsvärlden. I en kognitiv simulation tillåts spelare reflektera hur de skulle reagera om de vore i samma situation. De kulturellt medierade erfarenheter spelare således tar till sig har potentialen att expandera deras befintliga förståelsebakgrund. De litteraturdidaktiska överväganden som nödvändiggörs för att stödja detta lärande bygger på att främja elevernas inträde i fiktionsvärlden och uppmuntra dem att knyta an sina individuella bakgrunder till sitt fiktiva erfarande. / Our explorations of the possible worlds of fiction help increase our understanding of each other, the world around us, and ourselves. The purpose of this study is to examine how narrative computer games may provide identity-defining insights and which literary teaching methods are beneficial to facilitate students’ access to them. To illustrate the learning potential of the genre this study examines the narrative computer game The Last of Us (2013). On the basis of cognitive literary theories relating to the concepts of immersion and narrative experientiality this study finds that the identity developmental potential of narrative computer games relies on a sense of fictional experiential learning. The inaugurating move in this learning is the player’s immersion in the story of the game, the so-called narrative immersion. As the players therein become emotionally involved in the player-characters’ lives they are exposed to a sense of shared experience with said characters. As this shared embodied experience within the storyworld is accompanied by the medium-specific interactive nature of computer games, players are also stimulated to project their own prior knowledge and experiences as they form assessments based on their subjective impressions of the storyworld. In a cognitive simulation, this interaction between the players’ prior experiential background and the experiences of the protagonists provides an avenue for players to reflect on how they would react if they were faced with a similar situation. The culturally mediated experiences the players thus gather may influence, redefine and expand the players’ current world of knowledge. In order to pave the students’ way to acquire these identity-defining insights, this study finds that pedagogical practices that favour a climate where students are encouraged to immerse themselves in the storyworld and attribute their prior experiential backgrounds to their fictive experiences therein are key factors that help unlock the full learning potential of narrative computer games.