Story Shuffle

A card game inspired by a lineage of narrative science

 

OVERVIEW

There are infinite ways to tell a story. Story Shuffle helps kids explore all of these possibilities using just a deck of cards and their own creativity.

By telling stories using Story Shuffle, kids can learn the kinds of tools and structures that have been employed by storytellers for thousands of years to tell interesting and exciting stories. In Story Shuffle, the Storyteller must discover a way to connect 9 randomly drawn cards split across 3 story Acts.

I designed this lo-fi prototype of Story Shuffle (concept, art, and rulebook) for my final project in Professor Dennis Yi Tenen’s CLEN 4728: Literature in the Age of Machines at Columbia University. Story Shuffle was inspired by texts from pioneering ‘plot scientists’ and computer scientists like Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, Georges Polti, Wycliffe Hill, and William Cook.

Time frame: May 2024

RESEARCH

What makes a story engaging?

To help teach narrative structure, Story Shuffle draws on the features outlined by historical texts like Georges Polti’s Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations and story generation methods employed by Wycliffe Hill in his Plot Genie index.

Traces of Polti’s Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations can be found in Story Shuffle’s Twist cards, which add surprising and exciting twists to the existing plot. These cards were designed in consultation with Polti’s analysis of dramas from ancient Greece to Shakespeare, and take into consideration the features of these famous stories which make them so engrossing and thrilling.

Users of Hill’s Plot Genie in the early 20th century generated stories by filling in categories organized in a table with randomly selected elements. Story Shuffle employs a similar mechanism that is adapted for young children. There can be endless permutations of these story elements, resulting in infinitely many stories.

  • Benton, L., Vasalou, A., Gooch, D., & Khaled, R. (2014). Understanding and Fostering Children’s Storytelling During Game Narrative Design. Proceedings of the 2004 conference on Interaction design and children: building a community, 301-304.

    Kao, S.-M. (2014). Narrative Development of School Children: Studies from Multilingual Families in Taiwan. Springer Nature Singapore.

    Robertson, J., & Good, J. (2004). Children's narrative development through computer game authoring. Proceedings of the 2004 conference on Interaction design and children: building a community, 57-64.

    Ryan, M.-L. (2009). Narrative Games to Playable Stories: Toward a Poetics of Interactive Narrative. Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, 1, 43-59.

    Sullivan, A., & Salter, A. (2017). A Taxonomy of Narrative-centric Board and Card Games. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 1-10.

    Whyte, R., Ainsworth, S., & Medwell, J. (2019). Designing for Integrated K-5 Computing and Literacy Through Story-making Activities. Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research, 167-175.

 

GAME DESIGN

Quick start overview

1 | Separate the cards into 3 decks. There should be one deck each for Act I, Act II, and Act III cards

2 | When each Act begins, 4 cards will be drawn from the corresponding deck and placed face-up on the table

Example: Available face-up cards for Act III

 

3 | The Storyteller will choose 3 of the 4 face-up cards to incorporate into their narration of this Act in their story

Example: The Storyteller chose Idea, Music, and Flower as their 3 cards for Act III, and can now incorporate them into their story however they wish

 

4 | After choosing their 3 cards, the Storyteller will begin narrating the Act, using the cards they chose as a starting point: all of the cards must be used, but the Storyteller may interpret them however they like

A sample story that a player might tell upon drawing these cards

About the Acts

The 3 Acts, Character, Conflict, and Resolution, are intended to serve as supportive scaffolding for the Storyteller’s narrative. It is completely up to the Storyteller how they choose to structure each Act.

ACT I: CHARACTER

Set the scene. Who are your characters? Do they know each other? Is there perhaps a hero or a villain amongst them? Is there something that they want?


ACT II: CONFLICT

Build up the tension between your characters. Does one of them have something that the other wants? Think about what your characters might be trying to do, and how they would go about doing it.

ACT III: RESOLUTION

How would your story end? Does the hero defeat the villain and accomplish their goal? Or do the hero and the villain end up putting aside their differences?

About the Twist cards

Decks for each of the 3 Acts contain a certain number of Twist cards. As the name suggests, Twist cards add an unexpected twist to the Storyteller’s plot. These cards can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but here are some examples for a selection of Twist cards:

  • Swap: The hero becomes the villain

  • Realization: The hero learns something important about their past

  • Betrayal: The sidekick unexpectedly betrays the hero

  • Identity: Listeners learn something about the hero that they didn’t expect

CUSTOMIZATION &
EXPANSION

Customizing gameplay

FOR YOUNGER STORYTELLERS

If playing with a small child, a simpler version of the game can be created by making some or all of the following modifications:

  • Remove Twist cards

  • Add or subtract the number of face-up cards drawn

  • Play cooperatively, asking guiding questions and offering help when the Storyteller gets stuck

FOR OLDER STORYTELLERS

If playing with adults or an older child, the game can be made more advanced by making some or all of the following modifications:

  • Add a 2nd Conflict Act to build up greater tension in the narrative

  • For each Act, incorporate all 4 cards drawn from the deck instead of choosing 3

  • Make your own cards using the card templates and add them into the deck

Expansions and add-on’s

CARD EXPANSION PACKS

Storytellers will be able to incorporate add-on decks, ranging in genre from Sci-Fi to Action.

THEME WHEEL

Advanced Storytellers can spin the add-on Theme Wheel at the start of the game to choose a theme for their story.