Story Shuffle
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 (game design, 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.
A story in 3 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.
Learn more about why this structure works
Act I: Character
Act II: Conflict
Act III: Resolution
Generate random cards
When each Act begins, 4 random cards will be drawn from the deck for that Act.
Select cards
After the 4 cards are revealed, the Storyteller may choose 3 cards to incorporate into their story.
Narrate your story
After selecting their 3 cards for that Act, the Storyteller will begin narrating their story aloud. All of the cards must be used in their narration, but the Storyteller may interpret them however they like –– no right or wrong answers!
Sample story
Act I: Character
A friend of the brave Princess has been taken captive by an evil Dragon, and she comes across a kind Prince who offers to help her find her friend…
Act II: Conflict
Angry at the Dragon for capturing her friend, the princess packs her Suitcase with food and other supplies to prepare for her journey to rescue her friend. She and the prince travel into the forest, which is where the princess's friend was last seen. As they search the forest, they discover a trail of Footprints leading into a dark cave…
Act III: Resolution
Learn more about Twist cards
The princess hears the sound of sweet Music coming from the cave, and she steps forward into the Light to find her friend singing together with the dragon. Her friend explains that dragon had actually saved her from the prince, who had been trying to steal the magic power of her singing voice. The princess realizes that the dragon is actually innocent, while the prince has been the true villain all along (dragon and prince Swap roles)
Collaborative AI Storytelling Buddy
There are growing anxieties about how AI tools will impact childhood development. Rather than use AI to generate content for kids to passively consume, Story Shuffle's AI Storytelling Buddy plays the role of an attentive collaborator. Storytelling Buddy will react in real time as kids narrate their stories, offering thoughtful and relevant questions to push their storytelling further.
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.
Polti's Thirty Six Dramatic Situations
Building suspense and intrigue
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.
Hill's Plot Genie
Methods of generative storytelling
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.
Secondary Literature Review
Designing games that foster positive development
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.
© Ainsley Cunningham 2025