Hyperstories: a model to specify and design interactive educational stories

Abstract

We introduce a conceptual model for building interactive hypermedia literary stories. Hyperstories extend and plasticize the idea of "branching games" and the classic "choose your own adventure" stories. The model combines static and dynamic objects embedded in nested contexts to allow flexible navigation through virtual worlds. Hyperstories include the concept of object migration between nodes, underexplored in hypermedia environments. As a result, the model supports objects manipulated by the learner, autonomous objects, characters representing entities that behave independently from the user, and a clear separation between content and interface representation. We discuss different aspects involved in the implementation of hyperstories. Finally, we analyze some further trends and issues in this growing line of research.