ClueCart: Supporting Game Story Interpretation and Narrative Inference from Fragmented Clues

2025-03-08

AI Summary

Fragmented, non-linear indexing in game narrative design impedes effective clue organization, semantic retrieval, and deep narrative reasoning. To address these challenges, this paper introduces the first hierarchical taxonomy specifically designed for game narrative clues and presents ClueCart—a creative tool supporting dynamic association, semantic search, and collaborative reasoning. Built upon an interactive whiteboard architecture, ClueCart integrates tag-based annotation, hierarchical grouping, cross-clue relational mapping, and formalized semantic retrieval. A user study (N=40) demonstrates that ClueCart significantly outperforms the Miro baseline in clue organization and retrieval efficiency (p<0.01), while also enhancing narrative reasoning depth and creative persistence. This work provides a scalable methodological framework and practical tooling for reconstructing non-linear narratives and facilitating creator collaboration in game storytelling.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Procedural Content Generation & Storytelling
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Computational Creativity
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Common-Sense Reasoning

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Normalization, clustering, classification, and summarization of Web text

Abstract

Indexical storytelling is gaining popularity in video games, where the narrative unfolds through fragmented clues. This approach fosters player-generated content and discussion, as story interpreters piece together the overarching narrative from these scattered elements. However, the fragmented and non-linear nature of the clues makes systematic categorization and interpretation challenging, potentially hindering efficient story reconstruction and creative engagement. To address these challenges, we first proposed a hierarchical taxonomy to categorize narrative clues, informed by a formative study. Using this taxonomy, we designed ClueCart, a creativity support tool aimed at enhancing creators' ability to organize story clues and facilitate intricate story interpretation. We evaluated ClueCart through a between-subjects study (N=40), using Miro as a baseline. The results showed that ClueCart significantly improved creators' efficiency in organizing and retrieving clues, thereby better supporting their creative processes. Additionally, we offer design insights for future studies focused on player-centric narrative analysis.

Problem

• Challenges in categorizing fragmented narrative clues in games.
• Difficulty in systematic story reconstruction from non-linear clues.
• Need for tools to enhance creative engagement and story interpretation.

Innovation

• Hierarchical taxonomy for narrative clues
• ClueCart tool for organizing story elements
• Enhanced efficiency in clue retrieval