Using narrative and game-schema acquisition techniques to support learning from educational games

The first part of this chapter explores how narrative can be used as a cognitive aid in educational video games. It discusses how narrative is currently used in games, and how that modality of presentation, when combined with instruction, is complimentary to the way we comprehend, store, and retrieve information. The second part of the chapter reviews the cognitive prerequisites needed in the minds of players to adequately attend to and leverage the instructional aspects of games. To this end, it offers suggestions for how to instill a functional game-schema in the minds of novice players so that they can be productive in the game environment. The focus on the interplay of narrative and game schema construction in this chapter is also meant to serve as a model for a holistic approach to games research in which a game's cognitive prerequisites are explicitly studied alongside the more traditional pedagogical measures.