A (Visual) Novel Route to Learning: A Taxonomy of Teaching Strategies in Visual Novels

Interactive narratives are widely used to frame and contextualize education in games. However, the specifics of how their designs aid the learning process and outcomes remains relatively unexplored. To better understand this space, a study was conducted that focused on one sub-genre of interactive narrative, Visual Novels. Specifically, in this paper we conducted a survey of thirty-one existing educational Visual Novels, analyzing design elements that fostered learning and delivered educational content. The resulting taxonomy consists of five key dimensions for educational design and teaching strategies within Visual Novels: 1) Teaching Through Choice, 2) Teaching Through Scripted Sequences, 3) Teaching Through Mini-games, 4) Teaching Through Exploration and 5) Non-interactive Teaching. These dimensions demonstrate that there are a number of design considerations for supporting learning through Visual Novels. This work has implications for designers of educational games by classifying the different designs a Visual Novel can employ to teach—ultimately informing how to better present educational subject matter in interactive narrative games.