Rome: The Game. Creating an online course as an interactive adventure game

In this article, we focus on the development of Rome: The Game – a large, lower-division online course crossed-listed in the History of Art and Architecture Department and Writing Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara – that features a choose-your-own-adventure-style interactive narrative. We explore the design principles underpinning the development of this type of gamified course, the mechanics of the course itself, student experiences, and learning outcomes. Citing relevant research in several fields – such as game studies, educational psychology, and communication studies – we argue that creating an online course in the style of an interactive, narrative-driven digital game presents a model for engaging and effective active learning in an online environment – one that goes beyond conventional virtual learning to offer an innovative, active, and deeply immersive model for online teaching.