Design narratif : considérations préalables à son étude et à l’analyse de compositions ludofictionnelles sous le modèle EST

This paper first summarizes practices of an emerging design domain lacking definition in French language: narrative design, the design of fictional elements and other narrative assets. Worldbuilding, the creation of imaginary worlds, and “world-making”, the effective production of stories by its virtue, or the production of scenarios, documents and systems involved in cultural products development, predates game design and encompass a large set of techniques based on a variety of creative, theoretical and professional traditions. In addition, understanding how the production of scenarios, documents and interactive systems intertwine throughout the development of cultural products has become essential in order to achieve an aesthetic content appreciated by the audience and therefore expected in the competitive arena of video game development. For these reasons, in a second step, a formal approach for understanding what constitutes narrative design is introduced in order to guide members of the game studies and design research communities. The EST framework (Elements, Schemata, Transversals), a useful tool for fiction design, interactive storytelling and story-rich video game development, offers guidelines for criticism while being beneficial to iterative game design processes.