Authoring Environment for Story-Based Digital Educational Games

In this paper, the StoryTec authoring system, developed in the context of the European research project 80Days, is presented as an authoring tool enabling users without programming experience to create Digital Educational Games (DEG) or stories and to integrate content into them. The paper provides an overview of related software as a motivation for the development of a comprehensive but easily learnable authoring tool for serious games which assists authors in different tasks encountered during the creation process. The architectural basis of the system is described, as well as a structured approach to story-based game authoring using the system, outlining each step of the process. The method and results of an early usability test carried out are presented.