Teacher ISO Interactive fiction story resources for student new to Construct3.

Hello everyone, great to be a part of this community. Sorry for thelong post but want to try to provide as much detail for you as I can.

I am a computer science teacher in 7/8th grade and recently bought Constructs 3 for some of my students who have already excelled at platforms like Scratch and Flowlab. I could really use community help with this particular quest as my time is so limited (I'm teaching two separate curriculums in each of my classes:) and I seem to be coming up short on this one.

I have one student in particular who is really interested in learning Construct by making an interactive story game. She is a writer, and has a unique creativity in everything she has created in Scratch, but now wants to try something more versatile and advanced so I thought she might try Construct... But the thing is we are all learning it for the first time together, and while I have no problem finding platformer resources for my other students to learn with (and they are very excited to), interactive fiction has been more of a challenge.

The closest recent example of a game she liked was Florence, from Annapurna Interactive. But she also enjoyed elements of games like Gorogoa, G30, Year Walk, The White Door, and even Device 6.

If you could point me in the right direction it would really be helpful. She is incredibly creative and has a great desire to learn so I would really like to help her out. If you think Construct would not be the best option for her I would appreciate other options (although I would prefer Construct as I will be keeping it in the classroom. The other students are already into it and will continue learn using its platformer capabilities)

Thanks for reading this long post and I look forward to hearing from you. All the best!

Not exactly sure whether you're looking for game design resources, art resources or "follow" along tutorials for games besides Platformers?

C3 can handle most games without a doubt, but it sounds like the student is ready to actually plan out a more fleshed out game. The next step would be creating a Game Design Document. Breaking down exactly how she'd like the game to be played from the look, game mechanics, start/end, GUI, etc! There's a ton of resources online for game design and they are all universaly applied to all game engines.

Once the GDD is established, then figuring out how to make "XYZ" in C3 will be a lot easier as you'll have an idea of what to search for on the forums/tutorials/google exactly. Just be sure to really break down the GDD in how she'd like each step of the game to be played out. ex. What will the controls be? What animations? What type of Puzzles? What kind of action?

Alternatively! Have her re-create some of her favorite mechanics or scenes from any of her favorite games. Copying is a great way to learn, and again gives you a point of reference when learning C3 and searching for something specific. How was THAT specific mechanic / scene in Florence created? Once it's broken down into bite size chunks you'll see how easy C3 really is when making most 2D games.

Hey FromChris I really appreciate all the great information! We've only been working with C3 for a few weeks and I am still reading the manual and tutorials, so I am still at the "I don't know what I don't know right now" stage :)

I think the idea of a GDD sounds great! I have not heard of something that specific before, but it sounds like a fantastic thing for them to start working on and keeping handy. I will search around for some examples to start with. Also, I have found a LOT success trying to get kids to 'copy' some of the programs I make in other platforms, it really helps make concepts come together for them. I think trying it with other games is a great idea.

Again thanks, you've given me some great ideas. Take care!