In 2023, the Hidden Heroes game jam allowed game developers to share untold stories of individuals who had a significant impact on their lives. As a result, 33 games were created embracing the stories of real people. Interviews were conducted with 12 of these developers to understand their experiences of creating games about authentic personal stories. Thematic analysis revealed eight themes and three categories that captured the experiences and challenges of making such personal narrative games. Based on these findings, we reflected on the future of authentic personal narrative games.

Cardistry is an application that enables users to create their own playing cards for use in evocative storytelling games. It is driven by OpenAI’s Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) models that generate unique card titles, cards suits, imagery, and poetry based on the user’s input. It allows the user to preserve their digital cards in an online repository and print them for tabletop game play use. Cardistry was designed to begin exploring the question of whether widely available GPT models could be used to adapt the process of gaminiscing to make it more accessible to designers and players alike. This short paper details the concept, design, and implementation of Cardistry as a first step in exploring this research question. It explains how the adapted gaminiscing process is different from the original process, discusses the limitations of the implementation, and expresses what future research would be required to answer the research question.

High-fidelity game development could be advantageous for improving player experience. However, it often comes at a price—labor costs, monetary investments, and lengthy development processes and it is challenging to balance between game fidelity and development cost. This work focuses on a specific genre—gaminiscing games, that are designed in a narrative way to archive and recreate personal oral history. Our study aims to explore the potential possibility of low-fidelity game design but without significantly, or even at all, sacrificing the player experience. Concretely, this paper explores whether a game design with higher fidelity and a specific type of scene would always correlate with a better player experience. An experiment with 42 participants was conducted using a commercial gaminiscing game called Brukel. Results show that it is not the case that both fidelity and scene would always significantly affect the overall experience of the game. This finding could shed light on practical game design, where game designers can choose the level of production that best aligns with their game's objectives.

Catch The Butterfly is a narrative game exploring the real, lived experiences of an immigrant. It was created using the gaminiscing method. In Catch The Butterfly, every mechanic and representation is derived from the authentic stories of the subject. The aim is twofold: to provide insights to game designers interested in the gaminiscing method, and to promote empathy and understanding of immigrants. Through the personal narrative of an immigrant, this game offers a personal perspective on immigration and a unique example of the design process when creating a game with the gaminiscing method.

This short paper explores the utilization of the gaminiscing method in the design of a narrative-driven game, where every game mechanic is derived from the authentic stories of an immigrant. The aim is to provide valuable insights to game designers interested in employing the gaminiscing method for the development of storytelling games that generate empathy. By leveraging the unique and personal narratives of immigrants, this paper offers a perspective on how the gaminiscing approach can enhance the design process and create immersive and engaging gameplay experiences.