Reflecting on the Design Process – Final Cut: A Media Lab Story

 Designing Final Cut: A Media Lab Story has been both challenging and rewarding. In this post, I want to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and how I’ve grown as a designer while creating my first Twine prototype.

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Reflecting on My Process

The process of designing the story began with my framing work: defining the intended audience (undergraduate media students), identifying the learning problem (teamwork and time management), and drafting a clear learning objective in Mager format. From there, I built out the story world — a film festival challenge with a week-long deadline — and characters that reflected common roles in a student crew.

What worked best was the decision mapping and story pyramid. Seeing the flow visually made it easier to balance narrative tension with educational goals. What didn’t work at first was the menu/navigation style — my early drafts were too linear. By testing in Twine, I saw how adding a meaningful early decision (the “battery crisis”) created the kind of branching structure I needed.

If I had to repeat this process, I would spend more time upfront planning how variables like morale, quality, and time could be tracked. Right now, they are just described in text but building them as actual stats in Twine would make the prototype more dynamic.

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Learning to Use Twine

Working in Twine was a new but manageable challenge. I started with simple passages and links, then layered in story structure. What helped most was drafting the passages outside Twine in. twee format, then importing them directly — this saved time and kept everything organized.

The main limitation I faced was accessibility: Twine defaults to small text and low-contrast themes. I plan to adjust fonts, colors, and layouts in future versions to make the game easier for all learners to navigate.

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Accessibility Concerns

If this prototype were taken into a full development cycle, I would want to address:

• Adjustable text size and color contrast for readability.

• Clearer navigation cues (e.g., icons or button styles instead of only text links).

• Optional keyboard shortcuts for players with motor limitations.

These concerns are inspired by both my work in media labs and my reflections on accessibility from earlier assignments.

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Reflecting on Peer and Guide Feedback

From my peers and gaming guide, I received encouragement about my framing and learning objective. Suggestions included making sure my decisions really tie back to teamwork (not just scheduling) and being mindful about how much text a player reads in one sitting. Both points are helping me revise for the next stage.

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Documenting My Process

Here are links to my earlier blog posts that show the evolution of my project:

• Gamestorming and Narrative Learning

• Comparing Narrative Elements in Games

• Designing Final Cut: Early Story Development

These practice activities were completed independently, without AI assistance. They demonstrate my ability to brainstorm, frame, and ideate on my own. AI support was used later to assist with drafting passages, formatting text, and generating concept art, which is cited in both my design document and prototype.

You can play my prototype here: Final Cut: A Media Lab Story "prototype" by Darthnihilious

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Final Thoughts

This process reminded me that designing narrative games is iterative. Each step — framing, mapping, prototyping — added clarity and confidence to my design. By combining my own subject matter expertise with game design principles, I’ve started shaping a story that not only entertains but also teaches learners how to collaborate and manage projects under pressure.