A note on backstory and child's play

The backstory is perhaps the most common literary device used in games. Understanding its importance is easy if one has followed the mobile game space, where many hugely successful games have a story-based motivation that can be expressed in a single sentence, such as "The frog wants the candy" or "The birds are angry because the pigs stole their eggs".

What wasn't obvious to me until I became a dad was that the backstory works perfectly similarly in child's play. It's been amazing to see firsthand how big a difference it can make in motivating play. For example, when its -10 centigrades outside, a common temperature this winter, my son hates to go out because putting on all the layers of clothes is such a tedious process. However, he immediately jumps up from the sofa if I throw in a backstory.

Me: "Let's go outside sled riding"
Son: "I don't want to go outside. It's boring. I don't want to wear the overalls."
Me: "But we can pretend to be Angry Birds. You can be the laser bird and have a snowball as a laser."
Son: "Cool! Let's go right away! Come on, dad!"

Malone's and Lepper's taxonomy of intrinsic motivation comprises four main motivating factors: challenge, curiosity, control, fantasy. Having a backstory provides a fantasy setting, and also provides material for curiosity, because one can explore how far the fantasy can be extended by using the play space, e.g., the snowballs. It can also inspire the child to come up with challenges. Many times, if I'm too tired to play cops and robbers, my son is happy to do all the running around by himself while I just sit on the couch and press imaginary buttons to control him on an imaginary iPad.

"Now I'm in level 13, and this is really hard. There's dynamite and I must not fall into the water (floor). Now press the button that makes me run to the door."

"You are the laser piggy. I must not hit the lasers."

Pretty contradictory considering that digital games are supposed to promote a sedentary lifestyle. Of course my son would never let go of the iPad voluntarily, but allowing him a controlled amount of daily gameplay seems to only boost his physical play by providing new backstories, similar to the books we read.