FIERO: Empowering Creative Writing Through Collaborative Game Play
arXiv:2607.11837 · doi:10.1145/3831305
The paper introduces FIERO, a multiplayer web‑based card game that combines physical cards with a digital interface and generative AI to help groups co‑create stories, improving idea flow, novelty, and plot coherence.
Abstract
Creativity often flourishes in collaboration, such as when designers brainstorm a new app together, or storytellers collectively build a world with elements of each person's narrative. However, collaborative storytelling can have challenges for its participants, such as when they disagree about the plot proposed, or when different ideas become fragmented when voiced individually. While current tools for creative collaboration focus on synchronous online text sharing, they often neglect the social dynamics of in-person collaboration critical to creative synergy. To address this, we created FIERO, a multiplayer web-based card game. Physical cards provide tangible scaffolding and social interaction, while the digital interface generates contextual visuals, facilitate group decisions, ensure narrative coherence, and synthesize different idea contributions using generative AI. Compared against online collaborative writing alone, the game significantly enhanced intuitive stimulation, idea fluency, and novelty generation, and also improved the content of the stories produced, leading to greater plot coherence (N=60). The cards provided creative structure and social engagement, while the interface provided contextualized augmentation without affecting player agency. This work shows how collaborative play can be utilized to foster creative support.
51pages, 14 figures, 5 tables, will be presenting this paper at CHIPLAY 2026