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Participatory narratives are compelling, at least partly because of their ability to help players suspend disbelief in the fictional world in which they engage. Game makers have used the phrase “This is Not a Game” (TINAG) to capture the willingness of players to buy into such narratives in ways that promote productive roleplaying and authentic engagement. Although TINAG has permeated the academic and popular literature on gaming and immersive narratives for decades, there has not been a scientific grounding for the term that provides researchers support for a more rigorous study of the topic. This article makes two primary contributions. First, it provides a definition of the Perception of TINAG based on a systematic literature review of 50 articles that define or describe critical characteristics of TINAG: The Perception of TINAG is a player’s acceptance that they are embedded in and able to influence a fictional story woven into the real world. Second, the paper develops and validates a survey instrument that researchers can use to measure the Perception of TINAG and its three unique components: (1) the player accepts that they are embedded in a fictional story, (2) the player believes their actions influence the narrative, and (3) the player perceives that the story is woven into the real world. We evaluated the instrument using exploratory factor analysis using expert reviewers and game players. We include a table of the articles describing TINAG and our final scale to facilitate future research. 

Playable Case Studies (PCSs) are online simulations that allow learners to adopt (play) a professional role within an authentic scenario (case) as they solve realistic problems alongside fictionalized experts in an unfolding narrative. The PCS architecture offers scalable options for creating learning activities for individual learners and student teams, and the means for observing and analyzing these activities. This interactive demo will showcase PCSs the team has developed for topics ranging from cybersecurity to technical writing to disaster response, illustrating how we embed learning assessments and research surveys and run them in classroom environments. Participants and potential collaborators will interact with and provide feedback on the prototype PCS Authoring Tool, designed to streamline the creation of new PCSs.