The proposal deadline has passed. If you submitted a proposal, we will send you our decision (accept or decline) by February 16th.
Push the boundaries of discussion about narrative games by presenting a talk or leading a discussion at NarraScope 2024! Speak to a diverse audience and share your knowledge and expertise to help bring the genre to even higher levels.
We’re looking for talks that explore the field in detail. Our net is being cast wide to get as many perspectives as possible, in order to serve up a conference rich with information for gamers, writers, academics, and aficionados alike.
Speakers and panelists will receive a complimentary membership in NarraScope 2024. We also offer a small honorarium. The amount depends on fundraising, but in the past has been around US$100.
We are hoping that most of our speakers can attend the event in person to present their talks. If this is not possible, or if you have specific needs, please contact us and we will work to accomodate you. We cannot cover travel or other expenses for speakers.
Dates
- February 2, 2024: Deadline for proposals.
- February 16, 2024: Notification of acceptance or rejection.
- March 15, 2024: Deadline for your confirmation of acceptance.
- June 21–23, 2024: NarraScope 2024.
Presentation categories
In-depth presentation (60 minutes)
These talks should focus on everything from the very technical to comparative and informational. This is not a time to sell your game or self-promote. We want to hear how you made your game, what you learned, what games you’ve studied, and what knowledge or ideas that you have that can help push the genre forward.
This is 60-minute slot, which includes 5-10 minutes for Q&A.
Panel or multi-person discussions are acceptable. We prefer that you suggest names for panelists.
Topic presentation (30 minutes)
The same, but 30 minutes, including 5 minutes for Q&A. We still want in-depth talks -- just on a more specific topic!
(30 minutes isn't long enough for a panel discussion. A two-person presentation is fine if you coordinate to fit in the time slot.)
Lightning Talks (15 minutes)
Lightning Talks are brief explorations of a topic in great detail, or the sharing of specialized information. Want to talk about one particular piece of poetry, and why it changed the entire theme of a game? How about an overview of how quest items were used to further the plot?
Lightning talks will have a 15 minute slot. Q&A duration is to the presenter's preference.
Tips
- We want in-depth discussions about specific fields or styles of IF, narrative writing, and game design. Orient newcomers, but get into the good stuff.
- Everybody at the conference will already know what interactive fiction is and why narrative games are important. What’s the next question?
- Specifics are always better than overviews.
- Talk about a problem you solved or a problem you didn’t solve.
- Tell us something that your players and fellow authors don’t know about your workflow. Show your work. Show your spreadsheet.
- Who hasn’t been heard? What have we missed?
- Find the sweet spot between “so obscure that I can’t make use of it” and “so well-known that I learned it in school.” Tell us something that makes us want to run off and start a new project just to try it out.
- Reveal a wonderful secret.
Have look at last year's schedule, or this springboard of other possible topics:
‧ Histories of interactive fiction, adventure games, or lost subgenres ‧ Teaching narrative games ‧ Art contexts and narrative games ‧ Narrative gaming and computing subcultures (the demoscene, etc.) ‧ Identity, trauma, sex, and other challenging topics in narrative games ‧ Design tricks lifted from other kinds of games ‧ Simulating worlds ‧ Strengths of new development systems/platforms ‧ Postmortems on particular games ‧ Readings/critical discussions ‧ Modeling conversations, characters, or environments ‧ Representation and appropriation of culture ‧ Interactive narrative outside of videogames: television, museum exhibits, LARP, interactive theater ‧ Puzzles: do we have a grand theory after forty-five years? ‧ Tools to manage narrative complexity ‧ Domain-specific languages of IF and narrative design ‧ Archiving and preserving narrative games ‧ What different types of players want from narrative games ‧