The conference is still 6 months out, but I figured it might be a good idea to throw this out there as people start looking at their 2020 calendars.
NarraScope 2020 is being held on May 29-31 at the campus of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. And yes, there’s an airport in the immediate area (airport code CMI)
I was able to attend last year in Cambridge, MA, and enjoyed both the company (most of the CoG staff, as well as many CoG and HG writers, and writers/creatives for other studios), as well as the panels and overall creative environment. On the Saturday night, inspiration struck, and I went back to my Airbnb and wrote the outline for a game I hope to have published in 2020. Conferences really do get the juices flowing!
I don’t think they’ve released the cost yet, but last year the standard registration cost per attendee was $85, which included all the programming as well as continental breakfast and lunch on Sat and Sun. Again, that could change this year.
Here’s the website: http://www.narrascope.org/ You can click on 2019 info on the top menu if you want to see more information about last year’s conference. They had panels on everything from “feature creep” to dialogue systems to romantic interactions (in games!)
And you can follow narrascope on Twitter at@narrascope
I’ve already put it on my calendar and will likely attend, but I haven’t decided yet for sure.
Whoever is considering attending, post any questions or just to let folks know you might come.
FWIW, NarraScope is scheduled at the same time as the Nebulas, which has screwed us up royally. We had planned a long time ago to do the Nebulas and our corporate retreat back-to-back. But, someone has to go to NarraScope (we all want to, but some of us have prior obligations at the Nebulas, like me).
So, we’ll let you know when we figure out who’s going.
I really enjoyed narrascope last year. The talks were amazing, meeting fellow CoG/HG authors and staff was great… I came out with so many thoughts and ideas. It’s bloody far for me, but seriously considering going again! (I’d put it at 80-90%)
Oh wow I actually have to go back there (my family lives there) that time of year because my sister is having a baby and I gotta meet the lil guy, so I could feasibly attend this too! Cool!
Well, we’re a month and a half closer to the conference.
I’m posting again because NarraScope has tweeted that they’re low on proposals for panels/presentations, and that the deadline is January 17th.
I’ve linked their requirements for proposals here. https://narrascope.org/pages/call.html There are some suggestions for potential topics in that link as well.
Is anyone interested in submitting a proposal? I’m flummoxed personally, as I can’t claim to be a student of IF as a whole. Pretty much everything I know is through the lens of CoG/HG, or back to the days of the Chooseco books, with not much in between.
@Eric_Moser I bet you’d be great! They say “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” and I’d personally be interested in learning more about your experience making your projects and what you’ve learned through the process.
I’ve inked the dates on my calendar already, so unless a major natural disaster happens I’m planning to go. IF is not one of the academic topics that I have discussed at conferences before, but I reckon based on our experience we should have a thing or two to say. Looking at the website: “This can be anything from a postmortem for a game to a group of experts in a field such as VR or Twine”
So… I reckon me just plunge ahead, and go for it. If both of us are in this, then we already have 2. We would just need another 1-2 CoG\HG authors/staff, and we could do it.
The question thus is… who else is thinking of coming, and do you want to join us?
But it will be free for folks to access, so that’s something positive! If any of the presentations leaves an impression with you, you could always post your thoughts here. I know that several of the presentations last year stuck with me, especially the “feature creep” one. So I think everyone and anyone can get something out of the content.
Maybe we’ll get a chance to attend an in-person event in 2021.
