NarraScope Talks Deadline, Friday, February 21st - Calling all brilliant ChoiceScript writers, thinkers, and tool creators

General
1

Hi, putting on my hat as NarraScope Conference Chair for a moment here!

I’m reaching out about NarraScope, an event that supports interactive narrative, adventure games, and interactive fiction by bringing together writers, developers, and players. Well, NarraScope 2025 will take place at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, this year from June 20-22. We are expecting record numbers of attendees!

If you haven’t seen our site before, here it is:

The final deadline for talk submissions is Friday, Feb 21st, but there are also upcoming deadlines for the papers & showcase submissions if this doesn’t match you.

The big news for this community is that there are a number of really amazing talks being proposed from authors here, and I am seeing a potential trend that I want to encourage. I’ve been in this community for a few years — playing, beta-testing, interviewing CoG authors, writing about CoG titles for ChoiceBeat Zine, writing my own CS projects, etc — and I am just delighted to see the strong showing for this community at NarraScope, my favorite narrative games conference!

I am hoping to attract even more amazing writers from this community to submit talks this week and then papers and showcase games in a few weeks — let’s mark this year as a particularly strong one for choice-based IF at NarraScope.

Also, there has been talk of getting ChoiceScript authors and enthusiasts together for a community gathering on the evening of Friday, June 20th. That will be extra special if we have more from this community participating in the conference!

The deadline is Friday, but you need only have your talks description in its finished, polished version at this stage — more time to flesh that out to its final presented form over the next few months. Be mindful that this is a pretty competitive submission review — but the submissions from this community to date have been top notch, so I am optimistic you all will submit absolute stunners!

Also, in case it doesn’t stick out for you, that accepted talks result in complementary registration for the speaker. (And there will be a modest honorarium.)

If anything, consider joining us and seeing some of your fellow authors and enthusiasts present in Philadelphia this June!

18 Likes
2

Can’t make it this year, but one of these years I’ll definitely be there. :slight_smile:

5 Likes
3

We’d love to have you!

Also, it’s not the same as attending in person, but we will have a hybrid streaming option. There is a modest registration for it, it is a lovely sidebar conversation in discord as well.

3 Likes
4

This is super awesome to see. I’m based in the UK, so it’s not really financially practical to attend the event in person (unless I was already planning to be in the US at the time). I’ll definitely check out this option. I might have even considered submitting a tools related talk if I’d known about the event beforehand! Thanks so much for sharing :slight_smile:

Side note: If anyone knows if there are events like this in the UK, please enlighten me!

5 Likes
5

AdventureX in London is a great one - I’ve gone a few times and it’s been lovely. Not sure what’s happening with it this year, though, it didn’t end up happening in 2024.

3 Likes
6

Yeah AdventureX and NarraScope have a good relationship and often co-promote each other. Their model is a bit different as far as how they program — we are more focused on making it possible for new voices and wider array of “narrative games,” but they have absolutely top notch programming by booking most of their talks, so I just say “thank goodness both exist and are such resources!”

I suspect we’ll hear with more runway when they next happen. they have their alerts up that they are trying for an in-person in 2025, but no site declared. they might do another virtual or game jam driven activity again this year for all I know. I’ll try to attend from here if I can!

I don’t emphasize this, but we do accept virtual talks. Usually it has to be a geography or access reason why not to attend, but guess what: some of our best global insights into local practices elsewhere have come from virtual talks. So if you are somewhere way out in Greece of Australia or Japan or Peru and traveling to us might cost you $3k usd … attend with the cheap discord ticket and/or pitch virtual presentations.

many of the training workshops will be online only, and they always fully sell out. so watch for those in a couple of months when the Education Team declares those dates and titles!

Also, we have a LOT of UK participants in general — online in discord, participating in or guiding workshops, and actually physically attending. And this may be more this year because there hasn’t been an AdventureX in person for a bit, and so much of the core IF community attends NarraScope.

5 Likes
7

I’d definitely like to attend one of these years :slight_smile:

1 Like