IF Comp judging is wrapping up — if you’d like to judge or review games, now is your chance to check that out and submit your votes. Voting ends November 15.
ECTOCOMP is also live — the annual Halloween IF jam, with separate sections for games depending on whether they took longer than four hours to develop. Atypically, I entered this year: Restless is a ghost story using Character Engine, allowing the player to remix their dialogue with different moods and topics of conversation. Tea-Powered Games provided the art and Unity UI.
Spring Thing 2019 is now officially open. The deadline to submit intent to enter is March 1, 2019; for the game itself, the deadline is March 31. Further details are at the competition’s home site.
November 3 is the next SF Bay IF Meetup.
November 10-11, AdventureX will return, this time at the British Library. AdventureX is a conference focused on narrative rich games, whether those are mobile or desktop, text-based or graphical; it’s grown significantly in size and professionalism over the last couple of years. (Incidentally, they’ve published their exhibitor list and it’s pretty sweet.)
November 13 is the upcoming Boston IF Meetup.
The IGDA Foundation is now accepting 2019 GDC scholarship applications for aspiring and current game designers. The opportunity for IGDA Scholars, IGDA Velocity, and IGDA Next Gen recipients will be open until November 30.
December 2 is the deadline for entering the Russian Language IF competition KRIL.
December 5-8 in Dublin is the next ICIDS, the international conference on interactive digital storytelling.
From Now – February 24, 2019, the Victoria and Albert Museum is featuring an exhibit on contemporary video games.
And then a few other things that are well in advance:
February 8-9 of 2019, is Beyond the Console, a two-day conference on gender and narrative games, organized by Karlien Van den Beukel (a co-organizer of the Oxford/London IF Meetup). I will also be there, and there will be a keynote game by Porpentine, and a keynote talk from Hannah Wood. The call for papers runs through November 26.
NarraScope is a recently-announced conference for IF and narrative games to be held in Cambridge, MA June 14-16 of 2019. Here’s how they describe it:
NarraScope is a new games conference that will support interactive narrative, adventure games, and interactive fiction by bringing together writers, developers, and players.
The Electronic Literature Organization Conference and Media Arts Festival, July 15-17, 2019 will be in Cork & the call for submissions is posted: elo2019.ucc.ie/cfp/ The theme: Peripheries.
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New Releases
Nerial has released Reigns: Game of Thrones, a spinoff of the original 2016 Reigns game. AppUnwrapper’s review exploring gameplay can be found here.
Christopher Webster and the folks at StoryFix Media are launching The Pulse, a science fiction choose-your-own-adventure. This is the first release from StoryFix.
Also launching its inaugural game is Seedbolt Studio. In The House of My Brother is an interactive horror story, available for play online now.
Grey Alien Games has announced its upcoming project, the strategic RPG card game Ancient Enemy, which draws from British Folklore and the Mabinogion. Ancient Enemy will be released on Steam for Mac and PC, and is slated for release in 2019.
Articles and Podcasts
With IF Comp well underway, players and judges have posted their thoughts on various games here.
This article on Kotaku talks about the romance options in Guenevere, an in-progress ChoiceScript piece about getting together with Arthur and Lancelot. The article looks a little at the question of how player consent features into the design of games about sexual situations.
Crowdfunding
The Colossal Fund is raising money for IF Comp prizes this year, and also to support the regular work of the IFTF — including archive support, Twine development, and accessibility improvements for interactive fiction games and tools.
Publishing
Mythaxis is seeking IF to include in its upcoming February 2019 issue; however, it does not pay.
Job Opportunities
Dakota State University is currently seeking an Assistant Professor of Computer Game Design.
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 