End of March Link Assortment

Events

March 31 is the next meeting of the Boston Interactive Fiction Meetup, which will be conducted online.

April 4 is the next meeting of the SF Bay Interactive Fiction Meetup, now also using a virtual setup for the time being.

April 18 is the next (virtual) meeting of the Baltimore/DC IF Meetup, discussing Spring Thing games.

NarraScope was originally supposed to take place May 29-31 in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, but the event has been moved to a virtual-only model, due to concerns surrounding COVID-19. You can read the official statement here.

The Oxford and London IF Meetup does not have any events currently planned. We’re looking into the possibility of an online event, perhaps where we can play some Spring Things games, but we are still working out the details.

Competitions

The 2019 sub-Q Jam has announced winners of the competition, and if you haven’t already played the game, you can check them out here:

• Popular Vote: A.M. LeBlanc – The Coffin Maker
• Judges’ Choice: George Lockett – Growing Pains

If you happen to be sitting at home looking for something to do… Spring Thing 2020 is just around the corner with new games to check out. The deadline for entries is now past, and the competition officially begins on April 2. Winners will be announced on May 3.

Awards

The BAFTA Game Awards are slated for Thursday, April 2, and winners will be announced live online. Obviously there is a wide range of categories, and also a number of intriguing nominees for Narrative.

Although GDC was postponed this year, the Independent Games Festival reformatted itself into a virtual livestream, and recognized a number of titles for excellence in various fields. The Grand Prize went to Adam Robinson-Yu’s A Short Hike, while inkle Studios’ Heaven’s Vault picked up an award for Excellence in Narrative. I reviewed Heaven’s Vault last summer, for anyone interested in learning more about it.

Presentations, Podcasts, Articles, etc

In this talk from the March London IF Meetup, Destina Connor of Tea-Powered Games gives an overview of narrative design in Japanese Role-playing Games.

And lastly, a recent article from Fraser Brown about the evolving gameplay at Failbetter, and what may be in store for the future.