I speak fairly frequently about interactive fiction and text-based games, what makes for good interactive story, narrative design, character AI, toolsets for writing games, and specific past projects.
In addition to the public and academic talks listed here, I also sometimes give bespoke presentations to game studios and other organisations about narrative design and tech. Please feel free to get in touch if you’d like to discuss my speaking to your organisation.
Upcoming:
AI Summit advising for GDC 2021.
Ongoing:
MC of the Oxford-London Interactive Fiction Meetup, organizing/presenting as needed.
Past:
Talk and panel moderation for a session on freelance games writing for clients, Oxford-London IF Meetup, November 2021.
Birmingham Indies talk on narrative design for a long-running live game (on Fallen London), October 2021.
Presentation at the VOLUPTAS summer school, June 21, 2021.
WGGB panel on Writing with and for Procedural Generation, April 2021
Ludonarracon panel on Telling Dark Stories in Games, April 2021
AI-Supported Game Narratives, invited talk, Northeastern University, April 2021
Talk on storylet-based approach to the design of Animal Farm, Oxford-London IF Meetup, January 2021
Talk and workshop on storylet-based narrative design, Oxford-London IF Meetup, January 2020
Project Horseshoe, Texas, November 2019 (participation, not a prepared talk)
Dagstuhl Seminar, Artificial and Computational Intelligence in Games, December 2019 (participation, not a prepared talk)
Panel on the future of games technology at the European Women in Games conference, September 2019
Invited presentation on Spirit AI’s work at Queen Mary University of London, September 2019
Workshop on Games and Natural Language Processing, FDG, San Luis Obispo (may be remotely presented), August 2019
Keynote, IEEE-CoG, London, August 2019
Workshop on natural language understanding Character Engine projects, London IF Meetup, June 2019
CogX Festival of AI and Emerging Technology, London, June 2019
NarraScope, panel on Bandersnatch, Boston, June 2019
State of Play, Dublin, May 2019. “Mysterious and Alluring Problems in Narrative Design”
Jerusalem Games Conference, Jerusalem, May 2019. “Elements of Interactive Storytelling”
GameFest keynote, Albany, April 2019. Talk on game narrative patterns in multiple media
Off the Page, talk on games based on classical sources, British Library, April 2019
London Games Festival, panel at Interactive Narratives Summit, April 2019
Invited seminar talk on Character Engine and related projects, Queen Mary University of London, March 2019
GDC 2019, Turing Tantrums, March 2019
GDC 2019, Ethics in AI panel, March 2019
GDC 2019 AI Summit advisor, March 2019
Chairing Keynote at Beyond the Console talk, V&A Museum, February 2019
Conversation as Gameplay talk, London IF Meetup, January 2019
PocketGamer Connects panel on the future of PC games, January 2019
Digital Cultures 2018, Warsaw, September 2018
ICCC 2018, panel on industry uses of computational creativity in games, Salamanca, June 2018
AI Summer School, overview of interactive narrative subjects and projects, May 2018
GDC 2018, procedural generation panel at AI Summit, March 2018
GDC 2018, Simplest Trick in the Book panel at AI Summit, March 2018
GDC 2018, AI Devs Rant at AI Summit, March 2018
Invited talk at the Knowledge Extraction from Games workshop at AAAI, February 2018
Keynote at Malta Global Game Jam, January 2018
Talk on Matching Story and Mechanics, Oxford/London IF Meetup, January 2018
Introductory talk on AI-assisted game design, Dagstuhl, November 2017
MICA, Buenos Aires, October 2017. Reprise of “The Uncanny Mirror: Seeing ourselves in AI”
Progression Mechanics, September 2017. Talk on agency and narrative
Gamelab, Barcelona, June 2017. “The Uncanny Mirror: Seeing ourselves in AI”
Strange Tales, presentation on interactive fiction, London, June 2017
Creative Coast Festival, Sweden, May 2017
Passaporta Literary Festival, Brussels, interview on literary games. March 2017
GDC 2017, Narrative Innovation Showcase panel section, February 2017
AdventureX, “The Past Futures of Interactive Fiction,” London, November 2016
Wordplay, Inform 7 workshop, London, November 2016
Wordplay, panel on interactive fiction tool development, London, November 2016
SUBOTRON arcademy, talk on writing sex and intimacy in games, Vienna, October 2016
PROCJAM, talk on principles of generating text, Falmouth, October 2016
Presentation on procedural narrative and related topics at the Oxford Artificial Intelligence Meetup, October 2016
Workshop on writing interactive fiction with Texture, Canterbury, September 2016
Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence, London, September 2016
Feral Vector, talk on narrative structures beyond branching, June 2016
Interactive fiction writing workshop, TORCH, Oxford, May 2016
EGX Rezzed, panel session on the present and future of narrative in games. April 2016
Invited talk, USC Cinematic Arts Interactive Media & Games Division, March 2016
GDC 2016, Rules of the Game panel session, talked about visualizing system content. March 2016
SXSW 2016, “Hacking Language” panel on IF, bots, and esolangs. March 2016
TORCH Book at Lunchtime presentation on Iain Pears’ Arcadia, Oxford, March 2016
Class presentation, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, January 2015
Invited talk, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, November 2015
Invited talk, Northeastern University, November 2015.
Invited talk, Harvard, November 2015. Presentation on interactivity for theater students
Wordplay Festival, Toronto, November 2015. Presentation on the power of interaction in storytelling
Wordplay Festival, Toronto, November 2015. Workshop on writing interactive fiction
Invited talk, CMU, November 2015. Presentation on interactive narrative
Science Museum, London, October 2015 workshop on interactive fiction as part of Ada Lovelace bicentennial
London Southbank University, October 2015, workshop on mechanics and story
Southbank Centre, October 2015, panel on games writing (“Exit, Pursued by a Zombie”)
Now Play This, September 2015, Somerset House, 15-minute talk on games and intimacy
Headstart Institute, summer school for indie game developers, workshop on interactive narrative
ICCC 2015, academic conference on creative computing, keynote
IRCAM 2015, music and technology research center in Paris, seminar on the artistic power of interaction
GDC 2015, GDC microtalks session, talk on the uses of tabletop story gaming
ICIDS 2014, academic conference on interactive storytelling, keynote speaker
Singapore Writers’ Festival 2014, workshop on interactive storytelling
Singapore Writers’ Festival 2014, panel on story in games
AdventureX 2013, presentation on Versu concept and design tools
PRACTICE 2013, game design conference coordinated by NYU, panel on interactive narrative
Invited talk at NYU on Versu design and toolset, 2013
Indiecade 2013, panel on character interiority in games
Indiecade 2013, panel on Twine interactive fiction (moderator)
Oxford Brookes University, 2013, presentation on interactive literature for an audience studying publishing
Inventing the Future of Games 2013, panel on tools for games writing
GDC 2013, Versu post-mortem in the design track; rated one of the top 50 sessions at the conference
GDC 2013, Indie soapbox session
GDC 2013, Experimental Gameplay Workshop
GDC Austin 2012, presentation on designing for multiple players in the game narrative track
GDC 2012, artificial intelligence track, presentation on Cotillion project
INT workshop at AIIDE 2012, academic conference on narrative technologies, keynote on Cotillion project
Invited talk at UCSC on Cotillion project, 2012
GDC 2011, artificial intelligence track, presentation on Little Text People
Inventing the Future of Games 2011, presentation on modeling listening in games
American Philological Association Meeting, 2011, panel on reception of classics in children’s literature, talk on classical influences interpreted through video games
Invited talk at UCSC on conversation modeling in games, 2011
“Complicity”, 2011, a one-day workshop on creating and editing interactive fiction, co-run with Failbetter Games
GDC 2010, artificial intelligence track, presentation on conversation modeling in games
PAX East 2010, panel on interactive storytelling
MIT Purple Blurb series 2010, interactive reading from my work
Literary festival at the University of Passo Fundo, Brazil, 2009. Five-day workshop on interactive fiction
Literary festival at the University of Passo Fundo, Brazil, 2009. Presentation on the value of interactive literature
Association of Computer Machinery Hypertext conference, 2007, panel on tragedy in interactive literature
University of Pennsylvania, Kelly Writers House, 2004, interactive reading
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 