Narrative News' Two Year Anniversary!

All the narrative news that's fit to print PLUS: cool new art

May 01, 2025

two blue and red cable cars — Photo by Liz Sanchez-Vegas on Unsplash

A very festive hello to all my fellow narrative designers!

It has officially been two years since the S.S. Narrative News set sail on the turbulent waves of ones and zeros that comprise our vast and turbulent Internet. Our mission? To share resources, jobs, and opportunities for writers in the video game industry — or those hoping to wedge their foot firmly in the door. I’m pleased to say we are now nearly 1,000 strong in this jolly crew, a number that grows with each edition published.

As a special treat, I’ve collaborated with a wonderful Canadian illustrator and pal, Callum Isaac, to create a custom banner. It’s so nice I must post it twice.

That little blue guy is Narrative News’ official mascot! I love him dearly. He does need a name, though, so please comment with your best ideas. Over the next few newsletters, more custom headings featuring the amiable little fellow will appear throughout the newsletter.

Polaris Mini-Talks at GDC

I wasn’t able to attend many talks this past GDC but I did make it to two fascinating Polaris sessions, the first of which I’ll write about in this edition, and the second of which I’ll write about in June.

For those who don’t know, Polaris is an invite-only game design retreat where exceedingly smart and talented devs come together to ponder game design problems and subsequently release detailed papers that cover these issues in-depth.

The first session I hit was a series of micro-talks by various Polaris attendees that was just crammed to the brim with insights. If you’re curious beyond my blurbs, I’ve linked the accompanying papers (note: there was a team of individuals behind each report, click through to find full credits).

Enriching Your Game with Disobedience

First there was Alexander ‘Droqen’ Clair Tseu Martin on how a disobedient NPC can improve immersion in a game by making the world feel real. Additionally, it adds some systems suspense; it tells the player that the game is willing to break even its own rules. Lastly, it makes one consider their position of power as a player, a meta lever to pull that enhances the emotional resonance of the game’s themes. Are you really always in control? Should you be?

There is No Wheel: A Framework for Creating Emotionally Resonant Game Mechanics

Next, Rayla Heide (shout out/editor’s note: my wonderful boss!) spoke on creating emotionally resonant game mechanics. She reminds us that mechanics are not neutral. Whether you intend them to or not, they tell their own story — the question is, do you want them to be emotionally dissonant or consonant with the narrative of the game? Both approaches are valid, but they’re important to consider. For instance, swinging a hammer is an act of frustration, while picking a flower is an act of relaxation. Mechanics influence emotions, so consider carefully how you’d like to use them in your game to produce the intended effect.

Notes from the Boundaries of Interactive Storytelling

Jurie Horneman spoke about dynamic casting, which refers to injecting game elements (locations, people etc.) into authored content at run-time. Essentially, this allows you to craft a library of content that can be used across the map — an incredibly useful thing for a large game that requires tons of flexible content. How does it work, you ask? You replace fixed people/locations/things with roles. For instance, an NPC who has lost their pet and needs your help finding it. When activating that content, you’ll cast elements from existing libraries into those roles.

How to Design Collective Decision-making Systems

Next up, JC Lau spoke on how to design collective decision-making processes, meaning decisions that must be made by two or more players together (think Split Fiction, for instance). Their team came up with a clever framework for designing these collective decisions called DECIDE (shown below).

Defining Pillars: the structural preconditions and parameters established at the outset of the decision; Evidence: Discovery and processing of knowledge, needs and parties in order define options; Choice: the mechanism by which the decision is made; Implementation: the methods influencing how players execute their decision; Debrief: the outcome of the decision, when the players review how the decision went, learn about the actual stakes, and understand the impact of their decision; Evaluate: the iteration of the decision, or “meta-loop,” that reflects how similar decisions are affected by prior outcomes or are repeated in future contexts.

Expanding Player Impact in Social Spaces

Rosa Carbó-Mascarell spoke about the high rewards of letting players make contributions in social games, despite the accompanying risks. She pointed out that all social interactions are based off of trust and consent. In the case of these games, trust is built through reciprocation loops. At higher levels of trust, players are given more power to contribute to the game world.

Designing Creative Game Loops (not the real title — report not yet released)

The last speaker, Theresa Duringer, spoke about designing a game loop for a creative game, which is trickier than it seems. Games tend to reward efficiency over playfulness, but with creative games, the desire is to reward playfulness, and the loop must reflect this or players WILL resort to skilled mastery tactics. (Note: this report may not be published yet — I couldn’t find it online).

I highly recommend checking out this talk on the GDC Vault, if you have access and if you don’t — just read the wonderful reports for free on the Polaris website!

Events

Conferences

Alert! Alert! LudoNarraCon is a free and extremely edifying online conference about game writing. It runs from May 1st to 5th. Find the list of talks below:

Also coming up, Narrascope 2025, a hybrid in-person/online conference also dedicated entirely to game writing and interactive fiction. I’ll be speaking on writing absorbing stories for short attention spans! It runs from June 20th to 22nd.

Meetups

The SF Bay Area Interactive Fiction Group is playing some games from the Spring Thing together online and in-person at The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in Oakland.

Jams + Competitions

Games from the Spring Thing are now available to play and vote on! Enjoy a whole plethora of brand-new interactive fiction.

The Dialogue Jam runs until May 1st. It’s a month-long unranked jam all about communication between characters.
The Parser Comp runs until June 30th. ParserComp is for previously unreleased, parser-based text games: games which take a free-text input, parse it, and produce an output which typically is more text.
The Text Adventure Literacy Jam runs until April 30th. The aim? “Write a text adventure that is suitable for beginners to this genre. The game must include an in-game tutorial.”

Jobs

Narrative Design Intern at EA Stockholm-based. “You will report to the studio's Narrative Director and work within a multi-studio narrative department, contributing to multiple experiences across the Battlefield franchise.”
Technical Writer (Contract) at Riot Games Shanghai-based. “As a Technical Writer on the Wild Rift Shanghai team, you will help shape the quality of all player-facing text.”
Writer at Mob Entertainment Remote. “The studio behind indie-horror gem Poppy Playtime, is seeking a remote, full-time, Writer to help the Creative Development team build and expand our flagship IP.”
Lead Writer, Webcomics (Tragedy Mystery Drama, Boys’ Love genre) at Storygrounds Remote. “For this project, we are creating a contemporary drama series set in a University, where the core story centers on the aftermath of a friendship, years after the death of a childhood friend.”
Support Writer Specialist (Story Team) at CD PROJEKT RED Warsaw-based. “The ideal candidate is a person who can work with both English and Polish texts, is well-organized, detail-oriented.”
Technical Narrative Designer at CD PROJEKT RED Warsaw-based. “Seeking a mid-level Technical Narrative Designer to bridge the creative and technical aspects of storytelling within our next title, Project Sirius, a multiplayer game set within the world of The Witcher.”
Senior Narrative Designer at Lakysha Digital Remote. “We are looking for an experienced Senior Narrative Designer (UK time zone preferred but not required) to join the team. This is a fully remote 6-month Freelance contract starting in June 2025, with the possibility of extension for another 6–12 months.”
Principal Narrative Designer at Lakysha Digital Remote. As above, but with a bit more experience required (at least seven years as a narrative designer).
Narrative Lead at Polyarc Seattle-based. “Polyarc is searching for an experienced Narrative Lead to define our narrative workflow and ensure our storytelling thrives within every possible channel.”
Narrative Director at EA Stockholm or Guildford-based. “The Narrative Director will be responsible for directing our efforts to create a coherent fiction for [Battlefield].”
Narrative Director at Sega Irvine, CA-based. “The Narrative Director will assume an active role in collaborating with the narrative team (at SEGA Japan HQ and/or with an external Western developer) to shape the characters, story, dialogue, and VO for select SEGA games.”

Thanks for reading! Pass on the good vibes and share this newsletter with other narrative designers.

About the Writer:

Rose Behar is a narrative designer at Scopely working on a new IP. Her previous work is featured in Longleaf Valley and Cell to Singularity, among other projects. She puts out the free Narrative News roundup every month.

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