Serious games, news games, documentary games, to name but a few genres that newly emerged in game design that aim more to inform than to educate. These are the games whose creators try to express their deep care and concerns of humanity and beyond. These games usually take issue with a historical or ongoing human issue, and try to take in comprehensive information and knowledge into the gameplay, in order to stimulate their players to reflect on these issues while having fun. For this session, both our speakers and panelists are excellent pioneers in interweaving personal accounts of historical events and time spirit into narrative games. In their works we get to experience a particular history as THE witnesses/survivors. Better yet, their works offer multiple angles that enable us to have a critical view of the past.
Mechanical storytelling
To tell impactful stories in games, to make the characters come alive, and allow players to feel their pain and their joy, narrative design must be carefully integrated with game mechanics. This talk will demonstrate how this can be done with selected game examples.