About the Panel
For a medium long known for being "fun," some of our most interesting and challenging games can actually be quite dark in the stories they tell. From horror games to characters with inner torment to games taking on societal critique, this panel explores the appeal of dark stories in games and discuss the advantage and challenges of tackling dark subject matter. We'll also talk about how best to embody the darkness through game mechanics and difficult choices for players to make. The panel will discuss games we think have tackled dark subjects particularly well, and will ponder if it's possible to ever go too far into the darkness.
Panelists
Richard Rouse III, Emily Short, Thomas Grip and Marta Fijak
Richard Rouse III
Richard Rouse III is a creative director, designer, and writer who has worked on a range of titles, including the horror franchise The Suffering, zombie survival simulator State of Decay, and his cult-set experimental narrative game The Church in the Darkness. Previously he was a Design Director/Lead at Microsoft Studios, Ubisoft Montreal, Midway and Surreal Software. Rouse wrote the popular book Game Design: Theory & Practice.
Emily Short
Emily Short works in interactive fiction, narrative design, and conversation modeling, and is currently the Creative Director at Failbetter Games. She has released over two dozen solo games, as well as contributing to indie games such as Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies, and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine; she also provided R&D work for Telltale Games and others. Her blog can be found at http://emshort.blog.
Thomas Grip
Co-founder of Frictional Games creative director behind the Penumbra, Amnesia and SOMA franchises.
Marta Fijak
A biologist and computer scientist by education, a game designer by love. Tried every form of gamedev, from basement indie with ~20 players, through a BAFTA nominated game with ~1.5 million players, up to f2p with ~10 million players. Recently did society in Frostpunk and was a lead game designer on an not announced 11 bit studios project. Currently, starting a new adventure, as a creative director at Anshar studios.