This weekend Zach Dodson will be talking about books, narrative games, and the hybrid space in between, informed by the development of Kuu, Interactive Tragedy's next game. There are many great talks at Narrascope this coming weekend. Tune in!
Hyperprint: From Novels to Games and Back Again
Sunday 3:15 pm–3:45 pm (US Eastern)
(Room: URBN-125) (remote presentation)
How can digital storytelling change the printed book? KUU, my current work-in-progress, bridges the worlds of interactive narrative and hybrid book design, through a recursive creative process and a smuggling of technique: Twine and Ink for novel drafting and scanned print pages as a video game. I’ll explore the strange loop of developing an interactive game and a print novel simultaneously, focusing on how narrative structures, reader/player agency, and design constraints can be deployed across formats. Building on my illuminated novel Bats of the Republic (Doubleday, 2015)—which featured diagrams, maps, easter eggs, and a sealed envelope containing Möbius loop of text—I’ve discovered that working to maximise the affordances of different media can create a narrative ecosystem that thrives. I’ll reveal drafting and development insights, including how the physical constraints of book design can inform digital interactivity, and how branching narrative design can inspire innovative print layouts.
[IF, game dev, publishing, cross platform]