Presenting narrative for a roguelike at IVIPRO Days in Trieste
How one can merge intersect immerse evoke a layered, partially generative narrative in a short-loop roguelike game? And what about replayability? This is the question I recently tried to answer / discuss at the wonderful event IVIPRO Days in Trieste, where I was invited as a speaker.
But! Before I got into that, I had to speak about context and sources, so the first part of the talk is about notions of history in games, about heroes and player power in gameplay, and about revisiting the notions of winning and losing.
Anyway, here are the slides, in Italian: Narrativa incrementale in Becoming Saint
The event
The event itself was an excellent opportunity for learning and exchanging ideas about past, running and future research of the wild bunch of mostly indie game creators and journalists invited at the event.
The trip to Trieste started with a long chat with Stefano “vandalic” Caselli, (co-organizer of the event together with Andrea Dresseno), who managed to completely jam a vending machine with his passionate research for water at the Venezia Mestre station:
Notice the satisfied smile 😂 But once we found a way to rehydrate, the event started with several stunning talks, and I want to point out some remarkable games presented at the event:
The Thaumaturge, and its evocative writing set in Warsaw 1905:
Biophobia, and the research that lead to it:
Stonemachia, and its amazing team:
I wish to thank Giulia Martino, brilliant as always, for pointing me to the beloved PkD’s Ubik screenplay version, which I didn’t know existed, and Romi Abatangelo, for dancing with me at Auroro Borealo DJing event, and also providing some new suggestions for studies about the relationship between theatrical performance and game design, about which I talked some time ago.
Finally, I wish to thank all the organisers and staff at IVPRO for being so welcoming, and in particular the watchful Andrea Dresseno, without whom this beautiful event simply would not exist.
P.S. I keep meeting people - several at the IVPRO event - telling me how much they enjoyed playing Becoming Saint, I always ask “Did you write a Steam review?” and the answer is always “No…” - please do! 😀
Excellent analysis on roguelike narrative! Your points on generative storyteling and replayability are key. What if procedural generation could dynamically alter core gameplay loops based on player choice? This would deepen player agency and extend long-term engagement considerably, even in short loops.