Zarf Updates

The Game Narrative Kaleidoscope is a collection of lightning articles (I just made that term up) about narrative design. It's out today! I'm in it! Along with approximately a zillion other authors and designers.

You may recognize: Sharang Biswas, Naomi Clark, Paris Buttfield-Addison, Bruno Dias, Jason Dyer, Gwen C. Katz, and you know what a list of names is silly. Also I don't know half of them as well they deserve, and less than half of them half as well as I should like.

The book sprouted from a chat between Lynn Cherny (who I worked with briefly at SpiritAI) and Jon Ingold (of Inkle). A self-published anthology by writers about writing? Sounds easy! Just ask around! Jon did, and a few days later he had hundreds of people expressing interest.

The essays are cheerfully disorganized. They're connected by "see this related topic" links, but by his own admission Jon added the links in a hurry. You can follow them on a networked walk through the book, or ignore them and read in order, or -- my recommendation -- open to a random page and say "'Ere, what's all this then?"

As for my contribution, here's a sample line from my essay:

often I learn a game’s chapter count from the achievements list on its Steam

Pick up your own copy to learn how that sentence begins and ends!

You can buy The Game Narrative Kaleidoscope from Lulu in paperback or hardback form. Probably other online book outlets too. I don't know how that works.

Oh, and Jon's doing a podcast series with some of the authors. See link above. I'm not currently scheduled but who knows.

Oh, if you're at GDC, I'll have a copy at the IFTF table.

(Note: I will receive a small share of the revenue from this book. If it makes enough to be worth distributing.)