UPDATE: We have changed the date of this meetup to May 16th, 2017

I received a lovely surprise on Wednesday in the form of a talk proposal from Gregory Wells from CNA. I’ll let Greg explain who he is and what he’s going to talk about.

Our Speaker: Gregory Wells

Gregory Wells is an innovative creative designer with a primary focus on game design, sound design, and storytelling. An independent game developer and instructor of Video Game Art & Design at the College of the North Atlantic, Greg’s involvement in games led him to pursue his Bachelors of Creative Writing and English for deeper understanding.

The Talk: Game Storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful tool, and one that has accompanied our existence from the early years of humankind. Like movies and books, games support much of the common literary and cinematic forms of narrative. However, games provide the opportunity to take these storytelling tools deeper through interactivity and involving the player as an active member of the storytelling experience.

This talk will deal with storytelling in games. Storytelling doesn’t just exist within a game’s dialogue or text; it is embedded into gameplay experiences, the art, the sound, and the atmosphere of the games we play. All of these elements create the themes in which games are conveyed to us, invoking our ability to visualize, imagine, and interact with the story. Storytelling reveals itself as the goals of the game, the journey, characters, challenges, rewards, and the consequences of the experience. Even a game without a formal story can cause us to create our own stories. This talk will look at the theory of interactive storytelling from its foundations in English literature to the immersive and engaging narrative of modern gaming experiences.

Location and Time

The meetup will take place at 7:30PM on May  16th at Common Ground, 30 Harvey Road.