The NarraScope 2026 Showcase Shortlist

March 2, 2026

I know, I know - we’ve been moving a bit in silence recently. But, we’re super excited to come to you LIVE with the moment we’ve all been waiting for. A quick thank you to our sponsors (past, present, and future - call us ;)), all of the Showcase Jury members (whom you’ll be meeting in more detail very soon…), and all of you for once again submitting your incredible work.

Without further ado, here are the 12 entries to the NarraScope 2026 Showcase Shortlist - 3 per award category, and in no particular order:

Best in Show

how to walk out the door

HORTENSIAS

Ye Guild Clerk!

Best Narrative

Pharos Fidelis

Brinkmanship

10 Games We Played on Long Car Rides and in Standby Lines at Disney

Best Experimental Work

Known Mysteries

Dear Anna,

How To Make It Home

Best Student Work

On Call

Heroes and Monsters

Coalescence

Congratulations to all of the shortlisted candidates - these games will all now go back to the jury for final deliberation. Prior to NarraScope 2026 weekend, the jury will determine the category winners to be revealed at the showcase event in Albany on June 12th.

Shortlisted candidates - expect an email from the Committee in the coming days about next steps to prepare for showcase day!

Everyone else - we once again thank you, and hope to see your work in future iterations of the NarraScope Showcase. We also hope to see you at the showcase event in person in Albany if you’re able! Stay tapped into the NarraScope community here for additional updates on event sponsors and workshops, and our discord for all things NarraScope going forward.

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the NarraScope Conference and Showcase are run entirely by volunteers - we do this because we deeply believe in the importance of and want to uplift narrative games and interactive fiction from creators of all walks of life. Any and all sponsorship proceeds, ticketing, memberships, and/or donations are paid back to the community either directly through awards and honoraria, or through offsetting the costs of hosting an event of this nature now and in the future. If you’re able to do so, and would like to support future iterations of the NarraScope Showcase, NarraScope Conference, and other IFTF programs financially, you can find out how to donate to us by visiting https://iftechfoundation.org/give/. We would appreciate it - every dollar counts.

Talk soon, and once again and most importantly, congrats to all shortlisted candidates!

~vel

the jurors have had their assignments sent to them, and so we’re off to the races. stay tuned to see juror and sponsor reveals as we get closer to this year’s showcase date!

thank you all for joining us for another year of the narrascope showcase, i’m super excited, and i hope you all are as well.

stay especially tuned for march 1, when we’ll have our shortlist reveal :)

~vel

please keep exploring this area of game dev, i like that its not a building game and doesnt involve rockets, just bc this one didn’t hit doesnt mean you shouldnt keep exploring this space

prompt adherence: 5/5 functionality/completeness: 5/5 unique sauce: 5/5

prompt adherence: 4/5 functionality/completeness: 1/5 unique sauce: 3/5

prompt adherence: 3/5 functionality/completeness: 4/5 unique sauce: 3/5

prompt adherence: 4/5 functionality/completeness: 4/5 unique sauce: 4/5

prompt adherence: 3/5 functionality/completeness: 4/5 unique sauce: 3/5

hey everyone! thanks for coming on this next adventure for the narrascope 2026 showcase. i’m really excited to be hosting it again.

in fact, i was so excited that i forgot to add the fields necessary for the submissions, so if you’ve submitted please make sure that your submissions have in fact answered the questions associated with submitting.

thanks so much, and my bad!

~vel

load time is incredibly worth

plunderludics

it truly does…

glorp

thanks so much for playing! glad you liked it :)

hey thanks so much for playing it means a lot :)

The NarraScope 2025 Showcase Award Winners

June 25, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - it is with great pleasure that I can officially announce our winners for this year’s NarraScope 2025 Showcase Awards. Thanks again to all of you for submitting, our jury for their dedication, and our sponsors for making this possible. Without further ado, here are our winners for this year:

Best in Show

Perfect Tides: Station to Station

Best Narrative

night confessional

Best Experimental Work

The Shaman, The Outsider, and the Diet of Worms

Best Student Work

Road Trip to the End of the World

Congratulations all - and see you all again next year for the NarraScope 2026 Showcase!

Sponsor Reveal - pklwrks!

June 18, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - for the final time prior to the reveal of the winners :). I’d like to very quickly reveal our seventh sponsor - pklwrks LLC.

pklwrks LLC was founded in brooklyn, ny by john domenico calvelli while he was pursuing his mfa in game design at new york university. now located in bronxville, ny, pklwrks LLC is a locus for the sustainable development of experimental, artistically driven interactive work in community with other developers, local and global. to align with those ideals, pklwrks LLC is divided into two primary arms: consultancy and studio.

https://pklwrks.dev/

If you’ll indulge me for just a moment - I firmly believe in the importance of uplifting and promoting our collective work, and I am honored to be in a position to be able to sponsor and support my fellow narrative game artists and poets this year. And, I hope to keep that vibe going through my workshop and tabling at the in-person showcase event!

pklwrks’ in-person workshop will be at 1:00PM on June 20th at the Arch Street Meeting House. The schedule will be actively updated here - narrascope.org/schedule. Here’s a short description of the workshop:

This workshop, “getting / doing / creating the job: a narrative roundtable” follows in the spirit of the long tradition of Richard Dansky’s Game Narrative Roundtables at GDC. This roundtable will be an opportunity for narrative designers, new and old, to discuss portfolios, professional advancement, working within adjacent disciplines, and with a particular eye towards non-traditional pathways for creative careers, and all else of interest. A moderator will provide guiding questions, after which conversation will be allowed to flow organically.

Instead of traditional tabling, pklwrks’ table at the in-person event will be used for “the demo scene v0.1”, a callback to the original demo room concept out of which the showcase grew:

It’s a dedicated space for creators to book 30 minute time slots to show whatever games they wish - complete, incomplete, not a game, etc. etc. If you’re going to be at the in-person event and would like to partake, fill out the following form :D. This form will be first come first serve - get slots while they’re hot! Please only fill out the form once per interested party, and your email is collected only so you can get a confirmation that your submission went through.

https://forms.gle/G3T2VXWgEfFYUCaU9

Thank you all so much again.

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing sponsor - pklwrks! Also revealing “demo scene v0.1” opportunity for in-person attendees!

Sponsor Reveal - NYU Game Center!

June 17, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters! Rapid fire reveals as we get closer and closer to the event date! Here comes our sixth sponsor reveal - NYU Game Center!

The NYU Game Center is dedicated to the exploration of games as a cultural form and game design as creative practice. Our approach to the study of games is based on a simple idea: games matter. Just like other cultural forms – music, film, literature, painting, dance, theater – games are valuable for their own sake. Games are worth studying, not merely as artifacts of advanced digital technology, or for their potential to educate, or as products within a thriving global industry, but in and of themselves, as experiences that entertain us, move us, explore complex topics, communicate profound ideas, and illuminate elusive truths about ourselves, the world around us, and each other.

https://gamecenter.nyu.edu/

They’ll be present at our in person Showcase event with a table where you can play some narrative focused games coming out of the NYU Game Center Incubator - Inkression and The Wide Open Sky is Running out of Catfish. Come by to learn more about the games and program as a whole!

As mentioned in our last sponsor reveal - the Showcase, much like the Conference itself, is entirely volunteer run, and all sponsorship is going towards offsetting the cost of hosting the event, the awards for our category winners, and towards supporting the Conference itself and further Conferences and Showcases. So, thank you so much, NYU Game Center. We wouldn’t be able to make the NarraScope Showcase possible without you!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing sponsor - NYU Game Center!

Sponsor Reveal - Comradery.co!

June 16, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters! Here comes our fifth sponsor reveal - Comradery.co!

Comradery.co is a new monthly subscription and newsletter platform that is cooperatively owned and democratically controlled by the creators that use it. Solo indie developers and teams interested in forming formal or informal cooperatives are welcome! Raise money from fans and followers, publish email newsletters, and own your own means of production and distribution! Now in beta, sign up at Comradery.co

https://comradery.co/

They’ll be present at our in person Showcase event with a table where you can meet them and learn more. Also, they’ll be hosting a mixer for NarraScope Showcase and Conference attendees and the greater Philly independent games community right after our award ceremony on Friday. You can find out more and grab a ticket below:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cocktails-cooperatives-a-board-games-mixer-with-philly-co-ops-tickets-1411238445179?aff=oddtdtcreator

As mentioned in our last sponsor reveal - the Showcase, much like the Conference itself, is entirely volunteer run, and all sponsorship is going towards offsetting the cost of hosting the event, the awards for our category winners, and towards supporting the Conference itself and further Conferences and Showcases. So, thank you so much, Comradery.co. We wouldn’t be able to make the NarraScope Showcase possible without you!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing sponsor - Comradery.co! Also revealing Friday night mixer event!

Sponsor Reveal - LIU DGD!

June 14, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters! It’s been a while, hope you’re all doing well. You’ll be hearing a bit more regularly from me again in the lead up to the in person event this coming 20th! I’m excited to announce our fourth sponsor, the Long Island University Digital Game Design and Development Program!

At Long Island University’s Digital Game Design and Development Program, students master highly versatile and in-demand skills across all areas of game development. From concept art and storytelling to programming and iterative design, we believe in the creativity, technical excellence, and innovation students bring to life. We’re proud to help showcase the next generation of game developers shaping the future of the industry!

https://www.liu.edu/post/gamedesign

https://liu-game-dev.itch.io/

Specifically, they’ve sponsored the Best Student Work Award for this year’s showcase - now to be known as the Best Student Work Award, sponsored by LIU DGD!

As mentioned in our last sponsor reveal - the Showcase, much like the Conference itself, is entirely volunteer run, and all sponsorship is going towards offsetting the cost of hosting the event, the awards for our category winners, and towards supporting the Conference itself and further Conferences and Showcases. So, thank you so much, LIU DGD. We wouldn’t be able to make the NarraScope Showcase possible without you!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing sponsor - LIU DGD!

The NarraScope 2025 Showcase Shortlist

June 1, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - it’s time for the moment we’ve all been waiting for! I’d like to say quickly first: thank you to our sponsors, the 18 members of the Showcase jury, and, most importantly, all of you for submitting your incredible work - the shortlist determination was INCREDIBLY competitive. As I mentioned before, our team was hoping for a handful of submissions this year, and we are truly so grateful for the incredible community response. So really, thank all of you for making this possible, and we’re excited to do it again next year.

Without further ado, here are the 12 entries to the NarraScope 2025 Showcase Shortlist - 3 per award category, and in no particular order:

Best in Show

Perfect Tides: Station to Station

Rosewater

takeover

Best Narrative

Sisyphe’s Backspace

night confessional

Sunset High

Best Experimental Work

Something to Reach For

The Shaman, the Outsider, and the Diet of Worms

THE INSIDE

Best Student Work

Annota Line

Road Trip to the End of the World

Payload

Congratulations to all of the shortlisted candidates - these games will all now go back to the jury. Over the next month prior to NarraScope 2025 weekend the jury will determine the category winners to be revealed at the showcase event in Philadelphia on June 20th.

Shortlisted candidates - expect an email from the Committee in the coming days about next steps to prepare for showcase day!

Everyone else - we hope to see your work in future, hopefully even more inclusive, iterations of the NarraScope Showcase, and we hope to see you at the showcase event in person if you’re able! Stay tapped in for additional updates on event sponsors and workshops here as well.

Lastly (I swear!), as mentioned in previous outreach, the NarraScope Conference and Showcase are run entirely by volunteers - we do this because we deeply believe in the importance of and want to uplift narrative games and interactive fiction from creators of all walks of life. Any and all sponsorship proceeds, ticketing, memberships, and/or donations are paid back to the community either directly through awards and honoraria, or through offsetting the costs of hosting an event of this nature now and in the future. If you’re able to do so, and would like to support future iterations of the NarraScope Showcase, NarraScope Conference, and other IFTF programs financially, you can find out how to donate to us by visiting https://iftechfoundation.org/give/. We would appreciate it - every dollar counts.

Talk soon, and once again and most importantly, congrats to all shortlisted candidates!

vel

TLDR - Shortlist revealed!

Sponsor Reveal - boshi’s place!

May 29, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters! Only three more days until the shortlist reveal - and I come bearing amazing news. I’m excited to announce our third sponsor, boshi’s place!

boshi’s place is…a group of people building community and support for the independent game development scene in new york city and the surrounding area. we aim to do this by providing a physical space for working, exhibiting games, and staging performances, as well as facilitating game jams and educational workshops.

https://boshis.place

Specifically, they’ve sponsored the Best Experimental Work Award for this year’s showcase - now to be known as the Best Experimental Work Award, sponsored by boshi’s place!

As mentioned in our last sponsor reveal - the Showcase, much like the Conference itself, is entirely volunteer run, and all sponsorship is going towards offsetting the cost of hosting the event, the awards for our category winners, and towards supporting the Conference itself and further Conferences and Showcases. So, thank you so much, boshi’s place. We wouldn’t be able to make the NarraScope Showcase possible without you!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing sponsor - boshi’s place!

Jury Members Reveal: Viditya Voleti, Adrian Sandoval, Matthew Griffin, and Tori Smith

May 26, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters! We’re ticking down the days until the shortlist reveal, and I’m happy to introduce to you the final members of our jury - the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth members - Viditya Voleti, Adrian Sandoval, Matthew Griffin, and Tori Smith. For the final time for this year, here are their bios, in their own words:

Viditya Voleti

Viditya Voleti is an award winning game writer, designer, and educator; creator of Bloodbeam Badlands, Space Goblins!, and LONGSWORD. His diverse body of work explores all aspects of play and interaction and he is always excited to make something bad. He’s worked on a diversity of projects and clients across the spectrum of the TTRPG industry from Paizo and Evil Hat to World Champ Games Co and Possum Creek.

https://vidityavoleti.itch.io

https://bsky.app/profile/vidityavoleti.bsky.social

@vidityavoleti everywhere

Adrian Sandoval

Adrian Sandoval is a professional game designer with 15+ years of industry experience. He currently teaches game design, production and history at Drexel University. His book, “World Design for 2D Action-Adventures”, co-authored with Christopher W. Totten, is available on the Routledge store.

https://www.adriansandoval.net

Matthew Griffin

Matt Griffin is a game writer and researcher currently developing an academic book focused on publisher Choice of Games’ community of literary authors who are creating lengthy (some well over a million words!) interactive novels using ChoiceScript, sometimes as their first exposure to writing interactive texts. He is also himself authoring an interactive (horror) novel to explore why we tell (scary) stories to each other, and the imaginative space fostered by the experience of stepping into murky, unknown spaces with a reader. He writes regularly for ChoiceBeat Zine, an indie online zine focused on interactive fiction, visual novel, and odd narrative games space, as well as other articles and papers focused on interactive narrative, additive manufacturing, and biofabrication.. He teaches grad senior thesis in interactive design for the NYU IDM program and an artist- and engineer-centric bioprinting/biomaterials course for NYU ITP. As a longtime conference producer he is co-founder of the digital fabrication educators conference Construct3D, and the Conference Chair for NarraScope 2025 for the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, PA. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his lovely novelist wife, and darling infant daughter.

https://bsky.app/profile/mifga.bsky.social

Tori Smith

Tori Smith is a narrative designer, writer, performer, and educator based in NYC. She specializes in designing immersive narrative experiences, developing LARPs and interactive theater pieces. Tori is a game design adjunct professor at the NYU Game Center, Pratt Institute, NYIT, and CUNY City College.

https://torilynnsmith.com

@worldwideblonde everywhere

Thanks Viditya, Adrian, Matt, and Tori!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing final jury members - Viditya Voleti, Adrian Sandoval, Matthew Griffin, and Tori Smith!

Update and Featured Work Reveal - labRats by cirqueSaw!

May 22nd, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - thanks to our sponsors and supporters, I’m happy to announce two things!

First, the award payment for the winning game in each category will be $250, in addition to bragging rights of course! On that note, we’ll have the shortlist for you soon… :)

Second, I’m excited to announce our inaugural Showcase Featured Work - labRats, by cirqueSaw! The amazing artists over at cirqueSaw will be presenting three free shows specifically for members of the NarraScope community in the leadup to the Showcase and Conference dates!

About labRats

Despite all your rage, you are still just a rat in a cage. Luckily, you’re also a rat who’s been outfitted with a neural implant that allows you to communicate telepathically with the other rats in your cage. Maybe that’ll help.

labRats is a new digitally native interactive workshop performance by the award-winning duo cirqueSaw. Pulling equally from classic games, silent films, and a generous helping of Lewis Carroll, the piece seeks to blur the line between reality and unreality, between wonder and horror. Audiences play as lab rats in an experiment beyond their control, who have to work together to take control of their lives. Whether they choose to escape, take over the lab, or deconstruct the fabric of the reality of their experience itself is entirely up to them.

Though it has been tested on mobile devices, the text may be difficult to read on a smaller screen, and we have encountered inconsistencies with how iPhones handle the animations, so we strongly recommend you use a laptop or desktop. If you are planning on experiencing this with another person in the same space, you should reserve one ticket for each device.

Run time: 60-75 minutes, depending on your choices.

Written by Nathan Leigh Performed by Nicole Orabona

Sound cool?

Has your interest been piqued? Are you, perchance, excited by the possibility of attending a showing? Find out more about when the showings are and how to get a ticket by joining our Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation Discord, linked here:

https://discord.gg/DPQYuDV

Then, navigate to the narrascope-announcements channel!

Thank you so much, cirqueSaw - and I cant wait to see labRats myself!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: $250 award for showcase category winners, and free interactive theatre show dates for the NarraScope community by cirqueSaw!

Jury Members Reveal - Everest Pipkin, Benjamin Jaekle, and Reuben Brenner-Adams!

May 19, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters. The jury is about halfway done with evaluating all of the submissions, and I’m excited to announce the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth members of the showcase jury - Everest Pipkin, Benjamin Jaekle, and Reuben Brenner-Adams. Here are their bios, in their own words -

Everest Pipkin

Everest Pipkin is a game developer, artist, and educator who works in games and software tools across the handmade web– as well as on paper through books, zines and drawings. They have shown and spoken at The Design Museum of London, The Texas Biennial, The XXI Triennale of Milan, The Photographers Gallery of London, Center for Land Use Interpretation, and currently teach game design at the Pratt Institute. They believe the internet is a public good, and the post office should operate it.

https://everest-pipkin.com/

https://bsky.app/profile/everest.bsky.social

Benjamin Jaekle

Benjamin Jaekle, aka Benja, is a game designer and writer. Currently the Lead Designer of Voxile at VoxRay Games, Benja’s decade of experience includes notable works such as Just Cause 3 and Just Cause 4. He spends his nights working on a cozy, lofi graveyard keeper game, which he posts about daily. He dwells with his fsmily in the forests of the Hudson River Valley, and only one of his kids is named after a Lord of the Rings character.

http://benjaminjaekle.com

https://twitter.com/benjapenguin

https://bsky.app/profile/benjapenguin.bsky.social

Reuben Brenner-Adams

Reuben Brenner-Adams is a Game Design and Development Engineer at Originator, a leading developer of learning games. At Originator, Reuben was one of the key developers on the award-winning PAW Patrol Academy, the first pre-K learning game from one of the most popular children’s media franchises.

Before joining Originator, Reuben was the game designer and programmer for two Webby-nominated games for education, Aquation: The Freshwater Access Game and Pick Your Plate! A Global Guide to Nutrition, at the Smithsonian Science Education Center. Aquation and Tami’s Tower: Let’s Think About Engineering, another game Reuben developed at the SSEC, were selected as Notable Children’s Digital Media in 2020 by the Association for Library Service to Children.

Reuben is a voting member of both the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts, as well as a member of the Washington, DC Chapter of the International Game Developers Association. He earned a combined BS/MS degree in Game Design & Development from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

https://reubenbrenneradams.com/

https://bsky.app/profile/kangareuben.bsky.social

Thanks Everest, Benjamin, and Reuben!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury members - Everest Pipkin, Benjamin Jaekle, and Reuben Brenner-Adams!

Sponsor Reveal - Turbo!

May 13, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters! The jurors continue to be hard at work evaluating your submissions - but I come bearing amazing news. I’m excited to announce our second sponsor, Turbo!

Turbo is a new 2D game engine built for making games fast! We provide a simple set of tools to get your ideas up and running so you can spend more time designing, playing and sharing your games!

https://turbo.computer

They’ll also be giving an in-person workshop at 3:00PM on June 20th at the Arch Street Meeting House to kick off the NarraScope conference. The schedule will be kept actively updated here - narrascope.org/schedule. Here’s a short description of the workshop:

Turbo staff will introduce you to how Turbo can be used to make games quickly, iterate on the fly, and seamlessly export to the web! We’ll walk through the key functions and concepts that you need to know, and then demonstrate how our live-coding environment helps you prototype and iterate. Then we’ll take a look at some of Turbo’s multiplayer features, that let you connect your game to a server and share data between players!

Lastly, NarraScope’s own JD Calvelli will show mrdirector, his package for creating narrative games inside of Turbo. He’ll go over its functionality, and talk about his time working with Turbo and how he’s thinking about making networked narrative games.

As mentioned in our last sponsor reveal - the Showcase, much like the Conference itself, is entirely volunteer run, and all sponsorship is going towards offsetting the cost of hosting the event, the awards for our category winners, and towards supporting the Conference itself and further Conferences and Showcases. So, thank you so much, Turbo. We wouldn’t be able to make the NarraScope Showcase possible without you!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing sponsor - Turbo!

Jury Members Reveal - Jessica Pardue, Wojtek Borowicz, and Nicholas O’Brien!

May 9, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters. Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support that the NarraScope 2025 Showcase has received - 171 joiners and 149 submitters! I was hoping for 30 submissions! On behalf of NarraScope, thank you all. The jury is hard at work evaluating all of the submissions, and I’m excited to announce the ninth, tenth, and eleventh members of the showcase jury - Jessica Pardue, Wojtek Borowicz, and Nicholas O’Brien. Here are their bios, in their own words -

Jessica Pardue

Jess Pardue is a Studio Manager, Producer, and host of Stupid Little Games, a bi-weekly podcast all about gaming from the inside out! Previous companies include Avalanche Studios Group, Ghost Robot, and Stack Overflow. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner Bayard and biological cat Sir Digby Chicken Caesar. These days she runs on sweet tea and spite.

@caketease.bsky.social

https://jesspardue.podbean.com/

Wojtek Borowicz

Wojtek is a Polish-Irish writer, narrative designer, and an award-winning dungeon master, with a background of over a decade in technical and instructional writing. He’s created several web-based games as well as a tabletop role playing system called Campfire. His essays and articles were also published across several business and literary magazines. He has a degree in Culture Studies from Jagiellonian University in Kraków and is currently based in Dublin.

https://www.narramblings.com/

https://bsky.app/profile/wojtekborowicz.bsky.social

Nicholas O'Brien

Nicholas O’Brien is a game designer, narrative designer, artist, and founder of Essay Games, a solo studio based in Brooklyn working on introspective games built on thorough research and/or personal experience.

Nicholas has exhibited at The Knockdown Center, NOW PLAY THIS!, MAGFest, PlayNYC, LuddoNarraCon, Indiepocalypse, Microscope Gallery, apexart, and The Whitney Museum of American Art. His work has been featured in Kotaku, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, BOMB Magazine, ArtReview, Critical Distance, The Guardian, Vulture, The Washington Post, and the New York Times. He is a founding mentor of the Game Design Future Lab at NYU Tandon and a visiting professor at Pratt Institute.

https://bsky.app/profile/essaygames.bsky.social

https://essaygames.itch.io/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-o-brien-essaygames/

Thanks Jessica, Wojtek, and Nicholas!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury members - Jessica Pardue, Wojtek Borowicz, and Nicholas O’Brien!

Jury Member Reveal - RJ Reyes!

April 28, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters, I’m excited to announce the eighth member of the showcase jury - RJ Reyes. Here is their bio, in their own words -

RJ Reyes is a producer, business developer, educator, and mentor who has been working in the games industry for over 20 years.

He began his career as a QA tester for THQ, where he tested mobile versions of some of THQ’s most popular games, like Red Faction and Hello Kitty. Next, he became a QA tester for 2K Games, where he tested games like Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, The Darkness, and Bioshock.

RJ got his first job as an associate producer with Vivendi Games / Sierra Online in 2008, and he’s been a producer ever since. At Sierra Online, he produced games for Xbox Live Arcade and other digital distribution platforms. Next, he became an art producer at Spin Master Studios, where he helped manage the development of Bakugan Dimensions, a kid-friendly MMORPG based on the popular Bakugan toy line.

Throughout much of the 2010s, he worked as a producer for different indie studios and outsource studios. During this time, he worked on a variety of small projects for big clients, including Disney Interactive and Mattel Toys. He also tried owning and operating a small indie studio based out of Santiago, Chile — the game studio did not last long, but he learned some valuable lessons from the experience.

In the 2020s, RJ transitioned from indie studios and small-scope projects to AAA. He worked on two unannounced games for Amazon Games. Afterwards, he worked as an outsource producer on LEGO Fortnite. Currently he works for Blizzard Entertainment as the outsourcing producer for World of Warcraft.

In addition to being passionate about game development and production, RJ loves to teach. He was an adjunct professor at Bloomfield College in New Jersey for a couple of years, plus he has guest lectured at colleges and universities throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and South America. He’s also served as an advisor for the NYU Game Center Incubator since 2022, where he’s mentored multiple, young indie devs.

Thanks RJ - you’re the best!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury member - RJ Reyes!

Sponsor Reveal - Real2!

April 23, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters! We’re getting super close to the end of the submission period! To commemorate, I’m so excited to announce our first sponsor - Real2!

Real2 is a family business and a new platform publishing interactive stories on the App Store.

www.real2.co.uk

They’ll also be giving an in-person workshop at 2:00PM on June 20th at the Arch Street Meeting House to kick off the NarraScope conference. The schedule will be kept actively updated here - narrascope.org/schedule. Here’s a short description of the workshop:

In this 1-hour session we will introduce Real2, explain our motivation for developing the platform and talk through some of the lessons we’ve learned during the first 2-years of our journey. We’ll talk through the production workflow we developed for the first four stories we’ve published, and we’ll run a live demonstration of our creative and technical processes and tools.

We are actively looking for a handful of new writers this year to publish on Real2 so we will also describe our business model in detail. Please let us know after this session if you are interested to work with us. And – whether you are a writer, a developer or a player – we’d love to hear what you think. We’re on a learning curve and your feedback is really valuable to us.

For further context - the Showcase, much like the Conference itself, is entirely volunteer run, and all sponsorship is going towards offsetting the cost of hosting the event, the awards for our category winners, and towards supporting the Conference itself and further Conferences and Showcases. So, thank you so much, Real2. We wouldn’t be able to make the NarraScope Showcase possible without you!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing sponsor - Real2!

​Location Reveal - Arch Street Meeting House!

​April 21, 2025

​Hello everyone, exciting news - we’re happy to announce the location for the in person showcase event and award ceremony!

Our in person event will be at the Arch Street Meeting House in Philadelphia, PA on June 20th from 12pm to 6pm. You can find out more about the location here - https://www.historicasmh.org.

Three shortlisted games in each award category will be invited to come showcase, but the event itself will be open to all, so come through if you can!

The most up to date run of show for the showcase can always be found here - https://narrascope.org/schedule/​​.

See you soon!

vel

*TLDR: Revealing showcase location - Arch Street Meeting House in Philadelphia, PA!”

Jury Member Reveal - Mim Harries!

April 18, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters. Apologies for the delay in reveals, work and life got very busy! Nonetheless, I’m excited to announce the seventh member of the showcase jury - Mim Harries. Here is their bio, in their own words -

Mim Harries is a game and narrative designer specializing in immersive experiences. She strives to bring the spirit of playful collaboration she learned in theater to her current games work. Some of her favorite projects include Lost Recipes VR, Daniel Tiger’s Nature Walk, and Out of Scale: A Kurzgesagt Adventure.

https://bsky.app/profile/mimalin.bsky.social

https://www.miriamharries.com/

Thanks Mim - we appreciate you!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury member - Mim Harries!

Jury Member Reveal - Arman Mohazzabfar!

April 6, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters! I’m excited to announce the sixth member of the showcase jury - Arman Mohazzabfar . Here is their bio, in their own words -

Arman is an Iranian-Iraqi narrative designer, writer, and aspiring historian. Born in Seattle, he graduated from NYU with a BFA in Dramatic Writing. His career began in television but since 2018 he has worked in video games. He has worked with LEGO, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, Disney, Netflix, and Kinder. Arman also works with Sunbloom Media Arts Center’s mentorship program. He is in the process of going to graduate school for history and in his free time he works on his own small games.

https://bsky.app/profile/armanbfar.bsky.social

Thanks Arman - excited to have you aboard.

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury member - Arman Mohazzabfar

Jury Member Reveal - Brendan Desilets!

March 31, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - JD back again! I’m excited to announce the fifth member of the showcase jury - Brendan Desilets. Here is their bio, in their own words -

Brendan Desilets is a veteran teacher of high school, middle, school, and college students. He has used interactive fiction in his classes since 1985. Brendan maintains the website “Teaching and Learning with Interactive Fiction,” and has authored a book of the same name.

https://bdesilets.com/if/

Thanks Brendan - we’re lucky to have you.

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury member - Brendan Desilets!

Jury Member Reveal - Brianna Lei!

March 28, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - JD here. I’m excited to announce the fourth member of the showcase jury - Brianna Lei. Here is their bio, in their own words -

Brianna Lei is a two-time IGF-nominated writer best known for creating the games Pom Gets Wi-Fi, Butterfly Soup, and Butterfly Soup 2.

@briannalei.bsky.social

https://brianna-lei.tumblr.com/

Thanks Brianna - we’re so grateful!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury member - Brianna Lei!

Jury Member Reveal - Rose Behar!

March 22, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - JD here! Recovering from GDC2025 this past week, so I’m sorry for the slowdown in judge reveals - they’ll pick back up now! I’m excited to announce the third member of the Showcase jury - Rose Behar. Here is their bio, in their own words -

Rose Behar is a narrative designer at Scopely working on a new IP. Her previous work is featured in games like Longleaf Valley, Ashe Cove, and Cell to Singularity, among other projects. She puts out a free roundup of resources and job listings for narrative designers monthly on Substack called Narrative News.

https://open.substack.com/pub/narrativenews

Thanks Rose!

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury member - Rose Behar!

Jury Member Reveal - zarf!

March 10, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - JD again! Happy Mar10 day! I’m excited to announce the second member of the Showcase jury - the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation’s very own zarf / Andrew Plotkin! Here is their bio, in their own words -

Andrew Plotkin has been playing interactive fiction since there were home computers, and tried writing some shortly thereafter. He now helps run an IF non-profit foundation and plays with other narrative game ideas.

https://blog.zarfhome.com

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@zarfeblong

Thanks zarf - we’re lucky to have you on this journey with us.

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury member - zarf / Andrew Plotkin!

Jury Member Reveal - mut!

March 5, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - JD again! This is an exciting day for a few reasons. Reason one - I found out that I can email you all now! Don’t worry, I won’t spam you. I’ll only use it for the most important correspondence…like reason two! I’m excited to announce the first member of the Showcase jury - mut! Here is their bio, in their own words -

Gustavo Ceci Guimarães, aka mut, pronounced as moochi, is a brazilian experimental game maker, curator, facilitator, artist, programmer, and player. mut’s main line of work is a deep exploration of folk games, in a continuous persuit for DeKoven’s “well played game”, especially so in the digital realm. one such approach is working on a rich third person character movement in an online videogame space, as in pondlife: discone (a videogame); another is in rethinking how we can make new games out of existing videogames, as in mut’s work with the plunderludics working group; finally it is stewarding a real space and community of play, as in moochi’s participation in organizing boshi’s place.

@mut.media everywhere.

Thanks mut - we’re lucky to have you on this journey with us.

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Revealing jury member - mut! Also, vel has discovered that he can email you all, but don’t worry, he wont spam.

Welcome, and a request!

March 3th, 2025

Hello all joiners and submitters - this is JD Calvelli, Co-Chair of NarraScope 2025 and Curator of this year’s first inaugural NarraScope Showcase! Thank you all so much for your interest in this new facet of NarraScope - I’m super excited to explore all of your amazing work. I however, will not be one of the industry judges - those individuals will be steadily revealed as we get closer to the end of the jam :).

I wanted to reach out and say thanks, and, to ask for a favor. In my infinite wisdom, I forgot to add a section to the submission form that includes the best way to reach you regarding your projects once the jury process actually begins…Oops. Truly a rookie mistake. I’ve since added a section on the submission form for an email through which we can meet you, so all new submissions should be required to provide that information. For all of you that have already submitted, I would really appreciate if you could update your submissions with that information. Again, I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, and I’m grateful for your patience as we iron out this process into the future.

Talk soon,

vel

TLDR: Please make sure your submissions are updated to include the best email at which to reach you. The form should now be able to capture that information privately. Thanks!

Thanks so much for giving our game a try, and for our first ever let's play omg!

Thank you so much for giving our game a try, and for the helpful comment :D