An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions.
World of Darkness is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming, along with off-shoots based on these. The series ended in 2004, and the reboot Chronicles of Darkness was launched the same year with a new line of games. In 2011, the original series was brought back, and the two have since been published concurrently.
Deus Ex: Invisible War is a 2003 action role-playing video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive for Microsoft Windows and Xbox. It is the second game in the Deus Ex series. The gameplay—combining first-person shooter, stealth, and role-playing elements—features exploration and combat in environments connected to multiple city-based hubs, in addition to quests that can be completed in a variety of ways and flexible character customization. Conversations between characters feature a variety of responses, with options in conversations at crucial story points affecting how some events play out.
A media franchise, also known as a multimedia franchise, is a collection of related media in which several derivative works have been produced from an original creative work of fiction, such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Bob Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, defined the word franchise as "something that creates value across multiple businesses and across multiple territories over a long period of time".
Shree Lal Joshi was an Indian Chippa caste artist of phad painting, a form of popular folk painting of Rajasthan.
Chand Baori is a stepwell situated in the village of Abhaneri in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It extends approximately 30m (100ft) into the ground, making it one of the deepest and largest stepwells in India.
Bastion is an action role-playing video game developed by independent developer Supergiant Games and originally published in 2011 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. In the game, the player controls "the Kid" as he moves through floating, fantasy-themed environments and fights enemies of various types. It features a dynamic voiceover from a narrator, and is presented as a two-dimensional game with an isometric camera and a hand-painted, colorful art style. Bastion's story follows the Kid as he collects special shards of rock to power a structure, the Bastion, in the wake of an apocalyptic Calamity.
Injustice: Gods Among Us is a 2013 fighting video game. It is the first installment in the Injustice franchise based upon the fictional universe of DC Comics. The game was developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U. It was released in April 2013 in North America, Europe, and Australia, and June 2013 in Japan. An expanded version of the game, titled Injustice: Gods Among Us – Ultimate Edition, was released in November 2013 for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Windows, and Xbox 360. A free-to-play mobile app based on Injustice was also released for iOS and Android devices. A prequel comic book series of the same name, written by Tom Taylor, was released beginning in January 2013.
Annie VanderMeer is an American video game designer specializing in role-playing video games, best known for her narrative work on 2021's Unpacking and her design work on the 2012's Guild Wars 2.
Inkle is a video game development company based in Cambridge, United Kingdom that specialises in interactive narrative, i.e. text-focused computer video games. They are notable for games such as 80 Days, which was Time Magazine's Game of the Year in 2014, and Sorcery!, a recreation of Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! gamebook series.
Chintan Upadhyay is an Indian artist. He was awarded the Charles Wallace Foundation Award for Residency in Bristol, UK in 2012. He began as a painter, but now creates sculptures and installations, the surfaces of which he paints.
Thukral and Tagra are an artist duo composed of Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra. They work with a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, installations, interactive games, video, performance and design.
Samira Rathod is an Indian architect, furniture designer, writer, and teacher based in Mumbai. She is a Principal of Samira Rathod Design Associates.
The study of religion and video games is a subfield of digital religion, which the American scholar of communication, Heidi Campbell, defines as "Religion that is constituted in new ways through digital media and cultures.". Video games once struggled for legitimacy as a cultural product, today, however, they are both business and art. Video games increasingly turn to religion not just as ornament but as core elements of their video game design and play. Games involve moral decision, rely on invented religions, and allow users to create and experience virtual religious spaces. As one of the newest forms of entertainment, however, there is often controversy and moral panic when video games engage religion, for instance, in Insomniac Games' use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man. Concepts and elements of contemporary and ancient religions appear in video games in various ways: places of worship are a part of the gameplay of real-time strategy games like Age of Empires; narratively, games sometimes borrow themes from religious traditions like in Mass Effect 2.
Annapurna Games, LLC is an American video game publisher. The company is a division of Annapurna Pictures, and was founded in 2016. Notable games released by the company include Donut County, Kentucky Route Zero, Outer Wilds, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Wattam, What Remains of Edith Finch, Telling Lies, Neon White and Stray.
Pooja Sood is an Indian curator and art management consultant. She is also the founding member and Director of KHOJ International Artist's Association.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York is a visual novel developed and published by Draw Distance. It is based on the tabletop role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, and part of the larger World of Darkness series. It was released in 2019 for Windows, and in 2020 for Linux, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The stand-alone expansion Shadows of New York followed in 2020.
The Nebula Award for Best Game Writing is one of the various Nebula Awards presented each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy game writing, defined as "an interactive or playable story-driven work which conveys narrative, character, or story background". To be eligible for Nebula Award consideration a work must be published in English in the United States. Works published in English elsewhere in the world are also eligible provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. Works in this category have no set word count and must have at least one credited writer. The Nebula Award for Best Game Writing has been awarded annually since 2019. The Nebula Awards have been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards. The Game Writing category is the newest category of the Nebulas, which were originally awarded in 1966 solely for printed fiction. The drive to create the Game Writing category was promoted by then SFWA president Cat Rambo after game writers were made eligible for SFWA membership in 2016. According to a statement by SFWA when the category was announced, it was added to reflect how changes in technology had expanded the media used for science fiction and fantasy storytelling.
Samantha Gorman is an American game developer known for her combination of narrative, theatricality and gaming in VR environments, and for introducing gestural interactions in touchscreen narratives. She has won multiple awards for her work, both in the field of games and in electronic literature and new media writing. Gorman co-founded the computer art and games studio Tender Claws in 2014 and has been an assistant professor at Northeastern University since 2020.
In video games, narrative has been of varying significance and importance since the beginning of the medium. Though early games did not feature stories as a focus, technological advances have afforded developers the freedom to make narrative a major element. Adding story was not typically feasible in the earliest video games due to technological limitations of the time, but technological advances made since then have enabled a greater focus on stories through cutscenes and voiced dialogue.
