06 April 2017
Off the Page: Literature and Games
It is currently the London Games Festival (30 March – 9 April 2017), which champions and showcases the cultural power of interactive entertainment in the capital. All sorts of exciting events are being held. Last week I attended a Games Culture Summit hosted by the British Council, which discussed the relationship of culture to games, including discussion of developing and supporting creative communities, arts practice and commercial development. I was pleased to hear Jo Summers speak in a session looking at skills for collaborating with cultural institutions, drawing on her experience of running WordPlay at the British Library in November 2016. Jo is also an organiser of Now Play This; an experimental game design showcase, running for the third time at Somerset House in London from 7-9 April, 2017, as part of the London Games Festival.
Not to be left out, here at the British Library we are running a free festival fringe event, Off the Page: Literature and Games, on Saturday 8 April, 13:00 – 16:00 in the Knowledge Centre, exploring the overlap between literature and games. Looking at how the fictional worlds of our favourite novels and plays are represented in games and in return what games bring to the written word? We have invited a range of speakers to discuss this evolving landscape and inspiring projects; including myself talking about the Library's Off the Map competition, which challenged students to create Alice in Wonderland and Shakespearean themed games. The other speakers are:
- Jakub Szamalek , Senior Writer on The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
- Jon Ingold of Inkle and writer of Heaven's Vault, and writer Meg Jayanth, 80 Days
- Jeremy Hogan, Kim based on the Rudyard Kipling novel
- Guy Gadney of To Play For, on adapting John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes and creating online AI thriller The Suspect
- Tom Battey speaking about his Off the Map entry, Midsummer
- Mika Golubovsky, joining us remotely to speak about Arzamas’s Emoji Poetry
- Gary Green, games in libraries and Odyssey Jam
- Darren Edwards, International Games Day @ your library, which for 2017 has become International Games Week!
- Tracey Fullerton, joining us remotely to speak about Walden, a game
- Christie Golden, New York Times bestselling author, joining us remotely to speak about writing novels for game franchises such as World of Warcraft, StarCraft, and Assassin's Creed.
Places are free, but must be booked via: https://off_the_page.eventbrite.co.uk.
Look forward to seeing you there!
This post is by Digital Curator Stella Wisdom, on twitter as @miss_wisdom.