*Update: We’ve updated the list of featured games to note which ones have demos available during LudoNarraCon.
This weekend, the LudoNarraCon digital game convention will celebrate narrative-focused indie games with playable demos, live streams, and an exciting schedule of panels.
Organised by indie publisher Fellow Traveller and hosted on Steam, the event runs from April 25 to 28 AEST / NZST. More than 40 developers and publishers are taking part, offering a look at their games through live streams and behind-the-scenes shows. There’ll be over 20 playable demos, too, including Paradise Killer, Suzerain, Genesis Noir, Over the Alps, Wayward Strand, and Welcome to Elk, while a LudaNarraCon Steam sale sees discounts on a selection of story-rich games.
Over Saturday and Sunday, LudoNarraCon will host 14 panels covering everything from localisation to”essay games”. Panelists include the likes of Brenda Romero, Sam Maggs, Karin Weekes, Rebekah Saltsman, and Christian Divine.
Here’s the full schedule:
Saturday, 25 April
| Panel | AEST | NZST |
| Games: The Transformational Experience | 3am | 5am |
| Creating Emotional Touchstones in Emergent Narratives | 4am | 6am |
| The Evolution of Game Narrative | 5am | 7am |
| Localization & Writing: recreating the worlds together | 6am | 8am |
| Let’s Do the Time Warp Again: how to keep the narrative interesting in a game built on repetition | 7am | 9am |
| Storytelling Without Dialogue | 8am | 10am |
| On Essay Games: the diary, the documentary & the satire | 9am | 11am |
Sunday, 26 April
| Panel | AEST | NZST |
| Emergent Narrative VS Traditional Narrative | 2am | 4am |
| Cultural Dissonance: exploring & learning the unknown for your story | 3am | 5am |
| Holistic Storytelling | 4am | 6am |
| Personal Storytelling in Games | 5am | 7am |
| Narrative Design: the secret sauce of game storytelling | 6am | 8am |
| Storytellig Setbacks and How to Navigate Them | 7am | 9am |
| Developing Branching Narratives | 8am | 10am |
Further information about each panel can be found on the LudoNarraCon website. Even if you’re not able to watch the panels live, they’ll relay on a loop throughout the remainder of the event—so don’t worry too much about waking up at 4am!
And here’s a list of games that will feature during the event:
- An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs
- Backbone (demo available)
- Beholder 2
- Best Friend Forever
- Beyond the Veil
- Boyfriend Dungeon
- Chinatown Detective Agency (demo available)
- Coda
- Coffee Talk (demo available)
- Curious Expedition 2 (demo available)
- Do Not Feed the Monkeys
- Eliza
- Frog Detective 2
- Garden Story (demo available)
- Genesis Noir (demo available)
- Heaven’s Vault (demo available)
- Hypnospace Outlaw
- In Other Waters
- Lost Words: Beyond the Page
- Mutazione
- N1RV Ann-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action
- Neo Cab (demo available)
- Not Tonight
- Nowhere Prophet
- Over the Alps (demo available)
- Paradise Killer (demo available)
- Ring of Fire (demo available)
- Röki (demo available)
- She Dreams Elsewhere (demo available)
- Solace State (demo available)
- Sometimes Always Monsters
- Still There (demo available)
- Sunless Skies
- Suzerain (demo available)
- Tangle Tower (demo available)
- Telling Lies
- The Church in the Darkness
- The Flower Collectors
- Wayward Strand (demo available)
- Welcome to Elk (demo available)
- Wide Ocean, Big Jacket (demo available)
- Yes, Your Grace
Will you be checking out LudaNarraCon? What are you most looking forward to seeing and playing?