In the last few years, indie studio Inkle has been making increasingly complex narrative games like 80 Days that are built on a foundation of choice-based interactive text.

At GDC 2015, Inkle co-founder Jon Ingold explained how the outfit's design strategies evolved across the course of three games, with examples focused on how they make choices that matter, how they pace and coerce their narratives, and how Inkle integrates words into wider game design.

On a more practical note, Ingold also shared examples of how Inkle optimized its in-house scripting language to facilitate the rapid creation of large quantities of highly-contextual, high-quality text, and how it handles consistency and story logic in a massively-branching environment.

It was a very thorough talk on what it takes to successfully create interactive fiction games, and if you missed it in person you can now watch it for free over on the GDC Vault.

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

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