2023 sure was a year. I wanted to reflect on the projects and events I was involved in this year, to remind myself how hard I worked. Even just writing that sentence feels like showing off, and it is I guess, but it’s also true. And there’s catharsis in rituals.
January
- As part of the 2023 IGGI Jam, I worked with a team to make a visual novel in 48 hours called Agony Haunt.
- From January 20th-25th, in collaboration with my supervisor Mike Cook, I conducted a player study on the generative archaeology game Nothing Beside Remains as part of my PhD research. I even wrote a post-mortem blog post about the experience.
February
- In February I visited Australia for the first time to take part in the inaugural Hunt-Simes Institute in Sexuality Studies summer school at the University of Sydney (via Perth, where I visited an old friend). It was an incredible experience that definitely shouldn’t be summarised in a single bullet point.
March
- From October 2022-March 2023 I was also doing a part-time placement at the British Library on curating contextual information for interactive narrative apps. There’s a report on the two case studies I looked at, 80 Days and The Cartographer’s Confession.
April
- I presented a paper “Archives (Not) Of Our Own: Procedurally Generating Object Biographies” at the CAA conference in Amsterdam, which was shortlisted for the Nick Ryan Bursary.
- The preliminary results of the player study we conducted were published in a paper, “‘That Darned Sandstorm’: A Study of Procedural Generation through Archaeological Storytelling,” presented as part of the PCG workshop at the FDG conference in Lisbon (sadly I couldn’t attend in person because I had covid!).
- My review of Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics by Jacob Gaboury was published in Press Start.
May
- The team and I who worked on Agony Haunt (Amy Smith, Sahar Mirhadi, Callum Deery and Sunny Thaicharoen) presented “Using the Tools of the Present to Explore the Past through Digital Interactive Narrative Design” at VALUE’s Interactive Pasts Conference. I also chaired a panel “The Use of Archives and Archiving Development” with Chella Ramanan, Jennifer Schneidereit & Gregorios Kythreotis (and it was my birthday!)
June
- In June the British Library’s Digital Storytelling exhibition opened (here’s a lovely review of it in the Guardian by Holly Nielsen). The Library commissioned me to create three playthrough videos for it!
July
- Giulia Carla Rossi and I presented “Creation as Curation: Experimental Collection of Contextual Information for Mobile Apps at the British Library” at the MIX conference.
- I was invited to the inaugural Roleplay Research Retreat in Obidos.
August
- I started some freelance work on a game prototype that I can’t talk about yet, but it’s a really exciting project!
- I did a talk “What Remains To Be Said” as part of the British Library Interactive Fiction Summer School, on my research and creative practise.
- I also dressed up as a moogle. That seems important.
September
- The Agony Haunt team and I once again presented our work, this time at the IGGI conference.
- I also did a lot of grounded theory analysis on the player study we did earlier in the year-we’re planning to publish the full results in 2024.
October
- Saltsea Chronicles was released! I worked on it part-time until June this year, and I’m very proud to be credited for Story Tech, writing and worldbuilding.
- I presented “Another Stupid Date: Love Island as a Roguelike” at the Roguelike Celebration conference (and my talk was even mentioned in Polygon!)
- Nothing Beside Remains was part of the Machine Mythologies Late at the Science Gallery London.
November
- I took part in the Corvus Applied History Workshop on Weaponised History, talking about weaponised history in video games, at the University Foundation Brussels.
- My supervisor and I worked on an academic paper that I can’t talk about yet, but which is probably the work I’m most proud of to date.
December
- LA! Hollywood! The Game Awards!
The ritual is complete.
Florence Smith Nicholls 