Trope Informed News

We're coming to AdventureX 2026!

The Trope Informed Team — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to be returning to this year's line-up at AdventureX 2026. AdventureX is the UK's top narrative-driven gaming convention, which brings together gamemakers passionate about interactive storytelling. We're running a panel on "Fact versus Fiction: Creating historical games for a modern audience".

Games are now one of the main ways people engage with history. How can we balance historical authenticity with demand for diverse and inclusive stories? This panel will discuss how humanities-grounded academic research makes sense of video games, and how this can feed back into video game production. In particular, we will discuss different ways that games can design for diversity while still incorporating research-informed design choices. We hope to inspire AdventureX game makers to explore new ideas and reach new audiences.

The panel includes:

Dr. Esther Wright, Senior Lecturer in Digital History at Cardiff University. Her expertise is in historical video game promotion, and marketing of historical ‘authenticity’ through video games such as Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire, and Fallout. She is co-editor of ‘Writing Game Histories’ (Bloomsbury) and co-convenor of the Historical Games Network and the Cardiff Heritage Jam.
Dr. Holly Nielsen, a researcher of historical play cultures who integrates her research expertise into her games writing, developing and narrative design (e.g. Amberspire, Thousand Hells, Neurocracy and Devolver Tumble Time). She has written on games for The Guardian, PC Gamer, and Rock Paper Shotgun.
Dr. Chris Kempshall, public historian and author who specialises in experiences of warfare and modern media representations of history in video games, particularly the Star Wars franchise.
Dr. Stephanie Rennick, Senior Lecturer in Digital Interactive Media at the University of Stirling, studying the philosophy of pop culture, game studies, metaphysics, and time travel. She is particularly interested in the relationship between realism and possibility in games, and is one of the founders of 'Trope Informed'.

You can find out more about AdventureX here. To get alerts for upcoming events, please subscribe to our mailing list.

Watch our Workshop on Dialogue and Agency in Video Games

The Trope Informed Team — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A video of our workshop on agency and dialogue in games is now available on YouTube.

Interactive dialogue is a key video game mechanic for constructing characters, building game worlds and giving the player a sense of agency. How can we use inspiration from real life conversation to improve player experiences in games?

In this workshop, we share our research on where dialogue goes wrong in games, and reveal some secrets from linguistics about how to fix these issues. We also put our own ideas to the test! We’ve created a game prototype with our own unique mechanics, which we’ve tested with project partners GoTestify: we share some playtesting data and what we’ve learned.

The workshop includes a special guest talk from Matt Gibbs (writer, narrative designer, and editor at Talespinners) on 'Agency and Effective Choices in Games'.

To get alerts for upcoming events, please subscribe to our mailing list.

Watch our AdventureX talk

The Trope Informed Team — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

We had a great time at AdventureX convention in November! In our talk, we covered our findings about gender bias in game dialogue.

A video of our talk is now available on the AdventureX YouTube channel.

Workshop - Dialogue and Agency in Video Games (23rd January 2026)

The Trope Informed Team — Wed, 09 Dec 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Join us to learn about how dialogue creates agency in games

In this workshop, we’ll share our research on where dialogue goes wrong in games, and reveal some secrets from linguistics about how to fix these issues. We’ll also put our own ideas to the test! We’ve created a game prototype with our own unique mechanics, which we’ve tested with project partners GoTestify: we’ll share some playtesting data and what we’ve learned.

Special Guest Talk

Matt Gibbs (writer, narrative designer, and editor at Talespinners) will talk about 'Agency and Effective Choices in Games'.

Are you ...

A game dev looking for new dialogue mechanics?
A writer looking for tips to make your dialogue more engaging?
A games researcher looking for tools and resources to study games?

... then this workshop is for you!

Book your free ticket!

We're coming to AdventureX!

The Trope Informed Team — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

We are delighted to be included in this year's line-up at AdventureX 2025, with a talk entitled "What's going wrong with women's dialogue in video games?".

AdventureX is the UK's narrative-driven gaming convention, which brings together gamemakers passionate about interactive storytelling. A key part of interactive storytelling in many games is dialogue, and we'll be drawing on our research on gender bias, women's attitudes to gaming and forthcoming work to highlight pervasive and surprising patterns in character dialogue in video games.

In our talk, we will provide hard data on gender biases, including how much characters say, who they speak to, what they say, and what they use language to do. For example, twice as much dialogue is given to men compared to women, and even games with women as protagonists rarely give more than half the dialogue to women. We'll identify opportunities for gamemakers to create more inclusive experiences, and talk about the progress that has been made so far.

You can buy tickets for AdventureX until the end of the 19th November. To get alerts for upcoming events, please subscribe to our mailing list.