Workshop - Dialogue and Agency in Video Games (23rd January 2026)
Join us to learn about how dialogue creates agency in games
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’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!