Tilting At Windmills: The Quest for Better (Narrative) Quest Design

Audiences read books and comics and watch TV and movies for the story, but often the story in games is seen as secondary, as flavor dressing, or a wrapper to the main dish of gameplay. While we do not argue that gameplay is king in (most) games, the variety of games, experiences, and stories that can be told through the medium has expanded tremendously in the past decades.
In development, narrative is the cheapest way to add retention, it's a key element in helping an IP break out past the traditional bounds of gaming and yet it's frequently relegated to being delivered in the same ways we've delivered narrative for a hundred years.
However, every once in a while you get something great, something truly special: something that ties writing and game design together...and that's what we're going to discuss on this panel: from games drenched in the story like Disco Elysium to ones that elevate the mechanics and make the story something you have to struggle to understand, like Elden Ring, to games where the core game loop of death and rebirth is etched into the narrative, such as Hades.
In this panel, a diverse group of veteran writers and narrative designers will discuss the peak examples of games using everything available to deliver narrative. Discussions will include what lessons we can learn from these games - both indie and AAA - and how we can stretch these techniques even further in the future. We'll follow that up with observations and techniques that we've used in games and finally round out the session with a group of theoretical narrative ideas and structures that we've been toying around with that can only be delivered in games.