Multimodal Memory in Game and Virtual Reality Storytelling

A public keynote address given on 15 December 2022 as part of the On the Margins Conference. 

For video game writers and narrative designers, negotiating tensions between storytelling and gameplay remain enduring challenges. Drawing on his own creative practice in the contemporary games industry, game writer and narrative designer Dr Colin Harvey explores how an understanding of multi-modal memory and its operation might provide the basis for an experiential understanding of narrative that functions as both an analytical and creative tool.

Dr Colin Harvey is a game writer and narrative designer. He co-wrote and was Senior Narrative Designer on Blood and Truth (Sony 2019), a Virtual Reality thriller starring Colin Salmon, Natasha Little and Felix Scott. He has previously worked on the Sniper Elite franchise for Rebellion as well as writing licensed tie-in material for Big Finish's official Doctor Who and Highlander ranges, short fiction for Black Library's Warhammer - Age of Sigmar, and comic stories for 2000AD and Commando. He is also the author of Fantastic Transmedia (Palgrave 2015), an academic monograph exploring transmedia storytelling in relation to large and small-scale science fiction and fantasy franchises using ideas of memory, affect and play, and has taught digital narrative, game cultures and transmedia storytelling at institutions including King's College London, London South Bank University and Bournemouth University.

Dr Harvey is currently Principal Writer with Saber Interactive Spain and a Visiting Professor with Manchester Metropolitan's School of Digital Arts (SODA). In March 2022 he wrote and presented the documentary 'The Origins of the Metaverse' for BBC Radio Four's Archive on 4 slot. Dr Harvey is currently writing The Hero Never Dies - Storytelling in the Digital Age for Unbound Books, a crowd-funded project which you can contribute to here: https://unbound.com/books/the-hero-never-dies/