LudoNarraCon is Back - Come and Play our Demo! April 23-26

Hi, it’s Goldie, from Ghost Pattern!

#LudoNarraCon is nearly here for another year, and we are very pleased to announce that we’re once again going to be taking part. It’s happening April 23rd-26th!

We’ll have a bunch of different streams during the festival which I will outline below, and of course…

OUR DEMO WILL BE LIVE!!!

You can get it between April 23rd and 26th!

Last year, we had such a great time learning about all of the other games involved, and watching their amazing videos, and this year should be no different - there are some extremely cool games in the mix this year and I am sure you’re just as excited as we are to jump into their demos and see all of the juicy, juicy content the teams will be making.

Narrative games are really coming so far now - from games like Gone Home and Dear Esther through to the things we’re seeing at this year’s LudoNarraCon. Games like: She Dreams Elsewhere, Venice 2089, A Space for the Unbound, No Longer Home, Minute of Islands, Svoboda 1945: Liberation, Mind Scanners

... And, so many more…

Like Wayward Strand, these games do a good job of exploring sensitive and dark topics, usually under bright and welcoming design. It kinda reminds me of those pasta sauces with hidden veggies - these dark and sensitive themes are good for us to talk about and explore, and they also help to enrich our experience and understanding of this thing called life. Not all of them hide it though! Some of the games I’ve just mentioned are clearly covering some great real histories and themes. Games are the coolest and we’re so happy to be developing when there are so many other awesome things being made at the same time as Wayward Strand.

Lots of the games at LudoNarraCon are stretching the tech behind these narrative games to new places and spaces, too. I’m particularly excited to check out fellow Aussie game, Unpacking, as well as Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Do Not Buy This Game, Song of Farca and again on the awesome tech front, Svoboda 1945: Liberation.

There are just too many incredible games at LudoNarraCon to mention in this post, but I did also want to point you towards these for their outstanding art and themes: The Longest Road on Earth (which has no dialogue or text at all! Beautiful!) and my personally most anticipated game at LudoNarraCon, Lake.

There are quite a few games which are already released here too, you should absolutely check out the astonishingly excellent Umurangi Generation, as well as Disco Elysium - The Final Cut, Pendragon by the fantastic team at Inkle, and NUTS, which was animated by Kalonica Quigley, who’s also made so many of our wonderful animations!

FINALLY I want to shout out to Later Daters, because we are dev friends, and because we are both making games which include many older characters and themes about them!

And now, here’s our Schedule for LudoNarraCon:

Stream 1: Down Under Brekkie! / Ghost Pattern Q&A 07:30 AEST Saturday April 24th / 14:30 PDT Friday April 23th Join the team behind Wayward Strand bright and early for breakfast. They'll be chatting all things Wayward Strand, LudoNarraCon and answering some Q&A live. Hop along to the Fellow Traveller Discord to join in, assuming they've all woken up, cause it’s at 7:30am Aussie time!

Stream 2: Narrative and Set Design: Painting Props with Goldie. 12:00 AEST Saturday April 24th / 19:00 PDT Friday April 23rd Set design and dressing is a key part of the narrative experience. Join art director Goldie as she updates and creates new textures for some of the lovely props in Wayward Strand, and talks about the various influences on our gentle, ‘ligne claire’ art style.

Stream 3: Music & Narrative 12:00 AEST Sunday April 25th / 19:00 PDT Saturday April 24th Maize will noodle about in their home recording studio, making new music for Wayward Strand. This stream will uncover Maize’s process of composing works on the guitar, through to the next steps towards a finished track. They’ll also be chatting about all things music and narrative!

Stream 4: #WS_Research: A Deep Dive into the Wayward Strand Slack’s Research Channel. 12:00 AEST Monday April 26th / 19:00 PDT Sunday April 25th Our research channel on Slack dates all the way back to 2016 and is chock-a-block with interesting tidbits and influences on the game. Join the Ghost Pattern team as they do some real-time project archeology! Light spoiler warning, even we don’t know what we’re going to find in there. If you’re fascinated by the little things which make a big impact, this stream is for you.

You can keep up to date with us over on Twitter most easily, And don't forget to add us to your Wishlist! We're excited to share lots more updates this year - sooo much has been happening!

Lots of love, have a great week! Goldie & the Ghost Pattern team.