The Art of Storytelling in Games

March 30 2016

How to develop the art of good storytelling in today’s computer games? The diversity of computer games is getting continuously broader: On the one hand, the blockbusters open up new worlds through magnificent special effects. On the other, they tell intimate and personal stories by insinuative, subtle means. Which possibilities do we have ahead for storytelling in games? How do games learn from other media, and what do other media learn from games? To read, see, do – how are the stories influenced by the media’s different properties?

Fritt Ord, Spillpikene and PressFire.no invite the public to a new panel discussion on Wednesday, 30 March.

Programme
From 4.30 p.m.:
We invite the public to an open house, where it will be possible to play a number of storytelling games from The Last of Us and Dishonored, to Gone Home, Firewatch and Her Story. Refreshments will be served.

6.00 p.m.:
Participate in an open discussion with:
- Cara Ellison – former gaming journalist with The Guardian, VICE, Kotaku and Rock, Paper, Shotgun, among others, and author of the book Embed With Games, currently a narrative designer for Dishonored 2
- Dave Mervik – has worked with the LEGO and LittleBigPlanet games, and is currently a narrative designer with the Tarsier Studio for Hunger
- David Skaufjord – director (the sitcom BMI – On Tour), scriptwriter (High Point, with Emil Trier), podcast host, actor, comic strip creator – and gamer

The session will be moderated by Martin Bergesen. The debate will take place in English. Free of charge and open to everyone.

The project Digital Life is being carried out by the Fritt Ord Foundation in collaboration with Spillpikene and PressFire. Visit the website digitaleliv.no to take part in the competition.

The hashtag for the event and the competition is #digitaleliv

News

Eirin Larsen and Hadia Tajik join the Fritt Ord Board

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Eirin Larsen (36) and Hadia Tajik (42) bring valuable experience from journalism, technology, politics and jurisprudence to the Fritt Ord Board.

Making the film «Farouk» – on the geologist that secured Norway its oil

July 1 2025

Geologist Farouk Al-Kasim joined the the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate in 1968, shaping Norwegian petroleum resource management for decades afterwards. Now, documentary film director Halkawt Mustafa and producer Janne Hjeltnes are making a film about Al-Kasim’s life and reflections.
“Farouk tells me something in this film that he has not talked about before, because he has always told the version he feels Norway wanted to hear,” recounts Mustafa, who has Iraqi roots himself.

Read the interview with the director and see the list of grants awarded by Fritt Ord in June 2025.

Bård Vegar Solhjell new chair of the Fritt Ord Board

July 1 2025

Bård Vegar Solhjell (53) has taken over as the new chair of the Fritt Ord Foundation Board.

Cultural newspaper TBATBA.no and new journalism grants – June 2025

June 19 2025

– Cultural journalism is under pressure. Part of the problem is media outlets failing to cover culture in formats and ways that appeal to people under 30, says Ida Madsen Hestman, editor, freelance critic, and founder of TBATBA.no. Last year, she started the kind of publication she herself would want to read.

The magazine TBA is among those awarded funding in June 2025. See the full list of grants in Norsk Journalistikk.