Narrative Design Awards 2025 Shield and Laurels.

Hosted by Sight, developer and director of the upcoming ttrpg Guild66.

Winners from this Jam will be awarded with a certificate and the shield and laurels to adorn their shop pages, wherever they choose!

This Year's Theme:

TBA

The Criteria:

Your entry will be judged on how the elements of your game support the story. Look at how your game's mechanical elements support the narrative, and consider how a character's growth enhances the over-arcing plot. Don't forget to consider your game's environment, and what it tells the player about the plot. Judges will consider the following:

• Story Narrative The story of your game, it's main plot.
• Environment Narrative The setting of the game.
• Mechanical Narrative How do the game mechanics work within your story.
• Character Development The journey your characters go through; what they're like at the beginning versus what they're like at the end.
• Narrative Flow Does your story flow nicely? Or does it feel choppy?
• Unpredictability vs Expectation Is there a balance between giving the audience what they expect (does it fit your genre for example) and have you given your audience twists and turns?
• Any alternative criteria a judge feels is relevant to specific entries.

How to Vote:

The Judges have the final say when it comes to winners, but that doesn't mean you don't get any input. Vote with your words! Interact with the content you like, interact on their submission page and in the community forum, express all the things you like about other people's work! Experience what they have created and tell us why you love it!

The Judges:

Sight has been in the world of production for many years, and has worked on a wide variety of projects, from feature length productions to animated infomercials. They have credits as an editor, videographer, host, writer, director and actor. They hold a masters in VFX and have developed multiple long-form literature pieces.

Emily Richardson graduated Oriel College, Oxford University with a degree in French and Linguistics, and has gone on to earn a masters degree in Applied Linguistics. Having studied various pieces of literature from around the world throughout the ages, she has gone on to produce multiple critical papers regarding literature and narrative portrayal. 

The Rules

• No Adult themes or content, try to keep submissions as PG as possible.
• Respect the rules of itch.io and do not submit banned or prohibited content.
• Submissions of games made prior to this jam are accepted, but games created during the jam will take priority during judging. This does not mean games made prior will not be considered. For example, in the event of a tie or distinction of marking, the game made during the jam will take priority.
• Harassment and offensive language of other people and/or their submissions will not be tolerated, and will result in warnings and bans depending on the severity of the events.
• Due to the quantity of submissions, feedback is not guaranteed. Though every effort will be taken to provide feedback on every entry possible.
• If a paid entry is submitted, a free version or alternative way to access the content will need to be provided either directly to a judge account or on the submissions page. All entries can only be judged based on the level of access provided. In the event that a free-to-download/free-to-play version is not submitted, the submission cannot be judged.
• You can enter any game format, and we accept submissions with a focus on Linear Narrative, Non-Linear Narrative, Quest Narrative and/or Viewpoint Narrative.
• Keep this a positive space!

AI Generated Content

• AIArt is prohibited. There is a wealth of free and paid content available to creators, check the Discord for help finding resources.
  
• This is a narrative competition, your writing must be your own. AI story/plot/narrative generation is prohibited
  
• AI generation to quickly generate or check scripting/coding is permitted.
• Autorigging software or online platforms for 3D or 2D assets is permitted.

Due to popular demand, I'm super pleased to announce we have a discord server!
Join us here, let's go!
https://discord.gg/umdy8hqQ5R
Follow Sight
https://bsky.app/profile/guild66.bsky.social