Interactive Fiction Writer

The University of York is looking to appoint a freelance interactive fiction writer to design and write for our game “TeachQuest” which is designed to raise awareness about teaching as a career and increase recruitment onto teacher training courses of undergraduate science and technology, engineering and maths (STEM) students. 

The project aims to create an engaging 15-minute interactive fiction type game which engages STEM students in the challenges and rewards of teaching. We currently have an early prototype of the game (which can be viewed here: https://share.proto.io/JY2C8E/) in which players play the part of a teacher who encounters a range of teaching situations which involve interacting with pupils and staff. Your role will be to work with our game designer, illustrator, programmer and teaching experts to: 

● Develop the situations and decisions we already have into an engaging story ● Work with our game designer and teaching experts to create new decisions and situations for the game 

● Edit and rewrite the text to make it more engaging and involving 

● Develop and refine the interactive elements and structure of the game 

● Respond to evaluation feedback (we plan two additional rounds of formative evaluation testing on the game). 

We aim for the game to take around 15 minutes to play during which the player will have seen most of the situations. We would like the game to have some replay value but the player should be able to see a substantial amount of the content in the first play through. 

We envisage that the game will have around 100 “decision cards”, each of which has 50-80 words of text and a decision point which requires a decision from the player. The game uses an “Ink” style interactive text engine and you can either edit the text files directly or send your text and designs to the development team who will enter them. We are happy for you to work remotely and attend meetings via Zoom but we would prefer you to be based in the UK. 

July Appoint writer 

August Writer reads and understand existing prototype. Discusses with game designer and teaching experts on rationale behind existing situations and game design. 

Writer delivers proposed story overview, writing style and voice and possibly changes to interaction. Create examples for discussion with the team. It may be possible to incorporate some of these revisions into the first protype delivery. 

August We will have a 1st prototype evaluated during August. 

Writer works with the team to agree changes to the narrative, game and interaction design in response to your previous proposals and the evaluation findings. 

September Writer delivers revised text and interaction design to programmer ready for 2nd prototype 

October Completion and evaluation of 2nd prototype

Writer amends text and interaction in response to 2nd evaluation. Deliver to programmer in time for final game version 

Final game finished 

£8000 (inc VAT) to be paid in three stages 

£2500 first deliverable of proposed, story voice and interaction changes 

£3000 text and interaction for 2nd prototype 

£2500 amended text and interaction for final game version. 

Send us details about yourself including: 

● Contact details and address 

● Previous relevant experience 

● Examples of your work 

Please send these to Sophie Thompson-Lee (sophie.thompson-lee@york.ac.uk) by July 7th. We may then ask to meet with you via Zoom sometime in the week commencing July 17th. If you are successful in your application we will look to appoint you straight away and get started in August. 

Please address any questions about the project to sophie.thompson-lee@york.ac.uk