A couple of weeks ago, I attended GDC Online in Austin. I was covering the event, but I was also there as a speaker, giving a microtalk as part of a six-critic panel on great game storytelling. Joining me were N'Gai Croal (Hit Detection), Leigh Alexander (Gamasutra), John Davidson (CBS Interactive/Gamespot), and Ben Fritz (the L.A. Times). The talk was organized and led by Chris Dahlen, who is editor-in-chief at Kill Screen Magazine.

We decided early on that we'd each give a small talk dedicated to one thing that we look for in a great video game story (or one thing that we'd love to never see again). The format was the wild card—Chris suggested we try something similar to the Pecha Kucha 20x20 talk, in which each presenter shows 20 slides which play for 20 seconds each. For my talk, I focused on character motivation, so of course I wound up talking about... chickens.

We did a modified version of Pecha Kucha, doing 20 slides apiece and setting them to play for 16 seconds each. Let me tell you: it was a challenge! I've given talks before, but I've always had control over when the slides advance. For this talk, I had to rehearse the hell out of it in order to make things line up the way I wanted them to. It wound up being a great exercise, and I think the approach helped me keep things focused.

I was thrilled to get to give a talk alongside such wonderful critics and writers, and I really enjoyed each talk. John took a loose, conversational look at the various storytelling tricks he values in games. N'Gai took a more technical approach, breaking down the main sorts of game storytelling and explaining them. Leigh's talk was a deep look at building better online characters and quest givers, her slides (humorsly and predictably) covered in text. Ben talked about how most of the games that win awards for writing are the games that feature the most writing, which was something I'd never considered before. Chris closed us out with my favorite of all the talks, in which he discussed mystery, and how only in games can players take an active part in unravelling the story.

At some point, video of the session will be available at the GDC Vault, but in the meantime I wrote to the folks at GDC Online and asked if it would be okay for me to run my microtalk here, and they said yes. So, in this slide show, you'll find my 20 slides. For the full experience, set a timer to ding every sixteen seconds and read the slides out loud to yourself. (Or, you know, just read it normally.)

Thanks to Chris Dahlen for including me, and to Jennifer Steele and everyone at GDC Online for having us! I can't wait to go back next year.