For Presenters
Hitpoints & History 2025's theme is Storytelling!
Hitpoints & History is a born-digital conference, unburdened by traditional presentation formats. We’re interested in innovative, novel, and weird ways of sharing information on Storytelling as well! In the past, we’ve featured let’s-plays, traditional powerpoints, collaborative gameplay, and ARGs (don’t feel limited by these formats — these are just suggestions!). Do you have an idea for making use of the digital platform to share information at the intersection of gaming and history? Well, then we’re interested in helping you bring it to life. If you are unsure about whether your idea is possible, reach out!
Typical Types of Presentations at Hitpoints & History
Workshops: Workshops are all about teaching a practical skill. They should have some immersive/hands on aspect to work with. A typical workshop length is one hour.
Lectures: A lecture is a prepared talk that you alone will give to an audience. At Hitpoints and History, a typical lecture length is 15-60 minutes.
Panel / Roundtables: A panel/roundtable discussion is talking to your friends or peers with an audience. Submissions for this type of presentation should include multiple people. A typical panel/roundtable discussion length is 1 hour.
Playthroughs / Let’s Play: A playthrough is playing a game by yourself (or with a teammate you bring), with commentary (historical OR game development). Think twitch — the audience might be able to interact but you should plan on playing the game alone. A typical playthrough length is 1 to 2 hours.
Tabletop sessions: A tabletop session is playing a game with friends! In this you will create a table top game (TTRPG/board game/or other) and allow audience members to self-select to join/play. The average tabletop session is 3 hours.
Do you have something in mind that doesn’t fit one of these categories? Let us know!
Presentation Timing
All sessions are scheduled on 15 minute increments. If you want a Q&A, let us know and that will not be counted as part of your presentation time. If you want to do a longer or shorter time, please reach out and we can talk about alternatives.
Need Ideas?
Here are a few prompts to get you started!
Accuracy vs authenticity: do game developers have a responsibility to portray antiquity in a hyper realistic way or is an original yet authentic representation okay?
Does creator intent matter? Examining narrative, visuals, and gameplay as devices for opening new pathways of reception.
Scripts at Odds with Narrative: how ancient and non-alphabetic scripts are (mis)used in escape rooms
Science as story: narratives of the history of medicine in The Plague Doctor of Wippra
Play-through of the TTRPG Palimpsest: creative historical storytelling as pedagogy
More coming soon!
Public Applications
We’d like to hear from you! If you have something you’d like to present, a topic you’d like to host a panel discussion on, a workshop you’d like to run, a game you’d like to do a play-through for, or a tabletop game you’d like to play through with people at the conference, click on the button below!