Nathan Penlington’s childhood obsession with Choose Your Adventure has led him down a number of exciting paths. He tells the story in his new documentary ‘Choose Your Own Documentary’, debuting at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

Like millions of children in the 1980s I grew up reading Choose Your Own Adventure books. The simple mechanic of choosing where the story would go next, and which page to turn to, redefined storytelling for a whole generation. As readers we became responsible not only for the outcome of the story, but for the journey, and in doing so Choose Your Own Adventure books neatly illustrated that our own lives are a tangle of narrative possibility. That is powerful stuff for an eight year old.

I’ve still got the books I had when I was a kid, and I’ve collected quite a lot more over the years from second hand shops. I loved them – falling through the fifth dimension and meeting the author Edward Packard inside his own book, breaking the rules and finding Ultima the planet of paradise, being trapped in a time-loop with an old man that keeps looming over you – are moments that I vividly remember. I loved them, and I still love them, but I was never even close to owning a complete set. … Read more »

Sophia George from Swallowtail Games has recently been appointed the first ‘Games designer in residence’ at the V&A museum. We sent her some questions about her career, her taste in games, and the groundbreaking new role…

How did you get into games development? 

I always wanted to develop games growing up, so when I moved into higher education I did the Games Art and Design course at Norwich University of the arts. It was there that I found out about the Dare to Be Digital competition which I thought was a great opportunity to learn about game development. After winning Dare I went on to study for a Masters degree in Game Development at the University of Abertay Dundee. I then started my own company with some of my Dare to be Digital team members.

… Read more »