Game Launch & Panel Discussion Playing Kafka

100 Years of Kafka

Join us as we launch the digital game "Playing Kafka" in India. Developed by Charles Games, the game immerses players in Kafka’s enigmatic world through interactive puzzles and dialogues. The launch will be followed by a panel discussion on transforming classic literature into digital experiences.
 

Programme

18:30 - 19:15 | Game Launch

• Introduction of the digital game "Playing Kafka"
• Online input from game developers, Charles Games

19:15 - 20:30 | Panel Discussion
Kafkaesque Worlds: Gaming and Literature – Exploring Digital Possibilities for Literary Fiction

20:30 | Reception

About the Game

"Playing Kafka" lets players step into Kafka's mysterious world, combining literary themes with interactive gameplay. Hear from the game developers online about their creative process and the challenges of adapting Kafka’s work into a digital format.

Bring your smartphones and embark on a Kafkaesque adventure!

The Panel Discussion

"It's always questionable to intervene decisively in strange circumstances." - Franz Kafka

Taking heed of this quote from Kafka’s story “In the Penal Colony,” the panel will thoughtfully explore whether conventional literary forms can effectively interlope with current digital technologies. If so, then how can fiction faithfully lend itself to immersive formats, creating digital experiences? Inspired by Kafka’s own recurring themes and fascinations but also games, which are sometimes referred to as “interactive digital narratives,” the panel will rove through specific examples of classic works adapted into interactive experiences, discuss how these digital pathways could reshape writing and storytelling for times to come, and grapple with the visionary promise of merging words with code for a new digital literature.

Panelists

© Divya Tak Divya Tak
Divya is a creative generalist who works on everything from products, games, comics and illustrations to vfx projects, podcasts and more. These days she is building her creative strategy studio Joyus and working on multiple narrative games with her sister. She also runs AI for creatives community out of Bangalore.

© Dr Souvik Mukherjee Dr. Souvik Mukherjee,
Dr. Mukherjeem assistant professor in Cultural Studies at CSSSC, Calcutta, researches videogames as storytelling media, covering topics like postcolonialism and identity. A pioneering scholar in Game Studies, he authored three monographs and is a DiGRA Distinguished Scholar and HEVGA fellow.

© Rosy Singh Dr. Rosy Singh
Dr. Singh is professor of German Literature at the Centre of German Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She wrote her PhD on Kafka in 1996. Since then Kafka has continued to be the focus of her work.

Moderator

© Zahra Rizvi Zahra Rizvi is a PhD. scholar at the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, India. Her research looks at gamified dystopias, youth activism and decolonial game studies. She is the co-founder and Executive Board member of DiGRA India. She was recently Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellow (2022-2023) at Film and Media Studies, Yale University, and Ministry of Education-SPARC Fellow (2020) in Digital Humanities at Michigan State University. Her latest publications include Globalization and Planetary Ethics: New Terrains of Consciousness(2023) and Globalization and Sense-making Practices: Phenomenologies of the Global, Local and Glocal (2023) (co-edited with Simi Malhotra and Shraddha A. Singh). She has delivered lectures at Yale University, Michigan State University, University of Toronto, Jamia Millia Islamia, and University of Delhi. Her work has been published in several online and print journals.

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