Wordplay, a free video game festival featuring “the most interesting uses of writing and words in contemporary games,” is coming to the Toronto Reference Library on Nov. 16.

Hosted by game-arts organization the Hand Eye Society, the festival will showcase “writerly” games with demos, panel discussions, game premieres, and a workshop.

Festival director and Hand Eye Society board member Jim Munroe talked to Q&Q about what makes these video games so distinct.

What exactly makes a video game “writerly?” It’s our term for a game that has writing as a key component and generally has words on the screen, as opposed to, say, being voice acted.

Who is making and playing these games? There’s a varied community of people making them: people who grew up with text adventure games in the 1980s (when text-only games were bestsellers) and who remember the particular pleasure of a game presented entirely in prose; writers who want to explore a less linear format than is offered in traditional fiction; and artists who like the ability to work in the medium and experiment. Recently, it has been a space that welcomes a lot of queer, trans, and other marginalized authors.

The audience is a niche one. It encourages a very participatory culture, where often people who play and like these games decide to try their hand at it.

How popular are the games? They are rarely commercial and often distributed for free. But recent years have seen a fair amount of discussion about them, especially in indie circles where an unusual voice or radical experiment is valued. They often influence and inspire more mainstream commercial game designers and impact the culture that way, though audiences of mainstream games often wouldn’t play them.

What does it mean that these games “explore a broader range of human experience than most think possible?” Games can be escapist, just like every other medium. But we are seeing a diversification of the types of human experiences usually found in games, and this is surprising to many people. The mainstream impression of games is dominated by franchises like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. We want people to know about the games that are doing unexpected things.

What do you see for the future? It’s hard to say. It’s a form that continues to exist despite a lack of commercial interest, because it does something particularly well. Much like poetry, it’s a niche and not commercially lucrative, but it continues to inspire people creatively.

This interview has been edited and condensed.