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Latest Episodes:

Brendon Chung & Laura Michet May 27, 2025

Hello hello! We're back with returning guests Brendon Chung (founder of Blendo Games and creator of such games as Gravity Bone, Flotilla, Atom Zombie Smasher, Thirty Flights of Loving, Quadrilateral Cowboy, and the recently released Skin Deep) and Laura Michet (writer and editor who's worked on such games as Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Frog Fractions 2, Swan Hill, You Got This, Brutadon!, The Brigand’s Story, and more. She was a Principal Writer and Editor at Riot Games, was the Narrative Director on Skin Deep, and is currently a Narrative Director at Heart Machine) to talk about the recently-released Skin Deep as well as Brendon working with VO for the first time, the goals that came out of deciding Skin Deep would be a comedy game, earnestness in storytelling, making a comedy game with multiple writers, documentation, their process working together as a married couple, the narrative challenges of working on a sim game, what they think makes a good game opening, advice for people wanting to get better at writing dialogue, their processes for writing down ideas, how they power through blocks, what they’re playing and watching these days that gets them excited, how they toe the line between creative expression and making a living, explaining and over-explaining things, how do they not overwrite outlines while providing openings for design, deranged subreddits, and a whole lot more!

Our Guests

Brendon Chung and Laura Michet would love it if you played Skin Deep and left a review on Steam!

Stuff We Talked About

Splinter Cell: Conviction

Our theme music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita

The GDC 2025 Grab Bag Episode Apr 07, 2025

We return with another grab bag episode for GDC 2025! Like last year, we brought a bunch of simple questions to ask folks, and in these three groups you get to hear how their answers differed. In our first group we had Chase Dodge (NYU student), Ruari Root (NYU student), Calliope Ryder (prev Lead Producer on Tales of the Shire at Weta Workshop), Chandana Ekanayake (Co-Founder and Creative Director of Outerloop Games), Hudson Janow (NYU student, Gay Gaming Professionals scholar), Apollo Umbra (Northwestern student, Gay Gaming Professionals scholar). Our second group had Lis Moberly (Lead Game Designer at Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Games), Vincent Perea (Senior Art Director at Disney Experiences), Lola Shiraishi (Co-Founder of Stellium Studios), and Meghan Thornton (Story Manger at Insomniac Games). And our last group had Emma Kidwell (Writer at Firaxis Games), Natalie Checo (PR Consultant at Future Friends Games, Journalist, and Game Writer/Editor), Sam Low (Global Communications Exec at Neon Noroshi, and SEA Brand Development Manager for Critical Reflex), Nessa Cannon (Game Writer and Narrative Designer), and Bria Davis (Community Director at Young Horses)

Topics included: favorite people they’ve worked with, hobbies that have paid off the most in their work, underrated game faves, ideas and mechanics that they are keen to put in their next games, what to do when you’re feeling drained and in need of inspiration, most recent games they’ve been playing, someone in the industry who did something nice for them, games they keep returning to, if they could force developers to do one thing what would it be, times they’ve messed up and what they learned from it, game character crushes, something they do as their process that saves time, what they would have on their ideal writing/narrative design test, how they creatively rejuvenate themselves, and more!

Our Guests

Group 1: Chase Dodge, Ruari Root, Calliope Ryder, Chandana Ekanayake, Hudson Janow, Apollo Umbra

Group 2: Lis Moberly, Vincent Perea, Lola Shiraishi, Meghan Thornton

Group 3: Emma Kidwell, Nessa Cannon, Natalie Checo, Sam Low, Bria Davis

Stuff We Talked About

Return of the Obra Dinn

Our theme music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Adam Dolin & Jolie Menzel Feb 03, 2025

It’s been an embarrassingly long time but we are BACK! Again!!! And this time we’ve brought returning guests Adam Dolin and Jolie Menzel to discuss breaking in, how they define narrative design, the differences between creative directors who come from narrative versus other displiclines, the three c’s, can game writers exist without knowing narrative design, favorite narrative tools, what makes a good opening to a game, tutorials, letting players have choices where the results lead to them missing lots of content, bad habits they’ve noticed in younger writers/narrative designers, the future of the industry, pieces of media they go back to get reinvigorate/inspired, the themes they’re always writing into their stories, stuff they’re always editing out of their writing, how to write good dialogue, and maybe one or two other things. It’s great!

Our Guests on the Internet

Jolie's Linkedin. Adam's Linkedin and BlueSky, and his ELVTR class starts in April!

Stuff We Discussed

Larian Cinematics: A Top-Down Look at Our Bottom-Up Approach in 'Baldur's Gate 3'

Jolie's 3C's of Game Design Presentation

Twine

Visual Studio Code

Highland 2 (FYI looks like a Highland 3 launch is imminent)

Ink

YarnSpinner

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast

The Callisto Protocol

God of War (2018)

Detroit: Become Human

The Darkness 2

Another Crab’s Treasure

The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist by Brandon Keogh

Sonic Adventure 2

Hank confronts Walter in Breaking Bad

Barry

The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr

Burn Notice

Clerks

Dogma

Nick's Dialogue Playlist

Game Narrative Summit: Building Rome in a Day: A Sociological Storytelling Primer

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Futurama Commentaries

Tetris Forever

Listen To a Movie

Script Lock BlueSky

Our Theme Music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita. The vampire sucking noise was created by Robinhood76.

Jaclyn Seto & Christal Rose Hazelton Jun 20, 2024

Moving on from our GDC episodes, we're back with Jaclyn (Writer at Respawn Entertainment on Apex Legends, instructor & student mentor at Vancouver Film School. Previously a Writer on RPG Puzzle Legends and Merge Tales for Microfun) and Christal Rose (previously a Writer at Respawn Entertainment on Apex Legends and an Associate Writer on Hogwarts Legacy at Avalanche)! Together we discuss writing fanfiction, doing work you’re proud of without getting too attached, finding a way into a character, being funny on demand, self-imposed rules, whether their writing styles have changed over the years, writing with constraints, worldbuilding pet peeves, most overused words, what practice would they standardize across the industry, and common themes in their writing.

Our Guests on the Internet

Jaclyn's Twitter, Website, and Lore Trailer for Alter.

Christal Rose's Twitter, Website, and Lore Trailer for Conduit.

Stuff We Talked About

Jaclyn and Christal Rose's GDC talk: Creating Diverse Characters: Writing What you Know and Don't

The Gasoline Baby NPC Convo in Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

The GDC 2024 Grab Bag Episode May 06, 2024

Hey hey! We're back with our second episode that we recorded at this year's GDC, and it's a doozy! In a switch from how we normally do things, we brought a grab bag of simple questions to the conference and hit up people who were free, and so y'all get to see how everyone's answers differed. In our first group, we had Ben Starr (actor, Final Fantasy XVI), Alexa Ray Corriea (senior writer at Cliffhanger Games on Black Panther), Kait Tremblay (narrative director at Soft Rains), and Kelsey Beachum (writer / narrative designer). In our second group (starting at 35:21) we had Adam Dolin (writer), Kate Dollarhyde (senior narrative designer at Obsidian Entertainment), and Kelsie Mhoon (senior narrative designer at Obsidian Entertainment on The Outer Worlds 2). Our third group (starting at 1:19:39) had Emma Kidwell (writer at Firaxis), Nessa Cannon (game writer), and Calliope Ryder (lead producer Weta Workshop on Tales of the Shire). And we closed things out (at 1:47:33) with Chandana Ekanayake (co-founder / creative director of Outerloop Games, and director of Thirsty Suitors). Topics include: hobbies that aren't related to game development, current game of the year, favorite villains / antagonists, a time you messed up and what you learned from it, how you stay positive, games you keep returning to, favorite choice you've ever made in a game, people in this industry who did something nice for you, favorite NPCs, games you're always referencing that nobody else has ever heard of, games that made you think differently about something, first game you played where the story really affected you, what you'd force devs to change during production, games you wish you'd gotten to work on, how to get team members to read documentation, something in your process that saves a ton of time, advice for people wanting to get into game narrative, and so SO much more it's kinda insane!!!

Our Guests on the Internet

Group 1: Ben Starr, Alexa Ray Corriea, Kait Tremblay, Kelsey Beachum

Group 2: Adam Dolin, Kate Dollarhyde (wants you to play Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire), Kelsie Mhoon (wants you to play Jak 2)

Group 3: Emma Kidwell (wants you to play Hindsight and Midnight Suns), Nessa Cannon (wants you to wishlist Star Trucker), Calliope Ryder (wants you to wishlist Tales of the Shire)

Group 4: Chandana Ekanayake (wants you to play Thirsty Suitors)

Stuff We Talked About

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Pyre Original Soundtrack

Lonely Rolling Star - Katamari Damacy

Aquatic Ambiance - Donkey Kong Country

Liberi Fatali - Final Fantasy VIII

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 credits

Anna Megill's Game Writing Guides

Adam's LLVTR game writing class is no longer being offered otherwise we'd link it :'[

Packing Up the Rest of Your Stuff on the Last Day at Your Old Apartment

Our theme music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland & Sarah Elmaleh Apr 03, 2024

Coming to you NOT LIVE from GDC, we've got a special episode of the podcast covering SAG-AFTRA's negotiations with game studios! Duncan Crabtree-Ireland (National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator for SAG-AFTRA) and Sarah Elmaleh (Chair of the SAG-AFTRA Interactive Media (IMA) Negotiating Committee, as well as actor in titles like Helldivers 2, Hi-Fi Rush, Halo Infinite, Gears 5, Afterparty, and Gone Home, and VO Director for titles like Goodbye Volcano High, The Wreck, and Fortnite) join us to discuss the overall situation as regards to the potential strike, the issue of Artificial Intelligence, studios trying to exempt certain types of performances from AI protections, dealing with the convenience bargaining group (aka the studios), their experiences at GDC, the ways devs can support SAG's members, if there's been anything they learned at the conference this week that surprised them, how people can get more involved in organizing, whether the negotiations for this year are different than the ones for last year, next steps, how they keep themselves relaxed during these stressful times, and much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Duncan on Twitter

Sarah on Twitter, and you should listen to Eggplant: The Secret Lives of Games Podcast

Stuff We Talked About

SAG-AFTRA 2024 Tiered Budget Independent Interactive Media Agreement

Our theme music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Stephen Rhodes & Danny Homan Feb 21, 2024

First ep of 2024! We've got Stephen (scriptwriter and narrative designer, currently Narrative Director on Motive's untitled Iron Man project in collaboration with Marvel Games. Previously a Senior Writer on Vampyr and Greedfall, Associate Narrative Director/Lead Narrative Designer on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, Lead Narrative Designer/Senior Story Designer on Call of Duty: Vanguard, Lead Scriptwriter on Immortals Fenyx Rising, Senior Scriptwriter on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and more) and Danny (lead writer at Respawn Entertainment where he’s worked on Star Wars: Jedi Survivor. Previously a lead writer on Borderlands 3, its dlc, and Borderlands 2, as well as Battleborn and one of its story operation DLCs. He was also a narrative design consultant for Eko, a story consultant for Unbound Creations, lead writer for Ansimuz Games’ Elliot Quest, and writer for My Evil Twin Gaming Corp, Trendy Entertainment, and TRU Darknet) in to talk about the UT Denius-Sams Gaming Academy, accountability in writing, having the spine of the story figured out in pre-production, communicating changes that affect other departments, being custodians of story, soft skills, unlearning bad habits, getting better at pitching, building teams, their most used words, staying open to new ideas without losing sight of the vision, taking and prioritizing feedback, and letting go of your projects after they’re released.

Our Guests on the Internet

Stephen's Twitter.

Danny's Website and Substack.

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

This episode was brought to you by Backlight Gem. If you're a narrative designer or writer in the world of video games, Gem is a powerful tool that empowers you to bring your stories to life by streamlining the narrative design process from ideation to release. Learn more at https://bit.ly/Gem-Script-Lock

Alexa Ray Corriea & Ben Starr Dec 18, 2023

Happy Holidays! We're closing out this year with the absolutely amazing Alexa Ray Corriea (Writer and narrative designer currently working on Black Panther in partnership with Marvel Games and EA, serving as both a writer and systems designer. Previously she worked on Aztech: Forgotten Cods, Call of Duty: Vanguard and the Call of Duty: Warzone Pafcific live service game, Bugsnax, and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. She’s also currently writing a book about the Kingdom Hearts series under Limited Run Games’ Press Run publishing division) and Ben Starr (Actor who has appeared in such games as Final Fantasy XVI as Clive Rosfield, Arknights as Sharp, Warframe: 1999 as Arthur, and has acted in shows like You, Trying, Jamestown, Dickensian and more), and they join us to discuss their favorite game performances growing up, working in games being like the wild west, being kind in this industry, looking at the jobs you don’t get/obstacles you face in another light, skills that are unique to games, banned words in scripts, being given the opportunity to add your ingredients to projects, the themes and kinds of stories that Alexa keeps returning to in her writing, the way games portray intimacy, IP white whales, stuff they do for their storytelling to help develop it, how they stay open-minded to unexpected ideas without losing shape of their visions, and a tonnnnnnnnnn more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Alexa's Twitter, and check out Black Panther

Ben's Twitter, and check out Warframe: 1999

Stuff We Talked About

Final Fantasy XVI

Die-Hardman's Confession from Death Stranding

Ben's official audition to play Mario

A Thorough Look at Mass Effect by Noah Caldwell-Gervais

Chained Echoes

Kingdom Hearts

The Worst Person in the World

Mass Effect 2

Legacy of Kain

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

People, Places and Things

Luthen Rael's Monologue from Andor

Severance

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Ally Hennessy & Natalie Watson Oct 30, 2023

We've got Ally (producer at The Voxel Agents, game director at Lemonade Games on Mystiques, Production Director at League of Geeks on Solium Infernum and the recent Jumplight Odyssey. Previously was a senior producer and development manager at Mighty Kingdom, expert product manager at Wargaming, and gamerunner on Rumu at Robot House) and Natalie (producer at Half Mermaid, most recently on Immortality. Previously a producer, host, and writer at Vice's Waypoint, a Content and Experience Manager at Play By We, and currently can be heard on the Star Wars podcast "A More Civilized Age") in to talk all things PRODUCTION, including how the definition of a producer is different at every studio, the Triple Diamond technique, transcendental meditation, productivity software, best practices for outlining/facilitating interactive narratives, producing Immortality, the organizing monster, documentation and getting people to read it, the most useful soft skills, setting expectations with teams on a producer’s role, what they would tell their starting-out-self based on what they know now, how much of what they produce includes a part of themselves, and skittles.

Our Guests on the Internet

For Ally: Mystiques, and Solium Infernum

For Natalie: Her Twitter, and A More Civilized Age's Patreon

Stuff We Talked About

The Triple Diamond technique

Transcendental Meditation

One of Ally's surveys for setting expectations on how a producer can help their team

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.

Jennifer Hale & Debra Wilson Jul 25, 2023

Everyone said it’d be impossible, but we managed to find another pair of twins to come onto this podcast. That’s right. The incredible Jennifer Hale (Has acted in the original Mass Effect trilogy, the Metal Gear Solid series, Overwatch, Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic, Bioshock Infinite, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and many many many more) and Debra Wilson (Acted in the Wolfenstein series, The Outer Worlds, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order and its sequel Jedi Survivor, Destiny 2, God of War: Ragnarok, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and many many many more) have joined us to talk about improv, how they manage to stay positive and not become cynical in this industry, the kinds of direction they enjoy most, favorite/least favorite piece of direction they’ve ever gotten, what acting jobs they learned the most from, are there any roles they’ve never done or want to do more of, and oh man you should just listen to this.

Our Guests on the Internet

For Jennifer: Acting.skillshub.life

For Debra: Her Cameo (If you just wanna talk with her, you don’t have to buy a cameo. Just send her a message!)

Stuff We Talked About

The Apollo Comedy Hour

The Game

Kris Zimmerman-Salter

Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture by Stuart Ewen

My Stroke of Insight - Jill Bolte Taylor TED Talk

Mickey Mouse Funhouse

Baby Shark's Big Show!

Zodiac Waze

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.

Chris Garbutt & Rikke Asbjoern May 01, 2023

Apologies for the wait, but we're back! We don't often do episodes focused around one specific thing, but we're making an exception to talk about Netflix's newest interactive special: We Lost Our Human, and we're joined by its two co-creators, Chris and Rikke! (They also co-created the Nickelodeon series Pinky Malinky, and both have worked on many, many other animated projects, with Chris working as showrunner, producer, writer, art director, storyboarder, character designer and more. As for Rikke, she’s also been a showrunner, producer, voice director, animator, animation director, storyboard artist, and more.)

Together they talk about how they broke into animation and got into interactive narrative, what they thought the hardest part of making We Lost Our Human would be, getting advice from the Bandersnatch folks, making media for kids vs adults, whether it was difficult for the actors to keep the branching story in their heads, unexpected learnings, the new production pipeline they had to build, Netflix’s branch manager tool, James Baxter, whether they had to adjust WLOH based on Netflix data, and what advice they’d give to someone making an interactive special now.

Our Guests on the Internet

Chris' Instagram, and Twitter.

Rikke's Instagram.

Stuff We Talked About

We Lost Our Human

Pinky Malinky

Bandersnatch

Heroes of Might and Magic

THE NEWZEALAND STORY

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.

George Lockett & Mary Goodden Dec 07, 2022

It's the end of the year, which means it's time for us to put out a new episode and feel guilty for not releasing more this year! (We were busy, but we got lots more planned for next year!) Our guests this month are George Lockett (Senior Writer at Failbetter Games and a Narrative Consultant, Writer, and Designer at Bear Wolf Narrative. Previously the Narrative Lead on The Last Clockwinder, the Scriptwriter and Interactive Designer for BBC Earth - Micro Kingdoms: Senses, and a Contributing Writer to Where the Water Tastes Like Wine) and Mary Goodden (Senior Narrative Designer at Maze Theory currently working on Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom. Previously a Writer and Editor on Zombies, Run!, a Writer and Narrative Designer at Failbetter Games on Sunless Skies and Fallen London, a Writer on Inkle’s Pendragon, and co-created Funicular Simulator 2021), and they join us to discuss how their marketing backgrounds have helped with their writing, how to make a writer’s room work, advice for thinking in terms of design, what's helped maintain their writing output, what they’ve learned from the other writers they’ve worked with, giving feedback, tips for writing themselves out of problems, the best ways we can diversify the voices in the industry, how they approach working with other departments to get their needs taken care of, what their favorite narrative tools are, favorite thesauruses, what their ghosts are, and more, more, MORE!

Our Guests on the Internet

George's Twitter, Website, and you should wishlist/check out Mask of the Rose when it comes out next year

Mary's Twitter, Website, and you should wishlist/check out Peaky Blinders: The King's Ransom when it comes out next year

Stuff We Talked About

Zombies, Run!

Twine

Inkjam

Writing for Games by Hannah Nicklin

The “Reverse of the Spielberg Gaze”: Jordan Peele, Rian Johnson, Tony Kushner and More Talk Shop on THR’s Writers Roundtable

Miro

Micorosft OneNote

Obsidian (the notes app)

Webster's 1913

Power Thesaurus

WordHippo

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.

Rob Forman & Andrew Walsh Sep 19, 2022

We've got a unionization-heavy episode for y'all as we've got Rob (additional writer on Indivisible for Lab Zero Games, writer on Spider-Man 2 for Insomniac Games, and current co-chair of the WGAW's LGBTQ+ Writers Committee) and Andrew (writer, narrative designer, narrative director, story consultant, and more on games like Horizon Forbidden West, Horizon Call of the Mountain, Watch Dogs Legion, The Division, Prince of Persia, Fable Legends, and more) in to talk about fate meeting preparation with getting that first job, finding your voice as a writer, changing your voice for the market and work-for-hire, living in fear of “no notes,” likable characters, taking notes, the Writer’s Guild (of America & Great Britain), the differences between the two with representing game writing, the similarities to the struggles of the Animation Guild writers, the growing appetite for unions in the west, why unions are necessary, favorite side characters, and creative authenticity.

Our Guests on the Internet

Rob's Twitter and Instagram.

Andrew's Twitter and website.

Stuff We Talked About

The Writer's Guild of Great Britain Videogame Guidelines

The Writers by Miranda Banks

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.

Sarah Baylus & Mike Laidlaw Aug 15, 2022

Somehow we're over halfway through the year, but this podcast is still going! Our guests this month are Sarah Baylus (Principal Writer at Larian Studios where she’s currently working on Baldur’s Gate III, and previously she wrote on Divinity: Original Sin, and its sequel Divinity: Original Sin II) and Mike Laidlaw (Chief Creative Officer at Yellow Brick Games working on an unannounced title, and previously was a creative director at Ubisoft, a Senior Creative Director on the Dragon Age franchise as well as a Lead Designer, and was the Lead Writer on Jade Empire), and they join us to discuss why Dragon Age’s storytelling has struck such a chord with people (especially in game development), what they look for in a creative director, what makes a good game writer, the best ways to keep teams updated on a game’s ever-evolving story, favorite software for collaboration, what’s one thing they wished games delved into more often, whether their definitions of good writing and narrative design have changed over time, common mistakes they see writers making these days, favorite game writing/design experiences they’ve had, writing/directing nightmares, localization notes, resources they go back to a lot, things they would've changed to their favorite game narratives, the most effective narrative-based techniques they like to see being used in games to immerse the audience, and more more MORE!

Our Guests on the Internet

Sarah has an Inactive Twitter, but Larian Studios has Baldurs Gate 3 on Early Access right now, and Larian's hiring!

Mike's Twitter, and Yellow Brick Games is hiring!

Stuff We Talked About

The Dragon Age franchise

The Stillness of the Wind

An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope

Jade Empire

Divinity: Original Sin 2

Understanding Show, Don’t Tell: And Really Getting It by Janice Hardy

The ending of Transistor

The last hour of Finaly Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

Star Control II

Moon Hunters

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.

Corey Brotherson & Kelsie Mhoon Jul 05, 2022

Back in the throes of summer, we've got Corey (lead narrative designer at Silver Rain Games, writer and narrative designer on WindRush Tales, editor and social media manager of Butterfly Books, and a journalist, critic and content producer for companies such as PlayStation, Yahoo! and the Eurogamer Network) and Kelsie (narrative designer at Obsidian Entertainment on Outer Worlds 2, narrative lead for Dangers in the Motor Vortex, lead writer for Death Carnival, creator of It Girl, and was also a content designer at Jam City and a writer at Pixelberry Studios) here to talk about writing tests, barriers, common motifs & themes in their writing, games they wish they wrote, unexpected pieces of media that inspired them, games where they felt the most invested in the player characters, silent protagonists, things they wished game narratives delved into more often, character tropes, building characters from scratch, and more!

*The views and opinions expressed by Corey do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Silver Rain Games*

Our Guests on the Internet

Corey's Twitter and Website.

Kelsie's Twitter and Linkedin.

Stuff We Talked About

Jax & Daxter series

Hades

90 Day Fiance

Sandman by Neil Gaiman

Return of the Obra Dinn

What Remains of Edith Finch

Dragon Age: Origins

The Activision Blizzard Diversity Space Tool

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.

Zoe Franznick & Franciska Csongrady Apr 25, 2022

It’s time to get MEDIEVAL with our guests Zoe (currently an Associate Narrative Designer at Obsidian Games working on unannounced projects, and she is also the cohost of the Maniculum Podcast) and Franciska (currently the Narrative Lead on Around for Primal Game Studios, and also the Senior Narrative Designer on Ayna: Shattered Truth for Designmatic. And previously she was a Game Writer on Ori and the Will of the Wisps for Moon Studios, as well as a Narrative Designer on their unannounced ARPG)! They join us to talk about ousting J.R.R. Tolkien as the top fantasy writer of all time, untapped medieval stories that people in games should be thinking about, parallels between medievalism and game design, manuscript culture, how you balance between explaining things for players and letting them fill in the blanks themselves, would they rather tell stories with dialogue or without, are there any books or talks or resources they go back to a lot when working on a game, how to give good criticism and best piece of feedback they’ve gotten, how they think of the player’s active role in the story when they’re writing, what sort of imagery do they find most evocative in horror and medieval literature, and MORE! MUCH MORE!

Our Guests on the Internet

Zoe has no twitter, but check out The Maniculum Podcast!

Franciska's Twitch, Twitter, and check out Around!

Stuff We Talked About

The Maniculum Podcast

The Witcher 3

Franciska's Undergrad and Postgrad Theses

Táin Bó Cúailnge

The Metrical Charms

The Last of Us Part II

Outer Wilds

Return of the Obra Dinn

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Horizon: Forbidden West

Hades

GOBELINS Youtube Channel

Like Stories of Old Youtube Channel

How to be a Great DM Youtube Channel

Game Maker’s Toolkit Youtube Channel

Middle English Compendium

The Highly Selective Thesaurus for the Extraordinary Literate by Eugene Ehrlich

Master Lists - The Maniculum Podcast

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.

Ashley Swidowski & Graham Reznick Mar 11, 2022

We celebrate spooky season all year round here, which is why we've brought back Ashley (Character Art Director at Bad Robot Games, previously Character Art Director at Naughty Dog, Lead Character Concept Artist on The Last of Us Part II, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and a concept artist on The Last of Us: Left Behind) and Graham (Writer, Director, and Sound Designer. Writer on Supermassive Games' Until Dawn, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, Hidden Agenda, The Inpatient, and The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan) to talk all things horror! Together they chat with us about what attracts them to horror, whether horror is a genre or a tool, the sublime of horror, the power of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, cross-pollination between film and TV, video game adaptations, how to pace horror games when players control the pacing, horror games following different rules from other horror media, first-person horror, how horror changes the art-making process, what non-horror games could take from horror games, the calcification of genres, horror games showing too much, dream crews, guilty pleasures, and Pyramid Head.

Our Guests on the Internet

Ashley's Twitter (but don't follow her) and Instagram

Graham's Twitter, Instagram, and check out his sound design work in the upcoming X!

Stuff We Talked About

The Crypt Keeper

The Prince of Darkness

Resident Evil franchise

Silent Hill franchise

Until Dawn

Blair Witch by Bloober Team

P.T.

Soma

Ashley’s Silent Hill Mondo covers

Masuhiro Ito

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Alyssa Wong & Lauren Mee Feb 23, 2022

We’re BACK! AGAIN! And we swear we’re gonna post more episodes this year than we did last year! Alyssa (writer of fiction, comics, and games. Winner of the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Locus Award, finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her fiction has been shortlisted for the Hugo, Bram Stoker, and Shirley Jackson Awards. Comics credits include Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and Adventure Time, and she’s also written for Overwatch, and Story and Franchise Development at Blizzard Entertainment) and Lauren (Senior Writer at Insomniac Games where she is currently working on Spider-Man 2, and was previously Lead Writer on Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. Before Insomniac she was a writer at Telltale Game where she worked on The Walking Dead: The Final Season and Batman The Enemy Within) joined us to talk about how a theater studies degree is useful in games, shipping characters, writing hours, how hot Emperor Nefarious is, interacting with actors, writing characters and situations you hate, what draws them to horror storytelling, sexy monsters, what they need to nail down first in a story, what makes a good villain, worldbuilding, types of stories they don’t often see in games that they’d love to write, and a whole lot more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Alyssa's Twitter, and you should check out Doctor Aphra and Iron Fist!

Lauren's Twitter, and you should check out Spider-Man 2 when it comes out!

Stuff We Talked About

John Carpenter liked Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Paragon

Alyssa’s first tweet about Emperor Nefarious

Unpacking

Fears to Fathom

Devotion

The Walking Dead: The Final Season

The Boys

Starbound

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider

Disco Elysium

Dragon Age: Inquisition

What You Left Behind by Alyssa Wong (the Overwatch short story about Baptiste)

Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Gregory Louden & Eevi Korhonen Oct 28, 2021

We're back with a new, Returnal-focused episode! Joining us are Gregory (Narrative & Cinematic Director at Housemarque on Returnal. Also the co-founder, CEO, and Director of Convict Games, where he's made Stone and the upcoming Burn. Previously was a Senior Narrative Designer at Remedy Entertainment on Control and a narrative designer on Quantum Break) and Eevi (Senior Narrative Designer at Housemarque on Returnal, and was previously a narrative designer on Control, Quantum Break, and CrossfireX at Remedy Entertainment, and a Product Manager on Kingsbridge at Wooga) to talk about the differences in how narrative design is defined at Remedy vs Housemarque, growing pains at Housemarque with making a story-driven game like Returnal, navigating the line between challenging players too much vs not enough, telling ambiguous stories, haunting players, the relationship between narrative and sound, negotiating how much to tell players about the story, how to not re-traumatize yourself when writing something painful, and how can you make main characters as likable as your side characters.

Our Guests on the Internet

Gregory’s Twitter and Website for Convict Games

Eevi's Twitter

Stuff We Talked About

Returnal

Stone

Burn

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Bahiyya Khan & Son M. May 24, 2021

How are we almost done with May already?! It's bananas, and you know what else is bananas? Our guests for today's episode! Bahiyya (game designer, writer, and filmmaker who’s currently doing her masters in film, and is most well-known for her IGF award-winning game After Hours that will be released soon) and Son (writer who's currently the studio director and co-founder of Perfect Garbage, and director and co-founder of Chimeric Animation. They’re also a narrative designer at Silver Rain Games, and will be publishing their debut graphic novel soon, Thief of the Heights) join us to talk about writing processes, where they start when they’re creating a character, how often their stories change from what they originally planned, story structure, their greatest tools for storytelling, how they figure out their beginnings, when do they let other people see their work, whether they’re ever dissuaded by feedback, storytelling moments in games that they thought were special, silent protagonists, storytelling advice, major influences, what they’re reading/watching these days that isn’t video games, and way way more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Bahiyya’s Twitter and Itch.io page

Son Twitter and Website, and you should check out the short film Death’s Diner, Thief of the Heights (when it's published by Harper Collins in 2022), and Love Shore

Stuff We Talked About

Rain White Noise Generator

Cain by José Saramango

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Leslee Sullivant & Cassandra Khaw Apr 19, 2021

Spring is here and so are Leslee (Design Producer on Marvel Strike Force at Scopely, previously a writer and development manager at Riot, and held a variety of narrative design and production roles at 2K and Dorian) and Cassandra (award-winning game & fiction writer who’s worked on such games as Sunless Skies, Wasteland 3, and Falcon Age)! They join us to talk about being stubborn, knowing when to stop pushing for something, writing barks, overlapping dialogue, where they start when creating characters, whether they’re plotters or pantsers, what their writing habits are, how to force yourself to start writing, how COVID has changed their habits, navigating bureaucracy, knowing when to leave your environment for a better one, dealing with people overstepping their boundaries, and more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Leslee's Twitter and Tiktok

Cassandra's Twitter and her three upcoming books are Walk Among Us, The All-Consuming World, and Nothing But Blackened Teeth

Stuff We Talked About

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Life is Strange 2

The Least of My Scars by Stephen Graham Jones

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Greg Kasavin & Kate Dollarhyde Jan 11, 2021

Happy New Year one and all! To celebrate yet another new beginning, we've brought back old guests Greg (Creative Director of Supergiant Games, and writer of Bastion, Transistor, Pyre, and Hades) and Kate (Narrative designer on Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, all of its DLC, the Outer Worlds, and was a narrative co-lead on The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon) to chat with us about working from home during COVID, work/life balance, Early Access, the keys to writing memorable shopkeepers, the beauty of em dashes, themes that they gravitate towards, working with ensemble casts, what kept them up at night the most on the last game they worked on, murder hobos, games being adapted into film/TV, collaborating with other disciplines more closely, and more, more, more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Greg's Twitter

Kate's Twitter and Instagram

Stuff We Talked About

Hades

The Outer Worlds (and its DLC: Peril on Gorgon)

Pyre

Transistor

Bastion

Resident Evil 4 (specifically this guy)

Ultima

Netflix's Castlevania show

Annihilation (book and movie)

Inside

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Elric of Melnibone

Big Dead Place by Nicholas Johnson

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (specifically the story: The Tower of Babylon)

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang (specifically the story: The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate)

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Cissy Jones & Erika Ishii Dec 24, 2020

Are those sleigh bells in the air? NO, IT'S A NEW EPISODE OF SCRIPT LOCK! After trudging through the hellacious year that was 2020, we're back with Cissy (actress whose voice you may have heard in such games as The Walking Dead, Life is Strange, Firewatch - for which she won a BAFTA - Horizon: Zero Dawn, and most recently Half-Life: Alyx and Call of the Sea) and Erika (actress, host, and producer whom you may have heard in such games as Dream Daddy, Destiny, 2, Fallout 76, Fortnite, Marvel's Avengers, and Cyberpunk 2077) to talk whether you need to live in Hollywood to be a VO actor, being recast, voice matching, auditions, secrecy around characters you’re auditioning for, the luxury of getting scripts before a session, how they like to receive direction, best and worst pieces of direction, vocal health and more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Cissy Twitter and Instagram

Erika Twitter and Instagram

Stuff We Talked About

Final Fantasy 7 Remake's Voice Cast Got Their Scripts As They Were Recording

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Rex Crowle & Daniel Pemberton Jun 15, 2020

Hope you're all staying safe out there! This month's fantastic episode has Rex (co-founder and creative director of Foam Sword Ltd, which recently released its first game Knights and Bikes. He was also the creative lead of Tearaway, a production designer on LittleBigPlanet 1 and 2, and the senior graphic designer on The Movies) and Daniel (composer of such games as The Movies, LittleBigPlanet 1 & 2, Knights and Bikes, and has also composed for film & TV on titles including The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Steve Jobs, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and more) joining us to talk about running into Peter Molyneux in the toilet at a conference in Spain, Guildford being the Hollywood of the games industry, whether their collaborative process has changed over the years, how early they started working together on Knights and Bikes, what they wanted to accomplish with the music, throwing stuff away, if people undervalue the storytelling potential of music in games, memorable pieces of nonverbal storytelling, the best and worst they've ever been treated on a job, not knowing what you're doing, and a whole lot more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Rex's Twitter, and here's the official site for Knights and Bikes

Daniel's Twitter

Stuff We Talked About

Populous II: Trials of the Olympian Gods

I Wanna Ride My Bike (From the Videogame 'Knights And Bikes') by the Daniel Pemberton TV Orchestra

We Are the Best!

Daniel Pemberton Interview

Control

Once Upon a Time in the West

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Alix Wilton Regan & Erin Yvette May 12, 2020

Podcasting safely from home, we're back with Alix (actor in such games as Assasin’s Creed: Origins, Dragon Age Inquisition, Origins, and Awakenings, Mass Effect 3, The Last Story, Deponia I, II, and II) and Erin (actor in games like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, Oxenfree, Firewatch, 2064: Read Only Memories, Afterparty, and the upcoming Wolf Among Us 2) to talk about working during a pandemic, where do they start when creating a character, how to support a fellow actor well, rehearsals, the audition process, receiving direction, what makes a good/bad director, trusting your actors, the best/worst direction they’ve ever gotten, intimacy on the motion capture stage, having more morally gray female characters, whether AAA games should keep learning from Hollywood, and more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Alix's Twitter and Instagram

Erin's Twitter and Instagram

Stuff We Talked About

Tales from the Borderlands

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Vermintide

Ozark

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

A Taxi Driver

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Jo Berry & Paula Rogers Apr 20, 2020

Today we've got Jo (writer of games and short stories, and has written on Star Wars: The Old Republic, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and is currently at EA working on an unannounced project) and Paula (writing lead and story editor on Neo Cab. She's also adapted Let’s Play from Webtoon into an animated series and has had her fiction and essays featured in outlets like Salon, the Austin Film Festival, and more) talking with us about masters degrees, delivering criticism, the most helpful piece of feedback they've ever received, how they like to collaborate with others, things they've appreciated in games that might go generally unnoticed, keeping track of branching stories and how to maintain consistency and pacing, when to stop writing, parody games, writing tests that best represent their skills, whether games are too focused on learning from Hollywood blockbusters, the last story that surprised them, and more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Jo's Twitter

Paula's Twitter and Website

Stuff We Talked About

Star Wars: The Old Republic

The Pomodoro Technique

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Dance Dance Revolution

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Duncan Fyfe & Jon Ingold Jan 27, 2020

Happy New Year! This month we've got Duncan (writer on Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Neo Cab, In the Valley of Gods, and the co-creator and writer of the Something True podcast) and Jon (writer, narrative designer and co-founder of Inkle, and has worked on games including 80 Days, Sorcery!, Heaven’s Vault, and Over the Alps) in to talk about being a writer without a writing degree, blank canvas vs well-defined main characters, research, hot air balloons, Lovecraft forums, when to stop researching, underappreciated game moments, player agency, the sweet spot between satisfying and frustrating, the role of writers in pre-production, and more.

Our Guests on the Internet

Duncan's Website and Twitter.

Jon's Twitter, Inkle's Website and Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Idle Thumbs

Centralia, PA

Leliana's Song DLC

Rameses by Stephen Bond

Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin

Pyst

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Walt Williams & Mary Kenney Dec 23, 2019

Happy holidays everyone! To close out the year we've got Walt (writer and creative director at New Game Plus, and has worked on games such as The Darkness, Bioshock 1 and 2, Spec Ops: The Line, and Star Wars Battlefront 2, and he’s also the author of the book Significant Zero: Heroes, Villains, and the Fight for Art & Soul in Games) and Mary (currently writes at Insomniac Games, and has also written for Certain Affinity, Techland on Dying Light 2, and Telltale on the final season of The Walking Dead and Batman: The Enemy Within) joining us to talk Narrative QA, their most important collaborators, narrative band-aid experiences, storytelling that they appreciate in other games that may go unnoticed by players, making "good" and "bad" choices, emotion-oriented goals, violence-based games, not giving your characters more story than they can handle, narrative pet peeves, things they've learned by slipping up, overwriting, digital media shelf life, what game project(s) they wish they'd been a part of, how important costume design is to their writing process, writing tests, and a thing or two more that you'll just have to find out for yourself!

Our Guests on the Internet

Walt's Twitter, Instagram. and check out Significant Zero: Heroes, Villains, and the Fight for Art and Soul in Video Games

Mary's Twitter, and check out Read Only memories #1

Stuff We Talked About

Spec Ops: The Line

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

We Are Not Heroes: Contextualizing Violence Through Narrative GDC Talk by Walt Williams

The Walking Dead: The Final Season

Disco Elysium

When the Streaming Platform Dies, What Happens to its Shows?

What Remains of Edith Finch

Spider-Man

Night in the Woods

Star Wars Battlefront II

Also Max and I worked on Neo Cab and Man of Medan, two great games that came out this year, and they're totally worth checking out!

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Heli Salomaa & Claire Hummel Nov 25, 2019

We're back again this month with Heli (theatre and performance costume designer, most recently a costume and character designer for Remedy’s Control and the upcoming Crossfire 2. Also worked on Mirages for Kroma Productions, and EGO CURE for Aalto University)and Claire (currently an art director at Valve, previously an artist and associate production designer for Microsoft Studios on a ton of Kinect games, Fable Legends, Sunset Overdrive, Powerstar Golf, and more. Also the production designer for Westworld VR) to talk about why costume design as a specialized role isn’t more common in games, the narrative features of costume design, differences with fashion design, research, building costumes for worlds less-based in reality, the problem of flowing clothes, working with the non-monetary budgets of video games (memory, processing power, etc), not holding back on your first draft, their most important collaborators, iteration, pitching ideas that may be too “out there,” the hardest costume they’ve designed (that they can talk about), knowing when something’s done, how non-costume designers can learn more about costume design, mundane costume design, work/life balance, and how can writers make costume designers’ lives easier.

Our guests on the Internet

Claire’s Twitter and Website.

Heli’s Website and Artstation.

Stuff We Talked About

Marvelous Designer

LA Noire

The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Bayonetta

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Nicole Martinez & Megan Starks Nov 18, 2019

Apologies to all for the slight delay, but the wait has TOTALLY been worth it because today we've got Nicole (Senior Narrative Designer at Crystal Dynamics, and before that a Creative Director on the unreleased The Wolf Among Us: Season 2, and a writer on season 2 of Minecraft: Story Mode, Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman, The Walking Dead: Michonne, Game of Thrones: Season 1, and The Wolf Among Us: Season 1) and Megan (Senior Narrative Designer Team Lead and Senior Writer on the recently-released Outer Worlds by Obsidian Entertainment, and before that she was a Senior Writer on Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire and Tyranny, and a Senior Game Designer and Content Zone Lead on Wildstar for Carbine Studios) joining us to talk writing/design tests, whether narrative design and game writing should be separate jobs, the hardest things to write and design, writers' rooms, rewriting processes, where they start with constructing branching narratives, what they look for in endings as creators and whether it's different than what they look for as consumers, meaningful choices, storytelling trends they'd like to see more of, NPCs, major influences, and a great deal more!

Our guests on the Internet

Nicole's Twitter.

Megan's Twitter, Website, and check out House of Ash and Brimstone (Gatewalkers Book 1)!

Stuff We Talked About

The Wolf Among Us

Bioshock

Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter by Laurell K. Hamilton

Sabriel by Garth Nix

Untitled Goose Game

The Walking Dead Season 1

The Outer Worlds

More than Quest Givers: Why Good Characters Matter Konsoll 2019 Talk by Molly Maloney and Eric Stirpe

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen

The Twelve Dancing Princesses by the Brothers Grimm

Luigi's Mansion 3

Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons

Schitt's Creek

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Our theme music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Kelsey Beachum & Olivia Alexander Sep 27, 2019

We've got Kelsey (game writer and narrative designer on Outer Wilds with Mobius Digital, along with Stormland for Insomniac, and wrote the unreleased Tales from the Minus Lab for USC’s Interactive Media & Games Division) and Olivia (script writer and narrative designer at Ubisoft Montreal on Far Cry 5 and Far Cry: New Dawn, and previously a scriptwriter at Ubisoft Quebec on Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and its DLC) in this month to talk about the hardest parts of working with nonlinear storytelling, stress, taking feedback, nonlinear murder mysteries, quantifying values that are hard to quantify, assuming that players are smart, tracking all the permutations in branching narratives, player assumptions when it comes to knowledge of the story and vice versa, letting players pull in information instead of pushing it on them, what makes a good opening and ending, DnD, and more.

Our Guests on the Internet

Kelsey's Twitter and Website.

Olivia's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Outer Wilds

Twine

GDC 2019: Technical Tools for Authoring Branching Dialogue by Carrie Patel and Szymczyk

Steven Universe

Overqualified by Joey Comeau

Our theme music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Kait Tremblay & Sam Maggs Aug 29, 2019

Calling in from the far reaches of Los Angeles AND Toronto, Kait (currently the Team Lead Narrative Designer on Watch Dogs: Legion at Ubisoft Toronto, and formerly the Lead Writer on A Mortician’s Tale for Laundry Bear Games. She’s also written the book Ain’t No Place for a Hero: Borderlands, and is the co-director of Dames Making Games) and Sam (currently a Senior Writer at Insomniac Games, where she recently worked on the Turf Wars DLC for Marvel’s Spider-Man, and formerly an Associate Writer at Bioware on Anthem. She’s also an author of books like Girl Squads and Wonder Women, and has written for comics like Captain Marvel, Star Trek, and Jem & the Holograms) join us to talk writing tests, how to give good feedback, important soft skills to have, writing processes and "muses," staying organized, things that tap and sap their creativity, what makes a good video game opening/ending, NPCs, storytelling quagmires, diverse dev teams, whether there's anything in their work that takes forever that people wouldn't expect, work/life balances, what they're consuming that isn't video games, why writing WWE fanfiction can be helpful for your game writing, major influences, and MOREEEEE!

Our Guests on the Internet
Kait's Twitter and Instagram, and you should follow all of the rad Watch Dogs: Legion writers and narrative designers on twitter!

Sam's Twitter, Instagram, and Website, and you should check out Captain Marvel and preorder The Unstoppable Wasp. Also you should follow all of the good folks at Insomniac Games on twitter!

Stuff We Talked About
ASMR Hair Treatment | Mic ON Brush | Oils & Crinkle Cap
What Makes a Good Video Game Ending? by Kait Tremblay
Mass Effect 2
Borderlands
Portal 2
God of War
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Bioshock
Hellblade
Observation
Dames Making Games
The 18-month fence hop, the six-day chair, and why video games are so hard to make by Blake Hester
Chernobyl
Fleabag
The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss
Stargate SG-1
Cleopatra 2525
Farscape
Andromeda
seaquest DSV
Star Trek: Voyager

Our theme music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Lola Shiraishi & Scott Strichart Jul 22, 2019

It's localization month, baby, and we've got Lola (producer at SEGA where she’s worked on Sonic Mania, and Sonic Mania Plus. She’s also a gaming consultant and has previously worked in development support at Kojima Productions LA on Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain, PR at Square Enix on games including Sleeping Dogs, Final Fantasy 13, and Kingdom Hearts, and has also worked in localization and QA at Activision Blizzard) and Scott (Localization Producer at SEGA of America, where he just finished working on Judgement, and before that worked on Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Yakuza 6. Was also an Associate Producer on Yakuza 0, a Senior Copyrighter and Associate Product Manager at Square Enix, a Product Manager at Level 5, and Project Lead and Editor at ATLUS) in to talk about why localization is not another word for translation, balancing standards/concepts that exist in one culture that don’t really exist in the other, mahjong, localizing tropes and archetypes that have no analogue in Western media, tone shifting differences in the East vs West, deviating from the script, the difference between a good localization and a great one, dialects, lip flaps, why your localization team should be integrated early in the process, work/life balance, and using editors in addition to translators.

Our Guests on the Internet
Lola's Twitter

Scott's Twitter

Stuff We Talked About
The bizarre, true story of Metal Gear Solid's English translation by Jeremy Blaustein
The Yakuza series
Judgment

Our theme music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

The Big One Jun 10, 2019

And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. SPIKES FOOTBALL That's right! We made it to FIFTY episodes, and to help celebrate such a monumental achievement in podcasting, we snuck a couple of past guests in through the back door for a victory lap. Which guests, you ask? How about takes a somewhat deep breath, Carrie Patel, Tyler J. Hutchison, Laura Michet, Richard Lemarchand, Sarah Elmaleh, Jon Paquette, Brendon Chung, Cat Manning, Kate Dollarhyde, Eric Stirpe, Janina Gavankar, Ben Esposito, Claire Hummel, Graham Reznick, Ryan Benno, AND Molly Maloney? So what, you say? Well, what if I told you we talked with them about the main things students should know about interactive storytelling, how it's OK to be silly, storytelling confessions, extreme programming, whether game stories can be apolitical, what the differences between a good collaborator and a great one are (and how to work with a bad one), favorite underappreciated bits in games, anything they'd do differently with their past work, things you might not need to worry about with your storytelling, major influences, the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen, auteurism in games, the greatness of Yakuza 0, stuff they've worked on that they wish people appreciated more, and so! Much! More! I mean, do you see how long this episode is?!

ROUND ONE

Our guests on the Internet
Laura's Twitter and Website, and you should check out Pathologic 2

Carrie's Twitter, and you should check out The Outer Worlds

Tyler's Twitter

Richard's Twitter and Website

Stuff We Talked About
Ep 45: Molly Maloney & Eric Stirpe

Mass Effect 2

Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton

The Doves Type® Revival

Doom (2016)

Mario is Missing!

The Trust Equation

ROUND TWO (begins at 49:35)

Our guests on the Internet

Sarah's Twitter, and you should check out Afterparty and GamDev.World

Jon's Twitter

Brendon's Twitter, Website, and you should check out Skin Deep

Cat's Twitter, Website, and you should check out Pathologic 2

Stuff We Talked About

The Sims 2

Alien: Isolation

The Curse of Monkey Island

The menu from Medal of Honor (1999)

Honeysuckle by Cat Manning

Collaborative Approaches to Getting Great VO Performances (if you have GDC vault access, you can find it there!)

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

ROUND THREE (begins at 1:42:12)

Our guests on the Internet

Eric's Twitter

Janina's Twitter, and you should check out Stucco

Kate's Twitter

Ben's Twitter, Website, and you should check out Donut County

Stuff We Talked About

The Secret of Monkey Island

Van Cliburn

Portal 2

The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen

ROUND FOUR (begins at 2:36:27)

Our guests on the Internet

Ryan's Twitter, and you should check out The Environment Art Podcast

Claire's Twitter, Website, and you should check out In the Valley of the Gods

Molly's Twitter, and you should check out Yakuza 0 and Return of the Obra Dinn

Graham's Twitter, and you should check out Deadwax and Visitations with Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah

Stuff We Talked About

Red Dead Redemption 2

The Walking Dead Season 1

Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series

Until Dawn

Westworld VR Experience

Our theme music was composed by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Olivia Wood & Jessica Krause May 27, 2019

We're all avoiding our deadlines to bring you this episode with Olivia (writer, narrative designer, and editor and currently works at Failbetter Games where she’s worked on Fallen London, Sunless Sea, Sunless Sea: Zubmariner, and Sunless Skies. She’s also worked on Lethophobia, The Mystery of Kalkomey Isle, Cheaper Than Therapy, and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine) and Jessica (former Lead Writer at Telltale Games where she worked on Batman, The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Wolf Among Us: Season 2, and since then has written for WB Games San Francisco, and is currently working with Bad Robot Studios and Google Stadia), who are here to talk about writing meaningful choices, their personal favorite choices in games, what makes a good NPC, what takes you out of a game’s story, storytelling quagmires, getting through rewrite fatigue, when do you know you’re done with a script (apart from deadlines), maintaining a healthy work/life balance, time management, and what’s inspiring them outside of games.

Our Guests on the Internet
Olivia's Twitter.

Jessica's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Heaven’s Vault

Gris

Transistor

A Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh

The Chrestomanci Series by Diana Wynne Jones

Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants by Brian McDonald

The Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita

Rosa Dachtler & Ben Arfmann Apr 30, 2019

NARRATIVE DESIGN! WHAT IS IT? Today we're super lucky to have Rosa (narrative designer at Criterion Games, previously an audio designer there, and her credits include Battlefield 1, Star Wars Battlefront: Rogue One X-Wing VR Mission, Star Wars Battlefront 2, and Battlefield 5's Firestorm mode) and Ben (writer at Insomniac Games, where he worked on last year's Spider-Man, and he's also a writer and director of film and TV) joining us to answer answer one of the most perplexing questions of our times, plus chat about going from audio to narrative design, building narrative teams, enthusiasm being undervalued, how to sustain yourself through dark periods, how to nail the voices of established characters/IPs, the greatness of Yuri Lowenthal, methods for getting the best possible performances from your actors, whether directing has impacted their storytelling processes, storytelling quagmires they've found themselves in, how do you know when you're done with something (especially when you don't have a deadline), do they feel obligated to play other games to stay up to date with the state of storytelling, games that impressed them recently, stuff that takes them out of a game's story, things they want changed in game development, and one or two more things!

Our Guests on the Internet

Rosa's Twitter.

Ben's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Writing and Narrative Design: A Relationship by Eric Stirpe and Molly Maloney

Return of the Obra Dinn

Brawl Stars

Mortal Kombat 11

Spider-Man

Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One: X-wing VR Mission

God of War

Detroit: Become Human

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Kim Allom & Kate Gray Mar 31, 2019

This episode is NSFW as we've got Kim (studio manager at Defiant Development, where she’s worked on Hand of Fate, Hand of Fate 2, and Ski Safari: Adventure time. Also the co-founder of Blushbox Collective, a group of game developers exploring and promoting love and sexuality in video games, and the Heartbeat conference and game jam) and Kate (currently the narrative director at KO_OP and writer of the sex games column for Kotaku, previously a games journalist, video producer, on-camera host, scriptwriter, streamer, and community manager at companies ranging from Gamespot to Xbox) in to talk about sex, intimacy, and how they're used in game stories. Other topics include why it’s important to talk about sex now, becoming a stronger communicator, sexual values being good life values, exploring taboo subjects in games, how sex is portrayed in indie games vs big budget games, wanting better consensual content, the lack of funding for intimate interactive experiences, whether there are any aspects of relationships that are hard to translate to gameplay, VR porn, win states in sex games, how to make interactive relationships engaging, and the sexiest games.

Our Guests on the Internet

Kim's Twitter and Blush Box's website.

Kate's Twitter and column.

Stuff We Talked About

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator

One Night Stand

Mirror

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Jon Paquette & Mel MacCoubrey Feb 18, 2019

Awards season has ARRIVED, and to mark the occasion we've invited two writers representing two of the games nominated by the WGA this year for Best Game Writing : Jon Paquette (Lead Writer on Marvel’s Spider-Man, Sunset Overdrive, and Resistance 3, and formerly a Creative Director at EA, writer on Medal of Honor, and Medal of Honor: Airborne, and QA Lead on Jurassic Park: Trespasser) and returning guest Mel MacCoubrey (Narrative Director on Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, and formerly the Assistant Director of Narrative Design on Assassin's Creed Syndicate, scriptwriter on Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry, and scriptwriting intern on Far Cry 4)! Incredible topics discussed include Jurassic Park Trespasser, writing internships at Ubisoft and Insomniac, whether the core pillars of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Spider-Man stayed consistent throughout development, scoping challenges, game length, making big changes to the story once you have a playable build, preventing problems before they happen, always putting your best ideas forward, hardest part about writing for an open world, the worst professional advice they've ever gotten, maintaining a healthy work/life balance, underrated people working with game narratives, the value of voice actors, if there's anything they would change about game development, AAA games that don't have combat as main mechanic, the importance of Farming Simulator 19 as an esport, and moreeeeeeeeee.

Our Guests on the Internet

Jon's Twitter.

Mel's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Jurassic Park Trespasser

What Remains of Edith Finch

Florence

Brie Code

Return of the Obra Dinn

Gris

Inside

Farming Simular 19

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Molly Maloney & Eric Stirpe Feb 01, 2019

It's 2019 and we've got Molly (Lead Narrative Designer at Bad Robot Games, and previously Lead Gameplay Designer at Telltale on Guardians fo the Galaxy, Minecraft: Story Mode, Walking Dead: Season 3, Tales from the Borderlands) and Eric (Writer on Fortnite, interactive consultant for Eko, and previously a staff writer for Netflix's Trash Truck, and a writer at Telltale on Walking Dead: Season 2, Tales from the Borderlands, Minecraft: Story Mode seasons 1 & 2, and Batman: The Telltale Series) here to talk about how choose your own adventure is the dominant influence on interactive narrative at the moment, choice timers, the marriage of writing and narrative design, working relationships, players forgiving bad writing more than bad narrative design, what made Telltale work, finishing a project and feeling like you just spent a lot of time making an asset for somebody else, Bandersnatch (SPOILERS), the problem of having “good” and “bad” endings in branching narratives, fail states, making people feel like their choices matter, obfuscating branches from players, and what makes a good choice.

Our Guests on the Internet

Molly's Twitter.

Eric's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Writing and Narrative Design: A Relationship by Eric Stirpe and Molly Maloney

Still The Smartest Guy On The Hill 30 Years After Sex, Lies & Videotape: Steven Soderbergh Unravels Hollywood Chaos by Mike Fleming Jr.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters

Until Dawn

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Rhianna Pratchett, Jill Murray, and Cara Ellison Dec 24, 2018

Happy holidays! We're sneaking in right before Christmas to give all of you the very special gift of Rhianna Pratchett (game writer, narrative designer, comic book writer, and former journalist. She's written on such titles as Heavenly Sword, the Overlord series, Mirror's Edge, the Mirror’s Edge comic series, the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, the sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider, and the Tomb Raider: The Beginning comic series) AND Jill Murray (Lead Writer and Narrative Designer for AAA games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Assassin's Creed Liberation, and AC Freedom Cry, winner of the WGA award for game writing in 2013, and previously published two YA novels with Random House of Canada. She is currently the Narrative Director for an unannounced indie project, as well as working on Boyfriend Dungeon with Kitfox Games, and writing an episode of Later Daters for Bloom Digital) AND Cara Ellison (former games journalist and current game writer, narrative designer, and screenwriter. She served as a narrative consultant on Dishonored 2, produced and designed the TV show Last Commanders for CBBC, and is currently a narrative designer on Media Molecule's Dreams, and Void Bastards by BlueManchu Games), who've joined us to talk prime writing hours, freelancing advice, how to network (and how NOT to), game writing agents, negotiating for yourself, being a narrative paramedic, red flags to watch out for on potential jobs, what they wish more people knew about the kind of work they do, skills to have that are unique for working in AAA, how to handle when people are constantly telling you that your work isn't good, being aware of studio politics, writing mistakes/failures that they've learned from, the state of the industry, worldbuilding, and a few other things that you'll just have to find out yourself!

Our Guests on the Internet

Rhianna's Twitter and Website.

Jill's Twitter, Website, and Instagram.

Cara's Twitter, Facebook, and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Kitfox Games

Writing for Videogames - Writers' Guild of Great Britain

Game Workers Unite UK

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Ryan Benno & Ellen Shelley Nov 26, 2018

We've got another art-focused episode for you this month as we're joined by Ryan (environment artist on Hunted: The Demon's Forge, The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, Sunset Overdrive, Ratchet and Clank, and the senior environment artist on Marvel's Spider-Man. He's also one of the hosts of the Environment Art Podcast) and Ellen (currently a lighting artist at Supermassive Games, previously a 3D artist at Sony’s London Studio, a 3D Environment Artist at Little Wolf Studio Ltd, and a VR developer at Yelo Architects) to talk about whether degrees are necessary anymore to find work, where do you start when making an environment, style guides, navigating creative disagreements, environmental storytelling, the overabundance of sci-fi hallways, narrative/visual techniques that games still haven’t tried much, soft cardboard boxes, starting with the blank page, the difference between making a twentysomething-year-old’s apartment vs Peter Parker’s apartment, what can’t you tweak when you’re building an environment that everyone knows, breaking walls that were not meant to break, readability, accessibility, and know that not everything you make needs to be at 11.

Our Guests on the Internet

Ryan on Twitter.

Ellen on Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Artstation

Marvel's Spider-Man

Hunted: The Demon's Forge

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Ashley Swidowski & Claire Hummel Nov 13, 2018

We're taking a big ol' swan dive into character design and concept art on this week's episode, and so we're SUPER lucky to have Ashley (formerly a Concept Artist on The Last of Us: Left Behind, and since then she's worked on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End as Lead Character Concept Artist, as well as the upcoming The Last of Us Part II) and Claire (formerly an Artist and Associate Production Designer for Microsoft Studios, where she worked on a bunch of Kinect games, Fable Legends, Sunset Overdrive, Powerstar Golf, and more. She also was the Production Designer for Westworld VR, and currently works as the Art Director on In the Valley of Gods for Campo Santo/Valve) joining us to talk about the misconceptions around what a concept artist does, how they each approach character design, what they want from the writers/creative director when they're starting out with designing one, working for the project instead of yourself, how they know when they're done, the importance of taking breaks and having personal projects, how to achieve good storytelling and character work through costuming, how "real" you can push things before it becomes so novel for players that they're distracted by it, cloth sims: the final frontier of video game character design, making art for VR, major influences, how to create characters that are lifelike and not superficial, the secret to navigating creative disagreements successfully, the importance of failing and making mistakes, which game stories they've responded to recently, and MORE!

Our Guests on the Internet

Ashley on Twitter and Instagram.

Claire on Twitter and her Website.

Stuff We Talked About

James Gurney

In the Valley of the Gods

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles & Ted Orland

Horizon Zero Dawn

Night in the Woods

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Ben Esposito & Andrew Shouldice Sep 29, 2018

Puns are OUTLAWED on this episode as we talk with Ben (Creator of Donut County, and also a game designer, level designer, sound designer, artist, programmer, writer, and more, with credits on Brooklyn Trash King, Bubsy3d: Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective, The Unfinished Swan, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Tattletail. Also a co-founder of Glitch City LA and Arcane Kids) and Andrew (pretty much the one-man developer behind Tunic, which he’s been working on full time since leaving Silverback Games in 2015) about skulls near toilets and environmental storytelling, designing a story where the player doesn't fully understand what's happening in the world, when to start thinking about theme, garbage chic, coming up with a game to match a specific feeling, freedom being a terrible thing for an artist, the emotional expense of investing yourself in someone else's project, the danger of snacks and working from home, when you know you’re done with something, games dictating their length, naming your game, keeping a good work/life balance when your boss is you, secrets decisions, and how to Twitter well.

Our Guests on the Internet

Andrew's Twitter and Tunic's Twitter.

Ben's Twitter, Website, and Donut County's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Emily Short's Blog Post About Donut County

Donut County is a Game About Swallowing Los Angeles and Realizing You're an Asshole by Laura Hudson

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Laura Michet & Cat Manning Sep 23, 2018

Freelancing! Blessing or curse? Today Laura (writer and editor of such games as Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Frog Fractions 2, Swan Hill, You Got This, Brutadon!, The Brigand’s Story, and more, and is currently an editor at Riot Games.) and Cat (writer and narrative designer of video games and narrative fiction, who's worked on titles such as Invasion, Pathologic 2, What Isn't Saved (Will Be Lost), Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, and the forthcoming Leader of the Pack) join us to talk about that independent life with topics like how to find work, what to look for in contracts, rates, renegotiating, the importance of maintaining a social media presence, whether you should go to festivals, why you maybe shouldn't go to the Write Zone at GDC, and non-freelancer stuff like how to match another writer's voice, reflective choices and how to make strong ones, how to give a player the feeling that their decisions have an impact on a story (especially when the story isn't actually changing at all), writing mistakes, the importance of editing, getting feedback, and I dunno, a few more things.

Our Guests on the Internet

Laura's Twitter and Website

Cat's Twitter and Website

Stuff We Talked About

The parser game scene from the Tom Hanks movie Big

Slug-In-Hand Tavern Twitter Bot

The Writers' Guild of Great Britain Videogames Guidelines

DoContract

Game Writers Facebook Group

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine

Successful Reflective Choices in Interactive Narrative by Cat Manning

Planescape Torment

With Those We Love Alive

Invasion

Sub-Q

American Vandal

Brendan Patrick Hennessy

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Marc Laidlaw & Chris Gardiner Jul 30, 2018

Summer is here and so is a new episode! Today we're talking with Marc (author, game writer, designer, and previously worked at Valve on Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 & 2, and Dota) and Chris (narrative director at Failbetter Games, previously a staff writer and head writer, and has written on Fallen London, The Last Court, Sunless Skies, and Sunless Seas) about storytelling transmedia synergy in 1990s Japan, what makes a good narrative director, planning a career as a writer, core skills writers should have, getting into writing with a team too early in your career, keys to good worldbuilding, creating the illusion of depth, the poop caves of Nottingham, having end goals in mind as a team, trusting your teammates, avoiding your first thoughts in writing, how expectations of more dialogue can put the wrong weight on characters, big failures, changes in writing processes, and player literacy.

Our Guests on the Internet

Marc's Twitter and Website.

Chris' Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Which Legend of Zelda Game Was Inspired By Twin Peaks? by Michael McWhertor

Woodcutters from Fiery Ships

Machine Cares

The Clarion Workshop

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Mitch Dyer & Demian Linn Jun 25, 2018

Going from game journalism to game writing isn't something you see too often, but today Mitch Dyer (former editor at IGN, freelance writer for Gamespot, ArsTechnica, The Escapist, Gamesrader, and more, and current writer at EA Motive where he recently finished working on Star Wars Battlefront 2) and Demian Linn (former executive producer at Ziff Davis Media, 1UP.com, and GameVideos, co-founder of BitMob Media, and current game writer at Ubisoft San Francisco, where he just finished working on South Park: the Fractured But Whole) join us to talk about their experiences doing just that, as well freelance life, assumptions they had about game writing that ended up being incorrect, aspects of games we all wish fans and/or the media understood better, the biggest storytelling mistakes they've learned from, writing tests, how to stay objective about your writing, the approval process on big IPs, writing processes, toolsets, what takes them out of games, what to do when you're struggling with a writing problem, what's inspiring them lately, why comedy in video games is so hard to pull off, what they struggle most with with writing and how they conquer it, storytelling trends over the last decade, when we're going to see a AAA studio make a game with no combat, verbs they'd like to see more, and -- wow, this sentence is just going on forever, huh.

Our Guests on the Internet

Mitch's Twitter.

Demian's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Trey Parker and Matt Stone: 'This happened, and then this happened, and then this happens -- that’s not a movie, that’s not a story'

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Charlene Putney & Jana Sloan van Geest May 14, 2018

Spring is here, and so are Charlene (writer at Larian Studios on Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2) and Jana (game writer and narrative designer on Battlestar Galactica: Squadrons, Assassin's Creed Origins, and currently at Guerilla Games where she just finished working on Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds)! They join us to talk about what makes a good bark, writing a good tooltip, finding inspiration in others, doing different types of writing at different times of day, solving a writing problem by articulating it to someone else, working with different team sizes, best practices for breaking through creative ruts, honing your judgment, the need for simplicity and clarity in game writing, the craving for more narration through items, and never retiring a tool in the storytelling toolbox.

Our Guests on the Internet

Charlene's Twitter.

Jana's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Hag-Seed: A Novel by Margaret Atwood

Borne: A Novel by Jeff VanderMeer

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

Caves of Qud

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Janina Gavankar & Sarah Elmaleh Apr 23, 2018

GET IN, LISTENERS! WE'RE GOING TO ACTING CLASS! And joining us on this fantastically illuminating trip are Janina Gavankar (actor, musician, writer, and most recently seen in Star Wars Battlefront II, Far Cry 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, and the forthcoming Afterparty for Night School Studio) and returning guest Sarah Elmaleh (actor and voiceover artist on such projects as Gone Home, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Pyre, Read Only Memories, Masquerada, Final Fantasy XV, For Honor, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, and the BBC Radio drama Game Over)! We chat about letting actors become collaborators (and why it doesn't always happen), rehearsals, falling in love with Don Johnson, the audition process, what makes a good director, the worst piece of direction they've ever gotten, what takes us out of game stories, the kinds of roles and characters they'd like to see more of, the era of the antihero and its end, knowing the medium, not making decisions out of fear, if it's ever possible to know too much about a character you're playing, the film industry chasing the games industry, and so much more you don't even KNOW.

Our Guests on the Internet

Janina's Twitter

Sarah's Twitter

Stuff We Talked About

Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry

Tony Gilroy 4/3/18

Theforum.games

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Alex Neonakis & Olly Moss Jan 18, 2018

A NEW YEAR means NEW GUESTS! Alex (former UI designer and current character concept artist at Naughty Dog, as well as a freelance children’s book author. Her credits include The Last of Us, The Last of Us: Left Behind, Uncharted 4, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and NBA Live 09) and Olly (Art Director on Firewatch, and graphic designer best known for his work w/ Mondo, Harry Potter, Star Wars, the Academy Awards, and much more) join us to talk about growing up on message boards, NBA Live 09 and the UI of sports games, whether knowledge limits your creativity, communicating a feeling through art, being critical of your own work, creating Garfields for fun, experimentation, UI in a background role, creating spaces in Firewatch that felt natural and not meticulously designed, how to lead the player without being too obtuse or explicit, creating Drake's Journal in Uncharted 4, misconceptions about work, why Breath of the Wild is great, and Tom Bombadil.

Our Guests on the Internet

Alex's Twitter and Website.

Olly's Twitter, Garfield Repository, and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Alex's Young Drake designs

Olly's Harry Potter book covers

Garfield Minus Garfield

That millennial SNL skit Alex mentioned

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse trailer

How We Made The Last of Us's Interface Work So Well by Alex Neonakis

Drake's Journal by Alex Neonakis

In the Valley of Gods by Campo Santo

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Halley Gross & Graham Reznick Dec 12, 2017

2017's coming to a close and who better to spend it with than Halley (writer, actress, currently co-writing The Last of Us: Part II, and has written on the TV shows Banshee, Westworld, and Emerald City) and Graham (writer, director, sound designer, currently writing and directing Rapid Eye, and has co-written Until Dawn, Until Dawn Rush of Blood, and Hidden Agenda)! They join us to talk moving from TV to games, writing solo vs with a partner, staring at the ceiling being work, pacing for the player's time, garbage passes, Steven Soderbergh’s Mosaic and his thoughts on video games, what makes something a game vs an interactive experience, how everyone is gaming literate now, lining up performances in a modular narrative, writing and recording out of order, trusting your actors and going easy on those parentheticals (unless you’re making a modular narrative), fan expectations, fan fiction, getting the audience to trust you, writing exposition, story burritos, characters saying their feelings, and challenging your audience.

Note:

This episode has spoilers for Inside.
Halley said she played a Game Gear game called Gems, but she wants you to know that she actually meant to say Columns.
Halley was right about Playwright’s Horizons.

Our Guests on the Internet

Halley's Twitter.

Graham's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Mosaic

Steven Soderbergh on Filmmaking, the Weinstein Scandal, and Why You Shouldn’t Call Mosaic a Video Game by Matt Zoller Seitz

The Three Levels of Dialogue

Woodcutters from Fiery Ships

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Samantha Wallschlaeger & Brooke Maggs Nov 20, 2017

Samantha (narrative designer at ArenaNet, and previously a writer and narrative designer on titles such as SumoBoy, Fallout: Lonestar, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Mass Effect Andromeda) and Brooke (writer and narrative designer on The Gardens Between, Paperback and Florence) call in to talk about breaking into the industry, binging the Mass Effect trilogy, writing processes, why character should be the plot, trying to get a story across without using text or speech, creating well-rounded characters, transitioning from a literary writer to a narrative designer, writing for MMOs and the writing process working on The Old Republic, episodic and 100+ hour narratives, special difficulty modes for people who just want to experience the story in a game, NOT being able to kiss Nick Valentine in Fallout 4, different approaches to storytelling within Bioware, career advice and tips for breaking into the industry, and oh man so much more it's crazy.

Our Guests on the Internet

Samantha's Twitter.

Brooke's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

HULK PRESENTS CHARACTER TREES by Film Crit Hulk

The Gardens Between

The Writer Between: Thieving Literary Plot to Design Game Narrative by Brooke Maggs

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Michael Choung & Laura Jacqmin Oct 31, 2017

Michael (writer at Night School Studio, and previously a lead writer at Telltale Games on The Walking Dead - A New Frontier, Batman, Minecraft: Story Mode, and Tales from the Borderlands) and Laura (playwright, TV writer, and game writer, winner of several awards for her plays, including the Wasserstein Prize, writer on Get Shorty, Grace and Frankie, Season 3 of Telltale's The Walking Dead, and Minecraft: Story Mode) join us to talk about moving between theatre, TV, and video games, switching fonts and other strategies when you're narratively stuck, the best times to write, jumping from selling shoes to Telltale, player agency, approaching storytelling differently for different IP, Night School’s storytelling philosophy, story being an endlessly renewable resource, work-life balance, giving the illusion of choice to players, making choices feel big, responding to players while making episodic content, and the need for more character moments in AAA.

Our Guests on the Internet

Michael's Twitter.

Laura's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Dental Society Midwinter Meeting by Laura Jacqmin

Video Games Are Destroying the People Who Make Them by Jason Schreier

Tales from the Borderlands: The Oral History by Duncan Fyfe

Thimbleweed Park

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Ashly Burch & Kate Dollarhyde Aug 28, 2017

Ashly (actress, writer, and singer, who's acted in such games as Borderlands 2, Mortal Kombat X, Life is Strange, and Horizon Zero Dawn, and has written for Rocket Jump, Adventure Time, and Glitch Techs) and Kate (writer of speculative fiction, with her stories appearing in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Gamut, and Lamplight, and currently the co-Editor in Chief of the online magazine Strange Horizons as well as a narrative designer at Obsidian Entertainment working on Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire) are here to talk fan fiction, writing processes, letting your work breathe vs brute forcing it, whether games need their stories to be great or not, dealing with bad notes, voice acting and having too much or too little info to work with when you go into the booth, staying true to an IPs voice while also bringing your own, writing as a fan, ways to handle the problem of crafting stories when players might not be paying attention to/remembering key information, making players feel helpless, and much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Ashly's Twitter, Website, and OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes.

Kate's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

The Science and Entertainment Exchange

Hey Ash Whatcha Playin?

Codex Writers' Group

Fueling the 'Pyre' With Supergiant Games' Greg Kasavin

Epistle 3 Jam (Half-Life 3 Game Jam)

Epistle 3 by Marc Laidlaw

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Kim Belair & Harrison G. Pink Jul 17, 2017

Kim (scriptwriter at Ubisoft, co-author of the novel "Pure Steele", and co-host of the weekly podcast, "The Sexiest Podcast") and Harrison ( game designer at Telltale on seasons 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: 400 Days, and co-creator of Tales from the Borderlands. Recently a world designer at Hangar 13 on Mafia 3) are here to talk about whether modern games leave enough to the player’s imagination, introducing a New Game Minus feature, if you have a lot of money, you can’t afford faith (from a corporate level), the weirdness of Earthbound, feeling obligated to share lore because you have it instead of holding it back, studios valuing plot logic over emotional logic between characters, open world design problems, giving players more verbs, being able to ask for help more in games, making choices explicit to players, too many twists, and the need for lower stakes.

Our Guests on the Internet

Kim's Twitter and Podcast.

Harrison's Twitter and Podcast.

Stuff We Talked About

Pure Steele by Kim Belair and Ariadne MacGillivray

Imagination vs Immersion by Kim Belair

List of games that support Tourism compiled by JP LeBreton

Arms' lore just gets weirder and weirder by Allegra Frank

The Door Problem by Liz England

Prey vs. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: why one intro works and the other doesn't by Tom Francis

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Josh Mosqueira & Darby McDevitt Jun 26, 2017

Josh (designer on Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro, writer and designer on over a dozen tabletop RPGs for White Wolf, Dream Pod 9, and Steve Jackson games, lead designer on Company of Heroes and Homeworld 2, initial creative director on Far Cry 3, game director on Diablo 3, and current design/game master in residence at Bonfire Studios) and Darby (Writer on several Game Boy Advance and DS games like Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Sims 2, but most recently has been a writer on the Assassin’s Creed series and was the lead writer on Revelations and Black Flag) call in to discuss tabletop gaming, the benefits of an english degree, being a game director at Blizzard, the business realities of game development, the relationship between narrative design and game design, the importance of the player's story, the problem with plot in video games and how to deal with it, the storytelling of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, whether games will ever be remembered for their stories, bad writing, working with established franchises, dealing with the expectations of players, and much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Josh's Twitter and Bonfire Studios's website.

Darby's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Pandemic by Matt Leacock

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt - Best Detective Game Ever Made - Extra Credits

Abel Gance's Napoléon

Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Sean Vanaman & Jesse Stern Apr 17, 2017

We've got Sean (co-project leader and lead writer on season one of Telltale’s The Walking Dead, and Puzzle Agent 2. Writer on Tales of Monkey Island and a designer on Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures. Co-founder of Campo Santo, and writer on their first game, Firewatch) and Jesse (writer on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, Battlefield 4, and Titanfall 1 & 2) in to talk about joining the industry with no preconceived notions, the importance of having somebody with strong storytelling sensibilities in a senior leadership role, how building scenes first and then finding a writer NEVER works, generating trust with your team, trusting the process, the skills you improve over making games, staying usefully ignorant of the process, the hardest scene to write in games being two people talking to each other, maintaining a professional curiosity, when is the right time to share ideas with your team, the problem of people mortgaging fun and entertainment for subtlety, and Sean’s experience working on Mickey Epic.

Our Guests on the Internet

Sean's Twitter and Website.

Jesse's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

The Grey

The Art of Fiction #6: Greg Kasavin by Sean Vanaman

Zoom

Campo Santo Quarterly

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Aleissia Laidacker & Rob Morgan Mar 27, 2017

Straight outta GDC, Aleissia (gameplay programmer on Lost: Via Domus, Behavior and AI Programmer on Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood, and lead AI and game programmer on Assassin's Creed 3, Unity, and Unnanounced Project at Ubisoft Montreal) and Rob (game writer, narrative designer, voice director, and cofounder and creative director of Playlines. Writer on The Assembly, Imago, Fallen London, and Wonderbook: Book of Spells) join us to discuss augmented and mixed reality experiences, interactive immersive theater, how to get players to not break experiences, whether AI is the future for making games accessible or not, Sleep No More (as always), should players be aware of a narrative changing around them, managing the user experience, having stories where the player isn't the hero, participation through implication as a storytelling conceit, using AI tracking and Machine Learning to help systemic games, attuning players to treat the world around them as if it's not devoid of social consequences, the player's self-importance about their own experience, advancements in systemic design, our collective excitement at the prospect of a wrestling game using the nemesis system, parallels between wrestling and storytelling, how do you make a believable NPC, and sooooo much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Aleissia's Twitter and her podcast, DevJam.

Rob's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Moment Factory

Sleep No More

Nesta

Punchdrunk and Media Molecule - Where Dreams Collide

Escaping the Holodeck: Storytelling and Convergence in VR/AR

The Speakeasy

Zombie LARP

The Void

Turing Tantrums: AI Devs Rant!!

GCAP 2016: Systems Are Everywhere... Right, Elon Musk? - Aleissia Laidacker

Life is Strange

Empires of EVE: A History of the Great Wars of Eve Online by Andrew Groen

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

The Sexy, Scary Play That’s Influencing Google, Facebook, And Disney

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Émilie Poissenot & Brie Code Feb 20, 2017

We're starting 2017 off right with our guests Émilie (co-director of Burning Glass Creative, led design team on The Sims FreePlay at EA Melbourne and on Drakensang at Bigpoint Games. Was game design director at Frima Studio and taught storytelling in games at Cégep Limoilou) and Brie (previously lead programmer at Ubisoft Montreal on the Assassin's Creed franchise and Child of Light, and currently the founder of Tru Luv Media). Topics include making games with people who don't like video games, modular narratives, integrating positive psychology into game design, story emerging from systems, the storytelling challenges of being free to play, updating a game every three weeks and the challenges therein, emotional triggers that create engagement, player ownership in games, the importance of giving space to the audience, and games as a personal growth tool.

Our Guests on the Internet

Emilie's Twitter and Website.

Brie's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Character Development and Storytelling for Games by Lee Sheldon

This War of Mine

iThrive

Eco

*Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.*

Emily Grace Buck & Julie Marchiori Dec 19, 2016

It's our last episode of the year! Emily Grace Buck (narrative designer at Telltale Games where she worked on The Walking Dead: Michonne and Batman - The Telltale Series, and previously designed and wrote educational games at Kognito) and Julie Marchiori (level designer, mission designer, and current Assistant Narrative Director at Ubisoft Montreal, and has worked on such games as the Army of Two franchise, Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed 3, and Assassin's Creed Unity) drop in to talk about using agency to empower players to build their own stories, gameplay verbs, the narrative potential of systems, environmental storytelling, level design, the research phase, design processes, subtext in games, the importance of downtime with your characters and why it's difficult for studios, minority content, examining the choices of players, and a heck of a lot more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Emily's Twitter and Tumblr.

Julie's Blog about going from gamer geek to gamer geek mom, and her other Blog where she talks about things like her beef with gendered games.

Stuff We Talked About

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Fallout 3

Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard

Assassin's Creed: Unity

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Batman - The Telltale Series

Gears of War 4

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

MR. ROBOT:1.51EXFILTRATI0N

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Tim Schafer, Jake Elliott, and Cara Ellison Dec 05, 2016

We are JAM-PACKED with storymakin' knowledge as we talk with Tim (co-founder and creative director of Double Fine Productions, probably wrote/designed/programmed your favorite LucasArts games), Jake (co-founder of Cardboard Computer and writer on Kentucky Route Zero. Maker of artware, music, and games like A (Moth in Relay), We Were You, and The Penguins’ Dilemma), and SURPRISE RETURN GUEST Cara (writer, narrative designer, game critic, and wrote on the recently released Dishonored 2) about using Twine as a design tool, knowing the implementation of your writing, working the fat off your prose style, the hero’s journey being just one bag of tricks that works, the differing emotional states between pitching and working, thinking of structure like Brutalist architecture, the most over utilized/underutilized tools in the storytelling toolbox, the importance of having/not having voice over, fatigue from world-ending stakes, internal writing rules, deciding to use/not use puzzles in adventure games, and whether there’s too much pressure on conclusions.

Our Guests on the Internet

Tim's Twitter and Website.

Jake's Twitter and Website.

Cara's Website and Book.

Stuff We Talked About

Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder (Don’t buy this book)

Breakfast of Champions: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Thirty Flights of Loving

Virginia

Here and There Along the Echo

Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin

Emily Short’s blog

Sunless Sea

Kurt Vonnegut's Writing Rules

Jake's GDC 2013 talk - Designing for Mystery in Kentucky Route Zero

The Poetics of Space by Cara Ellison

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Mel MacCoubrey & Ann Lemay Nov 21, 2016

Mel (writer and Director of Narrative Design at Ubisoft Quebec, and has worked on such games as Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry, and Assassin's Creed Syndicate) and Ann (writer and narrative designer on such games as Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Mass Effect: Andromeda, and is a co-writer of the book The Game Narrative Toolbox) are here to talk about whether going to university is necessary for becoming a game writer, being a salesperson to other departments, Ubisoft internships, the length of game stories, being a narrative director, one thing they wish all departments knew about narrative to start with, dealing with players who don't care about story, how narrative is everything, the possibility of AAA studios making smaller open world games, being scientifically accurate in Mass Effect and historically accurate in Assassin's Creed, coming onto a franchise that has already started, fan fiction, how to acknowledge every possible action of the player without diluting the story you want to tell, whether we should be concerned about side content overshadowing the main narrative, the hardest and easiest characters to write, the importance of communication, and jeez, so much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Mel's Twitter and Website.

Ann's Twitter and Book.

Stuff We Talked About

Civilization VI

Why Most People Don't Finish Video Games

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Thomas Grip & JT Petty Sep 12, 2016

Thomas Grip (co-founder and Creative Director of Frictional Games, makers of the Penumbra series, the Amnesia series, and SOMA) and JT Petty (writer on such games as the first three Splinter Cell titles, Batman Begins, Outlast 1 & 2, and The Walking Dead: Season 2) join us to discuss the Four Layers of Narrative Design, mistaking plot for story, how controllers affect the narrative, goals of storytelling, VR skepticism, the relation between narrative systems and emotional impact, Silent Hill, what a lack of combat can do for you, the lessons developers can learn from horror, and much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Thomas' Twitter.

JT's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Frictional Games' Blog

Games Telling Stories? by Jesper Juul

The Aesthetic of Play by Brian Upton

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Writings & Lectures on Game Design by Richard Rouse III

Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover

Why VR Will Not Replace Movies by David Pogue

Spec Ops: The Line

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Josh Scherr & Sarah Elmaleh Aug 15, 2016

Uncharted 4 spoilers abound as we've got Josh (former Cinematics Animation Lead at Naughty Dog on the Jak and Daxter series as well as Uncharted 1 through 3, followed by co-writer on Uncharted 4) and Sarah (actor and voiceover artist, heard in such games as Gone Home, Codename Cygnus, Skulls of the Shogun, Galak-Z, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, and Uncharted 4) in to talk performance, can you know too much about a character, the writing process at Naughty Dog, what you accomplish in level dialogue vs cutscene dialogue, why there isn’t an open world Uncharted, was Sam ever Samantha, structure, taking the time to develop characters in-game and spend time with them, where do you start when creating mysteries/puzzles, serious pirate history, making the main character an asshole, ghost pirates, and can you enjoy the games you’ve worked on.

Again, SPOILERS FOR UNCHARTED 4 IN THIS EPISODE.

Our Guests on the Internet

Josh's Twitter.

Sarah's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Babycastles

The Uncharted comic series on Comixology

A Second Chance at Sarah by Neil Druckmann

Nate's journal illustrations by Alex Neonakis

A General History of the Pyrates by Capt. Charles Johnson

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Laura E. Hall & Ian Thomas Aug 01, 2016

The wait is over! Laura (writer and game designer on such projects as the escape room Spark of Resistance, Dysforgiveness, and Cuppa Quest) and Ian (writer, narrative designer, and programmer, and has worked on Soma, the Lego games, and the Little Big Planet series) join us this week to talk about moment-driven story design, designing escape rooms and narrative live action experiences, relying on people's subconscious' to do the heavy lifting, Punchdrunk's immersive theatre, environmental storytelling, breaking games, how to write for experiences where you can't control what the player will do, puzzle design, VR shorthands, and much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Laura's Twitter, Website, and Escape Room.

Ian's Twitter, Talespinners' Website, and Frictional Games' Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Puzzled Pint

Echo Bazaar Narrative Structures, Part Three by Alexis Kennedy

Punchdrunk

The Room by Fireproof Games

Bossfight Books' Spleunky by Derek Yu

Sisters by Otherworld

Budget Cuts by Neat Corporation

The Foo Show featuring Will Smith

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Jolie Menzel & Teddy Diefenbach May 16, 2016

Talking all about design this week with Jolie (cinematic artist & game designer at Telltale Games on The Walking Dead: 400 Days, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands and more, and currently a level designer at Ubisoft San Francisco on South Park: The Fracture But Whole) and Teddy (writer and game designer, worked on Shove Pro, The Moonlighters, and Hyper Light Drifter, and currently a creative director at Square Enix Montreal). We also chat about the story and lack of text in Hyper Light Drifter, games being different based on what department heads the studio, breaking design down into systems/levels/narratives, narrative puzzle design, iteration, having intimate conversations with developers by playing their game, giving players choice when they don’t expect it, the balance of showing how much a game is listening to players, subtlety in design, storytelling through level design, games withholding their payoffs for too long, and the need to not be precious with your work.

Our Guests on the Internet

Jolie's Twitter.

Teddy's Twitter, Podcast, and Hyper Light Drifter.

Stuff We Talked About

The Moonlighters

Catherine

Jolie’s GDC 2016 talk - Solving Puzzle Design

Teddy’s Lost Levels talk

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud

The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques by Joseph V. Mascelli

Alias

Prison Break

Sleep No More (again)

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Drew McGee & Greg Kasavin May 02, 2016

Drew (Design Analyst on Star Wars: The Old Republic, Writer and Designer on The Banner Saga, and Lead Writer on The Banner Saga 2) and Greg (Creative Director of Supergiant Games and Writer of Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre) call in to talk with us about the importance of being involved with the development process when you're a writer, worldbuilding, the writing process on Banner Saga 1 & 2, subtlety in games, how Supergiant decides on which game they're gonna make, writing as the most disposable of the creative disciplines, the divide between thinking something is good and what ends up shipping, storytelling structures, revising and never being comfortable in knowing how close you are from the finish line, the phrase 'We made the game we wanna play,' dealing with branching narratives, and the storytelling potential in fighting games.

Our Guests on the Internet

Drew's Twitter and Stoic's Twitter.

Greg's Twitter and Supergiant's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Brandon Sanderson

The Banner Saga

Puzzle Quest

Raid on Rise: Narrative Creation on 'Rise of The Tomb Raider'

Pyre

Bastion

Greg Kasavin Reads the Introduction of Samurai Showdown 2

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Rob Morgan & Emily Short Apr 18, 2016

NPCs! VR! AR! Rob (game writer, narrative designer, voice director, and writer on Wonderbook, Fallen London, Sunless Sea, and The Assembly) and Emily (game designer specializing in interactive narrative, dialogue, and social interaction modeling, and writer of Galatea, First Draft of the Revolution, Alabaster, Counterfeit Monkey, and more) are here to talk about the importance of streamlining the implementation of your script, looting silos of information and the problem of them not being widely accessible, the value of knowing programming, the storytelling possibilities of VR and who you “are,” disempowered experiences in VR, interactive theater’s influence on games, different solutions for offering branching narratives to players, writing for augmented reality, and the lack of games about maintaining relationships.

Our Guests on the Internet

Rob's Twitter and Website.

Emily's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Punchdrunk

Sleep No More

Beyond Branching: Quality-Based, Salience-Based, and Waypoint Narrative Structures by Emily Short

Firewatch

Wonderbook: Book of Spells

Love Stories for High-XP Characters by Emily Short

The Novelist

In Your Arms Tonight

VideoBrains Youtube Channel

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Ian Gil & Anna Kipnis Apr 04, 2016

Ian (Design Director at E-Line Media and has worked on Gamestar Mechanic, Gamestar Mechanic Jr, and Never Alone) and Anna (Senior Gameplay Programmer at Double Fine and has worked on such games as Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, Broken Age, and Headlander, and was the lead on Dear Leader during Amnesia Fortnight 2014) join us to discuss falling into the industry, the benefits of an education that doesn't just focus on programming/computer science, the work involved with implementing dialogue, planning for localization, Never Alone's development, cultural expression in games, dialogue systems, why text to speech isn't the future (for now), the costs of voiced dynamic dialogue, authored vs simulationist vs player-centric approaches to story in games, and a couple of other rad topics!

Our Guests on the Internet

Ian's Twitter.

Anna's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Never Alone

Amnesia Fortnight 2014

Dialogue Systems in Double Fine Games

Molyjam: How Twitter Jokes Can Save Video Games

Making the World of Firewatch

Netrunner

Crusader Kings 2

Dwarf Fortress' Creator on How He's 42% Towards Simulating Existence

Practice 2015: Anna Kipnis

The Novelist by Kent Hudson

7 Grand Steps

Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

Viriconium by M. John Harrison

The Yawhg by Emily Carroll & Damian Sommer

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Matthew Burns & Carrie Patel Mar 28, 2016

Matthew (writer, composer, and game developer on titles including the Call of Duty and Halo series, Destiny, The Infinifactory, The Arboretum, The Writer Will Do Something, and TIS-100) and Carrie (narrative designer on Pillars of Eternity, writer of The Buried Life and Cities and Thrones) join us this week to talk about maintaining your writing momentum, outlining, the writing process at Obsidian, Large Teams and the Problems they Cause, creating a Total Work of Art in video games, offering decisions that lead to chokepoints, motivating players with different play styles, the negative space that defines players’ experiences, how The Writer Will Do Something came about, that part of the meeting when everybody turns to look at you, when gameplay doesn't trump story, the linearity of relationship portrayals in games today, and should creators ever be involved in the post-release discussion.

Our Guests on the Internet

Matthew's Twitter and Website.

Carrie's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

The Writer Will Do Something

Gesamtkunstwerk

The Expanse by James S. A. Corey

My Brilliant Friend: Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante

The Moth

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Karla Zimonja & Eric Stirpe Mar 04, 2016

This week's coming in hot with Karla Zimonja (researcher and sound tech person on Bioshock 2, narrative and 2D art on Minerva's Den, story editor and 2D artist on Gone Home, and currently working on Tacoma) and Eric Stirpe (writer on The Walking Dead Season 2, Tales from the Borderlands, and Minecraft: Story Mode) joining us to talk about writing and editing processes, writing at Telltale and working with design, player trust, gaming literacy, the importance of Minecraft, trying to balance giving the player an experience that feels unique and tailored to them with the desire to tell a coherent story, ludonarrative dissonance, whether there's a place for cutscenes, how to handle pacing, things you can and can't do with a first person narrative, and so much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Karla's Twitter and Tumblr.

Eric's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Double Fine Adventure!

Darmok

"Playdate" (Chris Ware's story about playing Minecraft with his daughter)

VIDEO GAMES CAN NEVER BE ART by Roger Ebert

The Witness

Firewatch

Growing up Weightless by John M. Ford

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Seveneves: A Novel by Neil Stephenson

Hail, Caesar!

Frontier | Youth in Decline

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

Kaptara

The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Meg Jayanth & Richard Lemarchand Feb 15, 2016

We're captivated by our guests this week, as Meg (creator of Samsara, lead writer on 80 Days, and contributor on Sunless Sea) and Richard (game designer on Gex, Pandemonium, the Soul Reaver series, lead game designer on Jak X and the first three Uncharted games, and Associate Professor in the Interactive Media and Games Division at USC) talk about the cultural influences of tabletop, LARPing and interactive theatre on games, the woes of being a freelance writer, finding work-life balance, the importance and need for editors, the propensity for systemic thinking, unfairness in games, following the rules of fiction vs the rules of games, systemizing choice, the structure of 80 Days, research giving safety to the player, whether genres are useful, the generic influences of The Velvet Underground and The Doors, games confident enough to not explode all over your face when you start them up, and taking responsibility for the stories and games we put out into the world.

Our Guests on the Internet

Meg's Twitter and Website.

Richard's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

The Art of Fiction #2: Meg Jayanth by Duncan Fyfe

The Masque of the Red Death

Sleep No More

The Meadow

EA_Spouse

Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing

Meg's GDC 2015 talk - Leading Players Astray : 80 Days & Unexpected Stories

Dogme 95

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Adam Curtis

Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows

Cybernetics: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine by Norbert Wiener

Meg's PRACTICE 2015 talk on Unfairness in Games

The Year of the Crush: How the Radically Unfair Candy Crush Saga Took Over Our Lives by Tevis Thompson

Donkeyspace by Frank Lantz

Towards a Steampunk Without Steam by Amal El-Mohtar

Wheels of Aurelia

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Mitu Khandaker & Jerry Belich Feb 01, 2016

Social simulations and the storytelling potential of hardware-based games are the main topics in today's discussion with Mitu (Creator of Redshirt, PhD holder in Aesthetics of Interactivity in Video Games, and current Assistant Arts Professor at NYU's Game Center) and Jerry (Game designer and developer behind Robo Mama’s Cooking Kitchen, MysteryPhone, Discourse, The Choosatron, and Afterglow)! We talk about the importance of player choice, The Witness and the dialogue that happens between a creator and the player, why freedom in games isn't always a good thing, how controllers and interfaces affect the way we think about games, why Animal Crossing is an amazing social simulator, how fleshing out a game's world can influence the design, the problems with making a social simulation, what happens to our engagement with games as interfaces become more mimetic, slaying Chris Crawford's Dragon, and man, that's just the stuff that's off the top of our heads!

Our Guests on the Internet

Mitu's Twitter and The Tiniest Shark

Jerry's Twitter and Website

Stuff We Talked About

Mitu's GDC Talk - Thinking About People: Designing Games for Social Simulation

ELIZA and The ELIZA Effect

Loved by Alexander Ocias

The Immersive Fallacy (excerpted from Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals) by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman

Lygia Clark

Redshirt

Notary Bear by Lisa Brown

Chris Crawford's Dragon Speech

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Jill Murray & Corey May Jan 18, 2016

2016 has been put on notice by our guests Jill (writer on Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and the Assassin’s Creed series, including Liberation, Black Flag, and Freedom Cry) and Corey (writer on Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, The Two Thrones, Batman: Arkham Origins, and lead writer on Assassin's Creed 1, 2, and 3), who are here to talk about how everything is writing even if nobody will believe you, staying creatively refreshed, the brain’s thirst for motor activities during procrastination, how one is never done writing a game even after shipping, the insularity of the games industry vs other mediums, the treatment of making games as software instead of entertainment, why it's so hard to get rid of the cutscene/gameplay/cutscene structure, how games have a lot to learn about nonverbal storytelling from dance, the need to embrace failure, how pressure does NOT make diamonds in game development, working with a nonexistent creative vision, being forced to make decisions and live with them as early as possible, not holding out for a better idea, and more things The Good Wife can teach us about narrative design.

Our Guests on the Internet

Jill's Twitter, Website, Discoglobe Interactive Inc., and Moon Hunters.

Corey's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir by Staceyann Chin

Time Machine VR

The Good Wife

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Cara Ellison & Jack de Quidt Dec 21, 2015

Our last episode of the year is here and it's super writing-focused! Cara Ellison (Writer, game critic, narrative designer, creator of Sacrilege, and writer on Dishonored 2) and Jack de Quidt (Writer/composer of Castles in the Sky, and writer of Veracity & Purpose and Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist) join us to talk about their writing processes, working on a narrative when it's fractured across an entire team, why fetch quests occur even though everyone HATES them, the narrative design in The Witcher and Kentucky Route Zero, why a lot of studios are afraid of trusting the player, narrative problem-solving, the verbs that happen in games, navigating breaking the fourth wall, the portrayal of relationships in games, the importance of humor, how to handle pacing, required reading for people working in the industry that isn't about making games, and much, much more.

Our Guests on the Internet

Cara's Twitter, Website, Dishonored 2, Sacrilege, and you can buy Embed with Games here.

Jack's Twitter, Crows Crows Crows, and Friends at the Table.

Stuff We Talked About

On Pointlessness by Steve Gaynor

Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist (it's free!)

TO THE WRITERS OF THE UNIT by David Mamet

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Clint Hocking's Blog

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin

Kentucky Route Zero and the Poetics of Space by Cara Ellison

Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School

Jessica Jones on Netflix

Fargo on Hulu

Fiasco

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Graham & Malena Annable Dec 07, 2015

LucasArts is in the house with our guests Graham (animator on Full Throttle, The Dig, The Curse of Monkey Island, and more. Former creative director at Telltale, creator of Grickle and the Puzzle Agent series, and currently at Laika) and Malena (sound dept. at LucasArts, and later joined Double Fine as a producer, including VO and localization, on pretty much every game they've released). We cover RTX Red Rock, wearing many hats as a producer and creative director, Telltale’s first year, course correcting your game, localization vs translating, how writers can make producers’ lives easier, similarities between miniature set design and game development, and the unnerving speed of technological change in games.

Our Guests on the Internet

Graham's Twitter, Youtube, and Vine

Malena is NOWHERE, but you can donate to Psychonauts 2 here

Stuff We Talked About

RTX: Red Rock

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

C.J. Kershner & Liz Albl Nov 23, 2015

Come for the discussions about writing on an open world game with C.J. (lead writer on Homefront, scriptwriter on Rainbox 6, Your Shape, Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed, and currently senior narrative designer on Homefront: The Revolution,) and Liz (scriptwriter on Far Cry 4, Far Cry 4: Valley of the Yetis), stay for the talks on how to write a good bark, working with localization, pickled toes, writing Far Cry 4, exposition, maintaining urgency in an open word, catching players back up with the story, the importance of asking why manhole covers are round, and GTA 5 role-playing.

Our Guests on the Internet

C.J.'s Twitter

Liz's Website and Twitter

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Khris Brown & Brad Muir Nov 10, 2015

Two of the happiest people in games, Khris (VO/casting director and creative consultant for such places as LucasArts, Double Fine, EA, THQ, Ubisoft, and Telltale Games) and Brad (project lead of Iron Brigade, Brazen, and MASSIVE CHALICE) talk to us about pitching games to studios, working with the story for MASSIVE CHALICE, directing voice over, working with actors, how to deal with differences of opinion, the importance of staying positive, creating stories in games when you're not a "story person", narrative and gameplay dissonance, linearity of AAA game stories, the future of performances in games, and how we've evolved for hugging.

Our Guests on the Internet

Khris' Twitter

Brad's Twitter

Stuff We Talked About

Double Fine Adventure documentary

Amnesia Fortnight 2014 documentary

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Robin Hunicke Nov 03, 2015

We dive deep into empathy with Robin (designer on The Sims 2: Open for Business, MySims, producer on Journey, Glitch, co-founder of Funomena where she's currently working on Wattam and Luna) this week. Other topics include Robin’s pitch for a Street Angel game, games being systems that run on the software of us, what producers actually do, how to design for and instill empathy in players, fostering a genuine non-adversarial connection between players, how to reward contemplative play, games that celebrate mistakes, why aren’t we making games about being loved, the future of AI and storytelling, and how to stave off creative starvation.

Our Guest on the Internet

Robin's Twitter

Funomena's Website and Twitter

Stuff We Talked About

Street Angel: The Princess of Poverty Vol 1

The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Robin's GDC Indie Gamemaker Rant

Tales of Tales’ Cathedral in the Clouds Kickstarter

GDC Experimental Gameplay Workshop

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

-Also Sleep No More is Macbeth, not Hamlet, as Robin pointed out to us after recording this-

Tanya X. Short & Rob Auten Oct 26, 2015

We're all about ARGs and procedural generation on this week's discussion with Tanya (designer on Age of Conan, Dungeons of Fayte, The Secret World, Shattered Planet and Moon Hunters) and Rob (writer on ALFA-ARKIV, Gears of War: Judgment, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Playmation, and Battlefield Hardline). Our sprawling conversation includes chatbots, transmedia narratives, creating mythologies, binary morality systems, pacing in a procedurally generated game, why haven't we moved past cutscenes in games, how procedural and systemic gameplay affects development and writing, and games based on information retrieval.

Our Guests on the Internet

Tanya's Website and Twitter

Rob's Twitter

Stuff We Talked About

Moon Hunters on Steam

The Fake 'Terrorist' Conspiracy Game That Fooled People For Years by Patricia Hernandez

GDC Talk: AI-driven Dynamic Dialog through Fuzzy Pattern Matching by Elan Ruskin

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Brian Kindregan & Diandra Lasrado Oct 19, 2015

We've brought in Brian (who has a huge reel including: animator on Boogerman, storyboard artist for Warner Bros, writer on Jade Empire and Mass Effect 2, and lead writer on Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3) and Diandra (editor formerly at Bioware, Riot, Snail Games, XSEED, and currently Carbine Studios) for discussions on Boogerman, working at Bioware, what being an editor in games is like, application processes for writers, writing born from constraint, why we haven't seen The Wire: The Game yet, and what RTS' can do with storytelling that no other genre can do.

Our Guests on the Internet

Brian's Website and Twitter.

Diandra's Twitter.

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Brendon Chung & Brie Code Oct 02, 2015

Brendon (creator of Barista, Gravity Bone, Flotilla, Air Forte, Atom Zombie Smasher, and Thirty Flights of Loving) and Brie (formerly of Ubisoft Montreal where she worked on the AI systems for the Assassin's Creed franchise and was lead programmer on Child of Light) join us on our very first episode to discuss narrative systems, whether or not cutscenes are evil, the systemic possibilities of a game based on The Good Wife, procedurally generated stories and level design, what an open world game without a main quest would be like, silent protagonists, if narrative is a game mechanic, and much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Brendon's Website and Twitter

Brie's Website and Twitter

Stuff We Talked About

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander

'Narrative is not a game mechanic' by Raph Koster

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.