Script Lock

Latest Episodes:

Alyssa Wong & Lauren Mee Feb 23, 2022

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.