Script Lock

Latest Episodes:

Ian Gil & Anna Kipnis Apr 04, 2016

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.