Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we air our December interview with Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines writer/designer Brian Mitsoda. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown: 0:48 Interview 1:11:02 Break 1:11:34 Outro

Issues covered: wanting to start in screenwriting, playing a game that gets its hooks in you, overdressing for the interview, the low bar to QA entry, starting out testing RPGs, "don't crunch, kids," a game cancellation, the OC style, branching dialog, being given a lot of leeway, including mature language, generalizing across level design vs writing vs narrative design, two designers, bringing hubs to life with supporting characters, working to get the Ocean House scary, funneling the player subtly, the importance of audio to horror, sticking to your guns about keeping combat out, a necessary density, representing Santa Monica, thinking about who lives in a location, satisfying player expectations and wish fulfillment, filling in gaps and fixing things yourself, domain protection, not needing permission, balancing input and ownership, keeping the game in your head, a lived-in quality, how to branch effectively, focusing on player intent, the difference between writing and narrative design, 24 ways to say "ow," helping to design and build tools, guiding the experience, maintaining cohesion, how writing is delivered, prepping to work with a license, managing experienced players' expectations, bringing in players as a new vampire, avoiding a Chosen One story, thinking of clans as a mod, feeling important and unplanned delights, reskinning the game for Malkavians, thinking of characters as having lives that are interrupted by the player (not waiting for the player), overlap with theater.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Icewind Dale, Messiah, Interplay, Troika Entertainment, Obsidian Entertainment, Alpha Protocol, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Double Bear Entertainment, Dead State, Panic at Multiverse High, Bloodlines 2, Fallout, Black Isle Entertainment, Invictus, TORN, Planescape: Torment, Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, The Writer Will Do Something, Matthew Burns, Tom Bissell, Universal Studios, TJ Perillo, Chad Moore, Jason Anderson, Ubisoft, Dungeons & Dragons, Halo, Half-Life 2, LucasArts, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time: Annual Takeaway Show!

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