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.