Putting Games into the Hands of Authors, Creating and Playing Stories - Creative Futurism

Jean Leggett, the force behind story.games, talks about the gaming industry and new ways for authors to take control over developing story-based games with her platform.

Related links:

https://onemorestorygames.com/

Jean's Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CvUSvpFk0A

Transcription:

John:

Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of Creative Futurism. My name is John Best.

Kevin:

And my name is Kevin J. Anderson. And I am sitting out here in the mountains of Colorado hauling up so I can wear my hat as a writer instead of a podcast co-host. But you know, some things don’t wait. So, I have to pop up and login. You would basically have tin cans and telephone wires in trying to get enough of an internet signal. So, if I drown out it’s either because John was either bored of what I had to say and he muted me or we’ve got something flakey going on. But it’s one of those where by me being a publisher as well as a writer as well as all kinds of other things, there are times when you just need to carve out some free time where you’re uninterrupted. So, I’m in a cabin and when I’m not on this podcast right now I’m going to go back to causing great mayhem in this big fantasy novel that I’m editing.

John:

Yeah, I watched a show not too long ago. It was on-it was about a guy in a cabin and he liked to write. It ended up with him being arrested.

Kevin:

Jack Nicholson?

John:

No, no. This was a unabomber I think. Something like that. But yeah, same thing. In a cabin and a lot of writing. And he had a typewriter he really liked. He skewed technology. But all kidding aside, you’re out there like near the actual real life inspiration for South Park, right? Are you out towards Fairplay in Colorado? I don’t know if a lot of people know that like South Park’s a real place.

Kevin:

Well, South Park is a real place. It’s a big open place and there’s a little kind of a mining town here. And it’s kind of out in the middle of nowhere but it’s my little cabin. And I can basically sit here and type all day long that says all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

John:

Yeah, that’s a whole different show.

Kevin:

But you know, that’s a whole different show. But that’s not what we’re doing now. We’re going to have something that’s much more fun. We’ve had exactly this sort of many many times before. Her name is Jean Leggett. And she’s a standup comedian turned life business coach and speaker who joined forces with her husband to set up a video game company with a focus on helping authors develop narrative based video games. So you know, just another one of those. I don’t know how many episodes we can have with standup comedians and life business coaches and video game people. But here’s the thing that kind of impresses-well, a lot about Jean impresses me. But she was brought to my attention by Mark LaFay who’s from Kobo, who was one of our guests from oh boy, I think our second episode? Our first episode? One of our very early episodes on this podcast. But the other really impressive thing is that she’s actually got a Ted Talk which means that people really do want to hear what Jean has to say. And we’ll put up a link on the website to her YouTube Ted Talk. But this is the formal biography that she’s got. And if it was good enough for a Ted Talk I think it should be good enough for us. Jean Leggett is a standup comedian who found herself running a video game company. In 2001 she graduated university with a B.A. in English, tech skills, and wicked sense of humor.