It's our last episode of the year! Emily Grace Buck (narrative designer at Telltale Games where she worked on The Walking Dead: Michonne and Batman - The Telltale Series, and previously designed and wrote educational games at Kognito) and Julie Marchiori (level designer, mission designer, and current Assistant Narrative Director at Ubisoft Montreal, and has worked on such games as the Army of Two franchise, Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed 3, and Assassin's Creed Unity) drop in to talk about using agency to empower players to build their own stories, gameplay verbs, the narrative potential of systems, environmental storytelling, level design, the research phase, design processes, subtext in games, the importance of downtime with your characters and why it's difficult for studios, minority content, examining the choices of players, and a heck of a lot more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Emily's Twitter and Tumblr.

Julie's Blog about going from gamer geek to gamer geek mom, and her other Blog where she talks about things like her beef with gendered games.

Stuff We Talked About

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Fallout 3

Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard

Assassin's Creed: Unity

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Batman - The Telltale Series

Gears of War 4

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Until Dawn

Life is Strange

World of Warcraft

Mystic Messenger

MR. ROBOT:1.51EXFILTRATI0N

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

We are JAM-PACKED with storymakin' knowledge as we talk with Tim (co-founder and creative director of Double Fine Productions, probably wrote/designed/programmed your favorite LucasArts games), Jake (co-founder of Cardboard Computer and writer on Kentucky Route Zero. Maker of artware, music, and games like A (Moth in Relay), We Were You, and The Penguins’ Dilemma), and SURPRISE RETURN GUEST Cara (writer, narrative designer, game critic, and wrote on the recently released Dishonored 2) about using Twine as a design tool, knowing the implementation of your writing, working the fat off your prose style, the hero’s journey being just one bag of tricks that works, the differing emotional states between pitching and working, thinking of structure like Brutalist architecture, the most over utilized/underutilized tools in the storytelling toolbox, the importance of having/not having voice over, fatigue from world-ending stakes, internal writing rules, deciding to use/not use puzzles in adventure games, and whether there’s too much pressure on conclusions.

Our Guests on the Internet

Tim's Twitter and Website.

Jake's Twitter and Website.

Cara's Website and Book.

Stuff We Talked About

Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder (Don’t buy this book)

Breakfast of Champions: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Thirty Flights of Loving

Virginia

Here and There Along the Echo

Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin

Emily Short’s blog

Sunless Sea

Kurt Vonnegut's Writing Rules

Jake's GDC 2013 talk - Designing for Mystery in Kentucky Route Zero

The Poetics of Space by Cara Ellison

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Mel (writer and Director of Narrative Design at Ubisoft Quebec, and has worked on such games as Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry, and Assassin's Creed Syndicate) and Ann (writer and narrative designer on such games as Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Mass Effect: Andromeda, and is a co-writer of the book The Game Narrative Toolbox) are here to talk about whether going to university is necessary for becoming a game writer, being a salesperson to other departments, Ubisoft internships, the length of game stories, being a narrative director, one thing they wish all departments knew about narrative to start with, dealing with players who don't care about story, how narrative is everything, the possibility of AAA studios making smaller open world games, being scientifically accurate in Mass Effect and historically accurate in Assassin's Creed, coming onto a franchise that has already started, fan fiction, how to acknowledge every possible action of the player without diluting the story you want to tell, whether we should be concerned about side content overshadowing the main narrative, the hardest and easiest characters to write, the importance of communication, and jeez, so much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Mel's Twitter and Website.

Ann's Twitter and Book.

Stuff We Talked About

Civilization VI

Why Most People Don't Finish Video Games

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Thomas Grip (co-founder and Creative Director of Frictional Games, makers of the Penumbra series, the Amnesia series, and SOMA) and JT Petty (writer on such games as the first three Splinter Cell titles, Batman Begins, Outlast 1 & 2, and The Walking Dead: Season 2) join us to discuss the Four Layers of Narrative Design, mistaking plot for story, how controllers affect the narrative, goals of storytelling, VR skepticism, the relation between narrative systems and emotional impact, Silent Hill, what a lack of combat can do for you, the lessons developers can learn from horror, and much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Thomas' Twitter.

JT's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Frictional Games' Blog

Games Telling Stories? by Jesper Juul

The Aesthetic of Play by Brian Upton

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Writings & Lectures on Game Design by Richard Rouse III

Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover

Why VR Will Not Replace Movies by David Pogue

Spec Ops: The Line

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Uncharted 4 spoilers abound as we've got Josh (former Cinematics Animation Lead at Naughty Dog on the Jak and Daxter series as well as Uncharted 1 through 3, followed by co-writer on Uncharted 4) and Sarah (actor and voiceover artist, heard in such games as Gone Home, Codename Cygnus, Skulls of the Shogun, Galak-Z, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, and Uncharted 4) in to talk performance, can you know too much about a character, the writing process at Naughty Dog, what you accomplish in level dialogue vs cutscene dialogue, why there isn’t an open world Uncharted, was Sam ever Samantha, structure, taking the time to develop characters in-game and spend time with them, where do you start when creating mysteries/puzzles, serious pirate history, making the main character an asshole, ghost pirates, and can you enjoy the games you’ve worked on.

Again, SPOILERS FOR UNCHARTED 4 IN THIS EPISODE.

Our Guests on the Internet

Josh's Twitter.

Sarah's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Babycastles

The Uncharted comic series on Comixology

A Second Chance at Sarah by Neil Druckmann

Nate's journal illustrations by Alex Neonakis

A General History of the Pyrates by Capt. Charles Johnson

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

The wait is over! Laura (writer and game designer on such projects as the escape room Spark of Resistance, Dysforgiveness, and Cuppa Quest) and Ian (writer, narrative designer, and programmer, and has worked on Soma, the Lego games, and the Little Big Planet series) join us this week to talk about moment-driven story design, designing escape rooms and narrative live action experiences, relying on people's subconscious' to do the heavy lifting, Punchdrunk's immersive theatre, environmental storytelling, breaking games, how to write for experiences where you can't control what the player will do, puzzle design, VR shorthands, and much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Laura's Twitter, Website, and Escape Room.

Ian's Twitter, Talespinners' Website, and Frictional Games' Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Puzzled Pint

Echo Bazaar Narrative Structures, Part Three by Alexis Kennedy

Punchdrunk

The Room by Fireproof Games

Bossfight Books' Spleunky by Derek Yu

Sisters by Otherworld

Budget Cuts by Neat Corporation

The Foo Show featuring Will Smith

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Talking all about design this week with Jolie (cinematic artist & game designer at Telltale Games on The Walking Dead: 400 Days, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands and more, and currently a level designer at Ubisoft San Francisco on South Park: The Fracture But Whole) and Teddy (writer and game designer, worked on Shove Pro, The Moonlighters, and Hyper Light Drifter, and currently a creative director at Square Enix Montreal). We also chat about the story and lack of text in Hyper Light Drifter, games being different based on what department heads the studio, breaking design down into systems/levels/narratives, narrative puzzle design, iteration, having intimate conversations with developers by playing their game, giving players choice when they don’t expect it, the balance of showing how much a game is listening to players, subtlety in design, storytelling through level design, games withholding their payoffs for too long, and the need to not be precious with your work.

Our Guests on the Internet

Jolie's Twitter.

Teddy's Twitter, Podcast, and Hyper Light Drifter.

Stuff We Talked About

The Moonlighters

Catherine

Jolie’s GDC 2016 talk - Solving Puzzle Design

Teddy’s Lost Levels talk

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud

The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques by Joseph V. Mascelli

Alias

Prison Break

Sleep No More (again)

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Drew (Design Analyst on Star Wars: The Old Republic, Writer and Designer on The Banner Saga, and Lead Writer on The Banner Saga 2) and Greg (Creative Director of Supergiant Games and Writer of Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre) call in to talk with us about the importance of being involved with the development process when you're a writer, worldbuilding, the writing process on Banner Saga 1 & 2, subtlety in games, how Supergiant decides on which game they're gonna make, writing as the most disposable of the creative disciplines, the divide between thinking something is good and what ends up shipping, storytelling structures, revising and never being comfortable in knowing how close you are from the finish line, the phrase 'We made the game we wanna play,' dealing with branching narratives, and the storytelling potential in fighting games.

Our Guests on the Internet

Drew's Twitter and Stoic's Twitter.

Greg's Twitter and Supergiant's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Brandon Sanderson

The Banner Saga

Puzzle Quest

Raid on Rise: Narrative Creation on 'Rise of The Tomb Raider'

Pyre

Bastion

Greg Kasavin Reads the Introduction of Samurai Showdown 2

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

NPCs! VR! AR! Rob (game writer, narrative designer, voice director, and writer on Wonderbook, Fallen London, Sunless Sea, and The Assembly) and Emily (game designer specializing in interactive narrative, dialogue, and social interaction modeling, and writer of Galatea, First Draft of the Revolution, Alabaster, Counterfeit Monkey, and more) are here to talk about the importance of streamlining the implementation of your script, looting silos of information and the problem of them not being widely accessible, the value of knowing programming, the storytelling possibilities of VR and who you “are,” disempowered experiences in VR, interactive theater’s influence on games, different solutions for offering branching narratives to players, writing for augmented reality, and the lack of games about maintaining relationships.

Our Guests on the Internet

Rob's Twitter and Website.

Emily's Twitter and Website.

Stuff We Talked About

Punchdrunk

Sleep No More

Beyond Branching: Quality-Based, Salience-Based, and Waypoint Narrative Structures by Emily Short

Firewatch

Wonderbook: Book of Spells

Love Stories for High-XP Characters by Emily Short

The Novelist

In Your Arms Tonight

VideoBrains Youtube Channel

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.