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.