Script Lock

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 th

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 t

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 t

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 serie

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 S

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 Intern

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

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 Na

Ian (Design Director at E-Line Media and has worked on Gamestar Mechanic, Gamestar Mechanic Jr, and Never Alone) and Anna (Senior Gameplay Programmer at Double Fine and has worked on such games as Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, Broken Age, and Headlander, and was the lead on Dear Leader during Amnesia Fortnight 2014) join us to discuss falling into the industry, the benefits of an education that doesn't just focus on programming/computer science, the work involved with implementing dialogue, planning for localization, Never Alone's development, cultural expression in games, dialogue systems, why text to speech isn't the future (for now), the costs of voiced dynamic dialogue, authored vs simulationist vs player-centric approaches to story in games, and a couple of other rad topics! Our Guests on the Internet Ian's Twitter. Anna's Twitter. Stuff We Talked About Never Alone Amnesia Fortnight 2014 Dialogue Systems in Double Fine Games Molyjam: How Twitter Jokes Can Save Video Games Making the World of Firewatch Net

Matthew (writer, composer, and game developer on titles including the Call of Duty and Halo series, Destiny, The Infinifactory, The Arboretum, The Writer Will Do Something, and TIS-100) and Carrie (narrative designer on Pillars of Eternity, writer of The Buried Life and Cities and Thrones) join us this week to talk about maintaining your writing momentum, outlining, the writing process at Obsidian, Large Teams and the Problems they Cause, creating a Total Work of Art in video games, offering decisions that lead to chokepoints, motivating players with different play styles, the negative space that defines players’ experiences, how The Writer Will Do Something came about, that part of the meeting when everybody turns to look at you, when gameplay doesn't trump story, the linearity of relationship portrayals in games today, and should creators ever be involved in the post-release discussion. Our Guests on the Internet Matthew's Twitter and Website. Carrie's Twitter and Website. Stuff We Talked About The Writer W

This week's coming in hot with Karla Zimonja (researcher and sound tech person on Bioshock 2, narrative and 2D art on Minerva's Den, story editor and 2D artist on Gone Home, and currently working on Tacoma) and Eric Stirpe (writer on The Walking Dead Season 2, Tales from the Borderlands, and Minecraft: Story Mode) joining us to talk about writing and editing processes, writing at Telltale and working with design, player trust, gaming literacy, the importance of Minecraft, trying to balance giving the player an experience that feels unique and tailored to them with the desire to tell a coherent story, ludonarrative dissonance, whether there's a place for cutscenes, how to handle pacing, things you can and can't do with a first person narrative, and so much more! Our Guests on the Internet Karla's Twitter and Tumblr. Eric's Twitter. Stuff We Talked About Double Fine Adventure! Darmok "Playdate" (Chris Ware's story about playing Minecraft with his daughter) VIDEO GAMES CAN NEVER BE ART by Roger Ebert T

We're captivated by our guests this week, as Meg (creator of Samsara, lead writer on 80 Days, and contributor on Sunless Sea) and Richard (game designer on Gex, Pandemonium, the Soul Reaver series, lead game designer on Jak X and the first three Uncharted games, and Associate Professor in the Interactive Media and Games Division at USC) talk about the cultural influences of tabletop, LARPing and interactive theatre on games, the woes of being a freelance writer, finding work-life balance, the importance and need for editors, the propensity for systemic thinking, unfairness in games, following the rules of fiction vs the rules of games, systemizing choice, the structure of 80 Days, research giving safety to the player, whether genres are useful, the generic influences of The Velvet Underground and The Doors, games confident enough to not explode all over your face when you start them up, and taking responsibility for the stories and games we put out into the world. Our Guests on the Internet Meg's Twitter and

Social simulations and the storytelling potential of hardware-based games are the main topics in today's discussion with Mitu (Creator of Redshirt, PhD holder in Aesthetics of Interactivity in Video Games, and current Assistant Arts Professor at NYU's Game Center) and Jerry (Game designer and developer behind Robo Mama’s Cooking Kitchen, MysteryPhone, Discourse, The Choosatron, and Afterglow)! We talk about the importance of player choice, The Witness and the dialogue that happens between a creator and the player, why freedom in games isn't always a good thing, how controllers and interfaces affect the way we think about games, why Animal Crossing is an amazing social simulator, how fleshing out a game's world can influence the design, the problems with making a social simulation, what happens to our engagement with games as interfaces become more mimetic, slaying Chris Crawford's Dragon, and man, that's just the stuff that's off the top of our heads! Our Guests on the Internet Mitu's Twitter and The Tiniest

2016 has been put on notice by our guests Jill (writer on Your Shape: Fitness Evolved and the Assassin’s Creed series, including Liberation, Black Flag, and Freedom Cry) and Corey (writer on Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, The Two Thrones, Batman: Arkham Origins, and lead writer on Assassin's Creed 1, 2, and 3), who are here to talk about how everything is writing even if nobody will believe you, staying creatively refreshed, the brain’s thirst for motor activities during procrastination, how one is never done writing a game even after shipping, the insularity of the games industry vs other mediums, the treatment of making games as software instead of entertainment, why it's so hard to get rid of the cutscene/gameplay/cutscene structure, how games have a lot to learn about nonverbal storytelling from dance, the need to embrace failure, how pressure does NOT make diamonds in game development, working with a nonexistent creative vision, being forced to make decisions and live with them as early as possible, n

Our last episode of the year is here and it's super writing-focused! Cara Ellison (Writer, game critic, narrative designer, creator of Sacrilege, and writer on Dishonored 2) and Jack de Quidt (Writer/composer of Castles in the Sky, and writer of Veracity & Purpose and Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist) join us to talk about their writing processes, working on a narrative when it's fractured across an entire team, why fetch quests occur even though everyone HATES them, the narrative design in The Witcher and Kentucky Route Zero, why a lot of studios are afraid of trusting the player, narrative problem-solving, the verbs that happen in games, navigating breaking the fourth wall, the portrayal of relationships in games, the importance of humor, how to handle pacing, required reading for people working in the industry that isn't about making games, and much, much more. Our Guests on the Internet Cara's Twitter, Website, Dishonored 2, Sacrilege, and you can buy Embed

LucasArts is in the house with our guests Graham (animator on Full Throttle, The Dig, The Curse of Monkey Island, and more. Former creative director at Telltale, creator of Grickle and the Puzzle Agent series, and currently at Laika) and Malena (sound dept. at LucasArts, and later joined Double Fine as a producer, including VO and localization, on pretty much every game they've released). We cover RTX Red Rock, wearing many hats as a producer and creative director, Telltale’s first year, course correcting your game, localization vs translating, how writers can make producers’ lives easier, similarities between miniature set design and game development, and the unnerving speed of technological change in games. Our Guests on the Internet Graham's Twitter, Youtube, and Vine Malena is NOWHERE, but you can donate to Psychonauts 2 here Stuff We Talked About RTX: Red Rock Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Come for the discussions about writing on an open world game with C.J. (lead writer on Homefront, scriptwriter on Rainbox 6, Your Shape, Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed, and currently senior narrative designer on Homefront: The Revolution,) and Liz (scriptwriter on Far Cry 4, Far Cry 4: Valley of the Yetis), stay for the talks on how to write a good bark, working with localization, pickled toes, writing Far Cry 4, exposition, maintaining urgency in an open word, catching players back up with the story, the importance of asking why manhole covers are round, and GTA 5 role-playing. Our Guests on the Internet C.J.'s Twitter Liz's Website and Twitter Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Two of the happiest people in games, Khris (VO/casting director and creative consultant for such places as LucasArts, Double Fine, EA, THQ, Ubisoft, and Telltale Games) and Brad (project lead of Iron Brigade, Brazen, and MASSIVE CHALICE) talk to us about pitching games to studios, working with the story for MASSIVE CHALICE, directing voice over, working with actors, how to deal with differences of opinion, the importance of staying positive, creating stories in games when you're not a "story person", narrative and gameplay dissonance, linearity of AAA game stories, the future of performances in games, and how we've evolved for hugging. Our Guests on the Internet Khris' Twitter Brad's Twitter Stuff We Talked About Double Fine Adventure documentary Amnesia Fortnight 2014 documentary Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

We dive deep into empathy with Robin (designer on The Sims 2: Open for Business, MySims, producer on Journey, Glitch, co-founder of Funomena where she's currently working on Wattam and Luna) this week. Other topics include Robin’s pitch for a Street Angel game, games being systems that run on the software of us, what producers actually do, how to design for and instill empathy in players, fostering a genuine non-adversarial connection between players, how to reward contemplative play, games that celebrate mistakes, why aren’t we making games about being loved, the future of AI and storytelling, and how to stave off creative starvation. Our Guest on the Internet Robin's Twitter Funomena's Website and Twitter Stuff We Talked About Street Angel: The Princess of Poverty Vol 1 The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin Robin's GDC Indie Gamemaker Rant Tales of Tales’ Cathedral in the Clouds Kickstarter GDC Experimental Gameplay Workshop Our theme music was

We're all about ARGs and procedural generation on this week's discussion with Tanya (designer on Age of Conan, Dungeons of Fayte, The Secret World, Shattered Planet and Moon Hunters) and Rob (writer on ALFA-ARKIV, Gears of War: Judgment, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Playmation, and Battlefield Hardline). Our sprawling conversation includes chatbots, transmedia narratives, creating mythologies, binary morality systems, pacing in a procedurally generated game, why haven't we moved past cutscenes in games, how procedural and systemic gameplay affects development and writing, and games based on information retrieval. Our Guests on the Internet Tanya's Website and Twitter Rob's Twitter Stuff We Talked About Moon Hunters on Steam ALFA-ARKIV app itch.io Chatscript Versu The Fake 'Terrorist' Conspiracy Game That Fooled People For Years by Patricia Hernandez GDC Talk: AI-driven Dynamic Dialog through Fuzzy Pattern Matching by Elan Ruskin Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishit