Game Narrative Kaleidoscope Podcast

Biographies: The Quick and Dirty Way Bertine van Hövell ( Old Skies , Stellaris ) talks to us about creating characters for LARPs by creating their biographies. How can adding a contradiction to a person's backstory spice up a character and give a steer on roleplaying that character? And how do we bring that idea over into a computer game, where the player has no one to judge or feed off their per...

Why I Love Text Parsers We talk with Julia Minamata ( The Crimson Diamond ) about the joys of implementing a text parser-based game in the 2020s - but also about creativity as a process and craft as hard-work with no shortcuts. How do we find our way through a project when we don't know where we're headed? And how do we welcome players into a game that's unlike anything they've played before? For...

Set-ups, Attempts, Complications and Pay-Offs We're joined by Josh Labelle ( Disney Dreamlight Valley , Kim Kardashian's Hollywood ) to talk about the bare bones of what makes a story - and how that plays out over episodes and seasons of a live-service game with a hugely invested fanbase. How much do we play to expectations, and how much do we play against them? And how do we tell when a story is...

Blending In by Standing Out Pedro Giglio ( Town of Zoz , Cobra Kai 2 ) joins us to talk about bringing local detail to a global market. How do we adjust our material to make sure it connects with people from different cultures? And how do we broaden the audience's understanding of the world without being seen as being worthy? We chew over the balance of humour and specificity that lets us go big,...

Poems Make Games Better Adriana X. Jacobs is an Associate Professor of Hebrew Literature, and also a game writer and designer. This week she talks to us about the use of poetry in games: the use of text and spoken performance to slow the player down and draw them deeper into the world of the game, in a way that more immediate world-building can't always achieve. But does it need to appeal to every...

Choose Yourself We're joined by Josh Boykin ( Lancer Tactics ) to talk about how we bring ourselves into the work that we do - especially in a world full of injustice and very real political risk. How does being vunerable lead us to tell better stories? And how do we make sure we stay on the right narrative path when faced with so many conflicting goals and pressures? For more info the GNK book, a...

Your AAA game should be more mundane We're joined by Emma Kidwell ( Civilisation VII , Midnight Suns ) to discuss the quieter, mundane moments that make a blockbuster game sing, by bringing out the humanity of the characters and realities of their world. How do we structure the story to allow for these moments? And how important is the player's choice of whether or not to engage? For more info the...

Let’s make an 80 Days tabletop roleplaying game We're joined by TTRPG designer Graham Walmsley ( Cthulu Dark , Cosmic Dark ) to discuss his approaches to creating table-top games. How do we create a coherent world when don't have control? How do we know when our mechanics are working? For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope/ Music by Lau...

You're Not a Bad Writer, You Just Don't Get the Assignment When writers join a project, they're not always fully aligned with that project's tone and style - sometimes, it hasn't even been defined yet. Today we talk with Jill Scharr ( Destiny 2 , The Lamplighters League ) about that crucial process of getting aligned with the game, the vision and the team. How do we promote good on-boarding for ne...

A Simple Pawn A wide-ranging and fascinating conversation with writer and narrative designer Pietro Polsinelli ( Football Drama , Becoming Saint ) about writing games embedded in history, developing from the theme outwards, the importance of testing, and lessons that games writers can take into wider artistic contexts. For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklestu...

Localisation, Localisation, Localisation Philippa Warr ( Little Kitty, Big City , A Monster's Expedition ) joins us to talk about the process of localisation. Can digging into your script in immense detail make you a better writer? And how intentional do we need to be to cross the cultural divides? For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope...

"Tell Me More About That": Writing Characters Using a Devised Theater Approach We're joined by freelance writer Anna C. Webster ( Echoes of Wisdom , Bloodlines 2 ) about using theatre techniques to bring your characters to life. How much can we let characters drive the writing themselves? And how do we extend this approach to cover wider casts and variable production environments? For mo...

Make Something Insane: A Guide To Short Twines Nessa Cannon ( Borderlands 4 , Endoparasitic ) joins us to explain how making fast, scrappy Twine games quickly and intuitively can develop your portfolio as well as developing your core skills and confidence as a writer. What can we learn by doing things fast? For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklestudios.com/kal...

Two Tips for Better Dialogues We're joined by Kevin VanOrd ( Baldur's Gate 3 , Divinity: Original Sin 2 ), who tells us about his approaches to writing interactive conversations that keep the player involved at every step. How can a choice point keep the momentum going? For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope/ Music by Laurence Chapman (...

On the Purpose of Choices, and What Keeps Players Engaged We're joined by Deborah D'Antonio L.B. Almeida ( SideQuest Vol 1 , Drintera ) to talk about writing and designing choices for the most interesting player experience, and the benefits of using a very structure-first approach to write for games. For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklestudios.com/kaleidosco...

On Entering Cities (In Interesting and Memorable Ways) Konstantinos Dimopoulos ( Zero Parades ) is a game urbanist who designs cities for games. How do we bring big urban spaces to life? How do we make the best introductions to these spaces? And should we be thinking more about different ways of presenting them? For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklestudios.co...

Silence! We talk to Anthony Jauneaud ( Night Call , Flat Eye ) about the value of silence in conversations. How do encourage players to hold back, and let the other characters do the talking? We discuss how to make stories more dramatic by doing less, and why every game should have a Greek chorus. For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope/...

Economy and Commerce as Narrative Tools Narrative designer Raquel de Miranda ( Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden ) joins us to outline ways to use the economy of the world to drive a game's narrative. What's valuable is a core part of your world, but can it also respond to what the player does? And how would this slot into a bigger open-world game - or a tighter, story-driven one? For more info the GN...

'I don't wanna put my lips on that:' An Ode to Adventure Game Protagonists We're joined by Eric Stirpe ( Fortnite , Minecraft: Story Mode ) about adventure game protagonists with minds of their own. What role does the player take if the protagonist's character is already defined? And does putting distance between player and protagonist allow us to have more immoral and complex characters? For more...

Leave Nothing on the Table Veteran games writer Anna Megill ( Control , Guild Wars 2 ) joins us to talk about coherent storytelling using every part of the game dev team. How do we, as writers, get other creatives invested in the story? How do we integrate diverse ideas, and make sure people feel ownership? And how far can we push the boundaries of how we tell our stories? For more info the GNK bo...

The Bricks & The Gaps: What We Do & Don't Need When Building Worlds We talk with Total War and Star Wars: Jedi Survivor writer Pete Stewart about how to build worlds that leave the player with questions, even inside the walls of enormous franchises - or of history itself. For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklestudios.com/kaleidoscope/ Music by Laurence...

The Tina Fey Hat Problem We talk to Ed Stern ( Brink ) about the power and problems of understatement in games. We discuss how to leave room for nuance, surprise and - best of all - deception, with examples drawn from stage magic, theatrics, and the limits and triumphs of cinema. How do we tell the tightest version of our story? For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://ww...

Is It Relatable? Is It Sublime? We're joined by actor turned narrative designer Taage Storey ( Choices ) to discuss the relatable and the submlime in games writing. How do produce content that's entertaining, while satisfying the need to be art? Drawing on writing for romance, theatre and mass-market interactive fiction, this is a fascinating discussion on how tone and content don't always go hand...

The 'Grenade!' Paradox: Writing Better Barks We talk to Giles Armstrong ( Assassin's Creed: Mirage , Helldivers II , and many other games) about the art and craft of writing barks that express character and world-building as richly as possible without overloading the script. How much can we do with the shortest, most disposable bits of writing in a game project? For more info the GNK book, and to...

Perfectionists Hate This One Simple Trick We talk with Jill Murray ( Shadow of the Tomb Raider , Subnautica: Below Zero , Assassin’s Creed: Liberation ) about how she gets things finished. If you write for your ideal audience member, can you manifest them? And how do you know when a project is nearing completion anyway? For more info the GNK book, and to buy, visit the website: https://www.inklest...