Origin Story

Chandana Ekanayake is the Co-Founder and Studio Director at Outerloop Games and has over twenty years of experience as a video game designer and art director. Outerloop's first game Falcon Age is a sci-fi VR action adventure about raising a baby falcon and reclaiming a cultural legacy from a force of automated colonizers. Outerloop’s second game, Thirsty Suitors, is a stylish, story-driven adventu...

JES (John Elizabeth Stintz)i is a non-binary and trans writer, educator, and visual artist who grew up on a cattle farm in northwestern Ontario. Their work has been awarded the 2019 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, and The Malahat Review’s 2019 Long Poem Prize. Their writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Best Canadian Poetry, and many o...

Allegra Hyde is the author of Eleutheria " as well as the short story collection,  Of This New World which won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award through the Iowa Short Fiction Award Series.  In her debut novel, Eleutheria, is a story of idealism, activism, and systemic corruption, centered on a naïve young woman's quest for agency in a world ravaged by climate change. We talked with Hyde about...

Matthew Milia is a critically acclaimed songwriter, best known as the lead singer and guitarist for Frontier Ruckus. He is also a poet and visual artist. He’s released three solo records as well as five records with his band Frontier Ruckus. His music explores themes of suburbia, nostalgia, mundanity , and his lyrics paint a sprawling landscape of a Michigan that is both here and elsewhere. We tal...

Podcastings most handsome duo is back to try and convince you that they're still relevant and have good things to say. But do they? Find out on this, our intermission episode. Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp Visit our website: Originstory.show Follow us on Twitter @originstory_ Do you have feedback or questions for us? Email us theoriginstorypod@gmail.com Cover art and website design by Me...

Joshua Karpeh, more widely known as Cautious Clay, is a producer, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter from Cleveland, OH, and currently based in Brooklyn, NY. His music mixes hip-hop and r&b, and blends organic and electronic instrumentation to create a unique sound. He’s collaborated with musicians like Taylor Swift, John Mayer, Billie Eillish, and more and has released three EPs, Bloodt...

Lydia Millet has written more than a dozen novels and story collections which have both won and been nominated for numerous awards - including her story collection Love In Infant Monkeys which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her latest novel, A Children’s Bible , was a finalist for the national book award and shows children grappling with climate disaster - and their parents - in the wake of n apoc...

Greg Lobanov is a game designer from Philadelphia currently living in Canada. He is the director of Chicory: A Colorful Tale and has previously created Wandersong, and Coin Crypt , and a number of other projects. Alexis Dean-Jones Storyboarder, illustrator, animator, and character designer originally from Brisbane, Australia, and currently based in Canada. She’s worked on projects for the Australi...

Jeff Pianki is a singer-songwriter based in LA. He's released two full-length albums, Paper Window, and most recently, Remember It Now, after a 10-year hiatus from releasing music. We sat down with Jeff to talk about what he's been up to for all these years, the creation of his new album Remember It Now, and his new determination for forging a path in music as his full-time profession. Hosted by P...

Steven James Aguilar is a producer, songwriter, sound engineer, and musician based in Seattle, WA. He has worked with artists including The Head and The Heart, Billie Eilish, Macklemore, Dave Matthews Band, and many more. He also releases his own music under the name Heatmaps and most recently put out his new record, Kissing Teeth. We talk to Steven about the power of brevity in music, and his wor...

Tali Faulkner is a Maori game developer behind Umurangi Generation, a semi-realistic photography game set in an apocalyptic future with mechs, an occupational United Nations, and the looming threat of the end of the world. The game recently won the top prize at the Freeplay Independent Games Festival. We talk to Tali about making politics explicit in games, and what it means to be part of the last...

Neil Jones is a game artist currently working out of Detroit, MI. Jones is an artist and game designer who worked on indie titles like Clique and Aerial Knight’s Never Yield. Neil garnered a lot of attention after his game was featured as part of Nintendo's 2021 indie world showcase. We talk with him about how Never Yield was his last-ditch effort to see if he could stay in an industry that is unw...

Brooke Maggs is a Senior Narrative Designer for Remedy Games in Helsinki - although she originally hails from Austrailia. She’s worked on a host of award winning games including Control, Florence, Paperbark, and The Gardens Between. In 2017 she won the MCV Pacific Xbox Women in Games Creative Impact award for her role in the game industry. We talk about how Brooke got into gaming and what "narrati...

Steve Pardo is a composer and interactive audio designer in the video game industry. He’s the co-founder of audio production house SkewSound, a game developer at The Pardo Brothers, and an audio director at Authentic Artists. Pardo has a background in jazz, and his professional career began at legendary music-game studio Harmonix Music Systems where he led the audio team for games such as Rock Ban...

Matthew Seiji Burns is a writer, director, composer, and game designer. With the help of Zachtronics game studio, he created Eliza a visual novel about an AI counseling program, the people who develop it, and the people who use it. Prior to Eliza, Burns worked on a variety of games. He’s the creator of the interactive fiction projects Apology Simulator, The Writer Will Do Something, and The Arbore...

Owen Dennis is a writer, producer, voice actor, and storyboard artist who has worked on animated series like the Regular Show, Infinity Train, and Close Enough and movies including The Greatest Ape and Regular Show: The Movie. We talk about Dennis' frustration over the idea that cartoons are only for kids and pitching complicated shows to studio executives.  Watch Infinity Train streaming on HBO M...

Gina Nutt is the author of the essay collection Night Rooms (Two Dollar Radio) and the poetry collection Wilderness Champion (Gold Wake Press). She earned her MFA from Syracuse University. Her writing has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, Joyland, Ninth Letter, and other publications. We talk about her relationship to horror movies and how that's informed her approach to writing. Gina's writing is co...

Greg Kasavin is the creative director and writer at Supergiant games where he’s helped create critically acclaimed titles such as Bastion, Pyre, Transistor, and Hades. Prior to working at SuperGiant Games, Greg worked as a games journalist for Gamespot where he rose the ranks from being an intern all the way to executive editor (editor in chief) of the publication. He’s also worked in various prod...

Nick Guérin is the creative director at Thunder Lotus Games where he directed and wrote Spiritfarer, which has been described as a “cozy management sim about dying.” Nick’s other work includes design work on several Assassin’s Creed games including Origins and Syndicate as well as design for Watch Dogs 2. In this episode, we interview Nick Guérin about how he translated the experience of caring fo...

What is the origin story of Origin Story? In this brief intro episode we break down who we are and the basic concept of the show. We'll be talking to artists across music, games, novels, and TV about how they got involved with their different craft and makes stories meaningful to them. Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp Visit our website: Originstory.show Follow us on Twitter @originstory_ Do...