Corey Brotherson & Kelsie Mhoon
Explicit content warning
07/05/22 • 59 min
Back in the throes of summer, we've got Corey (lead narrative designer at Silver Rain Games, writer and narrative designer on WindRush Tales, editor and social media manager of Butterfly Books, and a journalist, critic and content producer for companies such as PlayStation, Yahoo! and the Eurogamer Network) and Kelsie (narrative designer at Obsidian Entertainment on Outer Worlds 2, narrative lead for Dangers in the Motor Vortex, lead writer for Death Carnival, creator of It Girl, and was also a content designer at Jam City and a writer at Pixelberry Studios) here to talk about writing tests, barriers, common motifs & themes in their writing, games they wish they wrote, unexpected pieces of media that inspired them, games where they felt the most invested in the player characters, silent protagonists, things they wished game narratives delved into more often, character tropes, building characters from scratch, and more!
*The views and opinions expressed by Corey do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Silver Rain Games*
Our Guests on the Internet
Kelsie's Twitter and Linkedin.
Stuff We Talked About
The Activision Blizzard Diversity Space Tool
Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.
Back in the throes of summer, we've got Corey (lead narrative designer at Silver Rain Games, writer and narrative designer on WindRush Tales, editor and social media manager of Butterfly Books, and a journalist, critic and content producer for companies such as PlayStation, Yahoo! and the Eurogamer Network) and Kelsie (narrative designer at Obsidian Entertainment on Outer Worlds 2, narrative lead for Dangers in the Motor Vortex, lead writer for Death Carnival, creator of It Girl, and was also a content designer at Jam City and a writer at Pixelberry Studios) here to talk about writing tests, barriers, common motifs & themes in their writing, games they wish they wrote, unexpected pieces of media that inspired them, games where they felt the most invested in the player characters, silent protagonists, things they wished game narratives delved into more often, character tropes, building characters from scratch, and more!
*The views and opinions expressed by Corey do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Silver Rain Games*
Our Guests on the Internet
Kelsie's Twitter and Linkedin.
Stuff We Talked About
The Activision Blizzard Diversity Space Tool
Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.
Previous Episode
Zoe Franznick & Franciska Csongrady
It’s time to get MEDIEVAL with our guests Zoe (currently an Associate Narrative Designer at Obsidian Games working on unannounced projects, and she is also the cohost of the Maniculum Podcast) and Franciska (currently the Narrative Lead on Around for Primal Game Studios, and also the Senior Narrative Designer on Ayna: Shattered Truth for Designmatic. And previously she was a Game Writer on Ori and the Will of the Wisps for Moon Studios, as well as a Narrative Designer on their unannounced ARPG)! They join us to talk about ousting J.R.R. Tolkien as the top fantasy writer of all time, untapped medieval stories that people in games should be thinking about, parallels between medievalism and game design, manuscript culture, how you balance between explaining things for players and letting them fill in the blanks themselves, would they rather tell stories with dialogue or without, are there any books or talks or resources they go back to a lot when working on a game, how to give good criticism and best piece of feedback they’ve gotten, how they think of the player’s active role in the story when they’re writing, what sort of imagery do they find most evocative in horror and medieval literature, and MORE! MUCH MORE!
Our Guests on the Internet
Zoe has no twitter, but check out The Maniculum Podcast!
Franciska's Twitch, Twitter, and check out Around!
Stuff We Talked About
Franciska's Undergrad and Postgrad Theses
GOBELINS Youtube Channel
Like Stories of Old Youtube Channel
How to be a Great DM Youtube Channel
Game Maker’s Toolkit Youtube Channel
The Highly Selective Thesaurus for the Extraordinary Literate by Eugene Ehrlich
Master Lists - The Maniculum Podcast
Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.
Next Episode
Sarah Baylus & Mike Laidlaw
Somehow we're over halfway through the year, but this podcast is still going! Our guests this month are Sarah Baylus (Principal Writer at Larian Studios where she’s currently working on Baldur’s Gate III, and previously she wrote on Divinity: Original Sin, and its sequel Divinity: Original Sin II) and Mike Laidlaw (Chief Creative Officer at Yellow Brick Games working on an unannounced title, and previously was a creative director at Ubisoft, a Senior Creative Director on the Dragon Age franchise as well as a Lead Designer, and was the Lead Writer on Jade Empire), and they join us to discuss why Dragon Age’s storytelling has struck such a chord with people (especially in game development), what they look for in a creative director, what makes a good game writer, the best ways to keep teams updated on a game’s ever-evolving story, favorite software for collaboration, what’s one thing they wished games delved into more often, whether their definitions of good writing and narrative design have changed over time, common mistakes they see writers making these days, favorite game writing/design experiences they’ve had, writing/directing nightmares, localization notes, resources they go back to a lot, things they would've changed to their favorite game narratives, the most effective narrative-based techniques they like to see being used in games to immerse the audience, and more more MORE!
Our Guests on the Internet
Sarah has an Inactive Twitter, but Larian Studios has Baldurs Gate 3 on Early Access right now, and Larian's hiring!
Mike's Twitter, and Yellow Brick Games is hiring!
Stuff We Talked About
An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope
Understanding Show, Don’t Tell: And Really Getting It by Janice Hardy
The last hour of Finaly Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers
Our theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.
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