Karla Zimonja & Eric Stirpe
Explicit content warning
03/04/16 • 109 min
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
Eric's Twitter.
Stuff We Talked About
"Playdate" (Chris Ware's story about playing Minecraft with his daughter)
VIDEO GAMES CAN NEVER BE ART by Roger Ebert
Growing up Weightless by John M. Ford
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Seveneves: A Novel by Neil Stephenson
The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling
The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.
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
Eric's Twitter.
Stuff We Talked About
"Playdate" (Chris Ware's story about playing Minecraft with his daughter)
VIDEO GAMES CAN NEVER BE ART by Roger Ebert
Growing up Weightless by John M. Ford
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Seveneves: A Novel by Neil Stephenson
The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling
The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig
Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.
Previous Episode
Meg Jayanth & Richard Lemarchand
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 Website.
Richard's Twitter and Website.
Stuff We Talked About
The Art of Fiction #2: Meg Jayanth by Duncan Fyfe
Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing
Meg's GDC 2015 talk - Leading Players Astray : 80 Days & Unexpected Stories
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Adam Curtis
Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows
Cybernetics: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine by Norbert Wiener
Meg's PRACTICE 2015 talk on Unfairness in Games
Towards a Steampunk Without Steam by Amal El-Mohtar
Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.
Next Episode
Matthew Burns & Carrie Patel
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.
Stuff We Talked About
The Expanse by James S. A. Corey
My Brilliant Friend: Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.
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