in the valley of gods

Happy New Year! This month we've got Duncan (writer on Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Neo Cab, In the Valley of Gods, and the co-creator and writer of the Something True podcast) and Jon (writer, narrative designer and co-founder of Inkle, and has worked on games including 80 Days, Sorcery!, Heaven’s Vault, and Over the Alps) in to talk about being a writer without a writing degree, blank canvas vs well-defined main characters, research, hot air balloons, Lovecraft forums, when to stop researching, underappreciated game moments, player agency, the sweet spot between satisfying and frustrating, the role of writers in pre-production, and more. 

Our Guests on the Internet

Duncan's Website and Twitter.

Jon's Twitter, Inkle's Website and Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Idle Thumbs

Centralia, PA

Leliana's Song DLC

Rameses by Stephen Bond

Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin

Pyst

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

We're back again this month with Heli (theatre and performance costume designer, most recently a costume and character designer for Remedy’s Control and the upcoming Crossfire 2. Also worked on Mirages for Kroma Productions, and EGO CURE for Aalto University)and Claire (currently an art director at Valve, previously an artist and associate production designer for Microsoft Studios on a ton of Kinect games, Fable Legends, Sunset Overdrive, Powerstar Golf, and more. Also the production designer for Westworld VR) to talk about why costume design as a specialized role isn’t more common in games, the narrative features of costume design, differences with fashion design, research, building costumes for worlds less-based in reality, the problem of flowing clothes, working with the non-monetary budgets of video games (memory, processing power, etc), not holding back on your first draft, their most important collaborators, iteration, pitching ideas that may be too “out there,” the hardest costume they’ve designed (that they can talk about), knowing when something’s done, how non-costume designers can learn more about costume design, mundane costume design, work/life balance, and how can writers make costume designers’ lives easier.

Our guests on the Internet

Claire’s Twitter and Website.

Heli’s Website and Artstation.

Stuff We Talked About

Marvelous Designer

LA Noire

The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

Bayonetta

Our theme music was created by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

We're taking a big ol' swan dive into character design and concept art on this week's episode, and so we're SUPER lucky to have Ashley (formerly a Concept Artist on The Last of Us: Left Behind, and since then she's worked on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End as Lead Character Concept Artist, as well as the upcoming The Last of Us Part II) and Claire (formerly an Artist and Associate Production Designer for Microsoft Studios, where she worked on a bunch of Kinect games, Fable Legends, Sunset Overdrive, Powerstar Golf, and more. She also was the Production Designer for Westworld VR, and currently works as the Art Director on In the Valley of Gods for Campo Santo/Valve) joining us to talk about the misconceptions around what a concept artist does, how they each approach character design, what they want from the writers/creative director when they're starting out with designing one, working for the project instead of yourself, how they know when they're done, the importance of taking breaks and having personal projects, how to achieve good storytelling and character work through costuming, how "real" you can push things before it becomes so novel for players that they're distracted by it, cloth sims: the final frontier of video game character design, making art for VR, major influences, how to create characters that are lifelike and not superficial, the secret to navigating creative disagreements successfully, the importance of failing and making mistakes, which game stories they've responded to recently, and MORE!

Our Guests on the Internet

Ashley on Twitter and Instagram.

Claire on Twitter and her Website.

Stuff We Talked About

James Gurney

In the Valley of the Gods

Mary Zophres

The Order: 1886

Isao Oishi

Layers of Fear

Hilda

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles & Ted Orland

Horizon Zero Dawn

Night in the Woods

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.