I write about grand, cosmic forces beyond our control and the ways we can still seize agency within them.
Using diverse branching dialogue structures, unique designs, and a strong technical background, I am always seeking to recreate that feeling I had of being 13 years old, playing Knights of the Old Republic in the dead of night, opening up to a new party member for the first time amidst all the misery of the galaxy around us.
I specialize in writing dynamic, interactive webs of dialogue and prose to build tension, connection, and surprise.
It's You: A Breakup Story features one enormous, single conversation with over 2000 voice-acted lines which simulates the trauma of cutting out a toxic partner from your life. Sense of Harmony uses similar techniques to explore how sex workers navigate boundaries when delivering emotional services to their clients.
My work is heavily influenced by the design philosophies of Jon Ingold in that I firmly believe that structure just as much as content tells the story.
I design gameplay to tell story through play. Whether that is the emotionally fraught, tax-filing challenges in OverTaxed or the "cybernetic empathy" in Sense of Harmony, I'm interested in experimenting with the ways mechanics can convey a game's central conflicts and themes.
At Humanoid Origin and the Coalition, I created vignettes and designed gameplay that allowed players to participate in story through play.
Having worked as a AAA engine and tools programmer for multiple years, I'm proficient with technical implementation and scripting. I've designed and implemented key components and toolkits for dialogue and other storytelling systems at two different AAA studios. As narrative systems touch every part of the game, my tools are always built with user experience and collaboration first.
I am also the lead maintainer of both the Javascript implementation of Articy and a contributor to the C++/Unreal port of the Ink runtime: InkCpp.
Before the studio's closure, I worked as a narrative designer on an unnnanounced single-player roleplaying game in a new science-fiction IP. The game was being built in Unreal Engine 5.
As a designer, I prototyped narrative-focused gameplay verbs, dialogue systems that allowed players to participate in story without leaving gameplay, and puzzle scenarios that required investigation to solve.
As a technical designer, I built the game's dialogue system in C++ and Blueprint to support priority, pause/interrupt/resume, queueing, subtitle balancing, conditionals, and a context-aware bark system. This included the underlying system work, a suite of re-usable actors, and tools usable in-editor by designers and writers.
The lastest installment in the Gears of War franchise by The Coalition. I worked as a narrative during pre-production and early production in Unreal Engine 5.
On the technical side, I built the library of re-usable actors to make the implementation of narrative moments simple and logical.
On the design side, I built narrative vignettes to populate non-linear spaces that focused on storytelling through gameplay verbs to involve the player in the story without the need for conventional dialogue choices.
An evening in the life of Elizabeth Boldan: part-time student, part-time sex worker, full-time cyborg.
Created using Articy and a custom-built web engine, the game explores themes of transhumanism, empathy, and healthy boundaries. I designed the game's central cybernetic empathy mechanic, wrote all the game's prose, and designed the characters.
Created as an experiment, this game was widely successful (placing 10th out of 103 in the 2020 Interactive Fiction Competition) and I am now working on producing a full game using its characters, setting, and system.
Interactive Fiction
With attention to pacing, player choices, and NPC motivations
Elizabeth can unlock new dialogue options using her cybernetic abilities
Responding to problems with the cybernetics gameplay from player feedback
A game with only one ending: breaking up with your abusive boyfriend. An emotional, hour-long phone call disaster simulator.
I worked as the lead writer and designer alongside two other writers, two artists, a voice actor, and a musician. The game was funded through a successful Kickstarter which drew in over $2000 and a number of dedicated fans.
Visual Novel
The game has only one ending: breaking up with your shitty ex. It's going to be hell though.
Josh doesn't want to talk about your relationship. Instead, he constantly tries to shuffle the player back to one of many topics he'd rather rattle on about.
To keep the game fresh, Josh chooses between many voice-acted alternate lines in common situations like the player not answering quickly enough.
Visual novel about rescuing your brother while trying to impress your crush
Short game about an alien ordering a sandwich
A game about reaching out to your niece. A game about helping your Uncle with his taxes.
Interactive Fiction
Player alternates between both sides of a charged family situation.
Narrative driven gameplay involving two characters working together to solve tax forms.
Various events in the gameplay trigger narrative events. Outcome of challenges change the story.
Early design doc for the collaborative tax filing gameplay.
A fantasy novella about community, death, and folk lore.
Unreleased cybernetic detective prototype built with Unreal and Articy.
Detective Adventure
Elizabeth contacts an old friend for help.
Discover hidden clues and take pictures to analyze them
Overhear distant voices and detect scraps of conversation.
The third installment in the Luigi's Mansion series. I worked as a writer, tools developer, and engine programmer.
An absurdist short story about a housewife who awakens from cryogenic stasis every eight hundred years to bake her dying husband a birthday cake.
An essay published in First Person Scholar about what it means for a choice to "matter".
80k word Twine game about investigating a fatal workplace accident and unpacking your own damage about heroism.
Interactive Fiction
Instead of just speaking, players can choose to look or think. However, other characters react to your silence.
Over 80 000 words of text.
Player character constantly struggles with their own responsibility in the wake of a horrific accident.
Time looping story puzzle game where the ship explodes every 60 seconds.
Adventure
Everything in the game is on a timer in the 60-second time loop.
Player must collect clues and discover how to end the time loop.
Learn about the characters on the ship to help undo the loop.
Phoenix Wright-style adventure game/visual novel about investigating infidelity.