Hello Summer!

It’s been a very busy and (at times) relaxing summer for me and the studio so far. I’ve done some traveling with the family, tried to get settled into my office at Pratt, and was able to do a bunch of system-design work for the next project.

As I’m wrapping up the summer, I wanted to keep y’all updated with what’s going on w/ Essay Games.

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NarraScope Talk online!

I had a great time speaking at NarraScope at the start of the summer at the University of Albany. My talk, entitled I know narrative designers who use branching dialog and they’re all cowards, is a tongue-in-cheek analysis/inquiry into making meaningful choices in narrative games.

The talk sparked an interesting article from well-known games writer Bruno Dias who kind of fell for the rage bait of the talk. The article isn’t really a response to the talk, but it presents some good perspective on choice design, some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t. I’m tremendously glad it seemed to resonate / stimulate discourse, even if I am a bit sour his piece spread a bit more than my talk.

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Game Industry Hardship Fund

I have the huge honor of being included in the Game Industry Hardship Fund that United Video Game Workers and Necrosoft (devs behind Demonschool) recently put together to benefit individual being affected by mass layoffs.

As of writing, the bundle has raised over $150K, blowing past their original projected $100K target with still over a week left. I’m so glad that Bundle of Joy is included (and even made a short cameo in the trailer) and if you haven’t gotten the collection yet, do so ASAP!

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Odds & Ends

As usual, below is a smattering of other highlights from the summer. I’ve also included some things I’ve been playing/reading/thinking about in an effort to share more non-game-dev stuff w/ you:

• I was quoted in this great Mothership article by Wallace Truesdale about caretakers in gamedev.

• I’ve officially been working on the Godot Foundation’s Nodeletter for the past couple of months. Make sure to subscribe!

• I’ve been thinking about the demo of Virtue and a Sledgehammer since first encountering it at Tribeca Games (and wrote a lil’ about it).

• As a motivator, I’ve been streaming on Twitch again recently. I’m trying to do 1-2 days a week, and we’ll see if I can keep things up while teaching.

• For Father’s Day, I got a copy of Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling and finished it pretty quickly. It’s very good but I found the moments centered around his personal experience a bit jarring compared to previous books.

• I started playing Big Walk by House House and it’s excellent. Incredible level design, so much fun and expressiveness, so much collaborative discovery.

• I’ll be at PlayNYC (at AnimeNYC) this year with Pratt Game Arts from Aug 20-23rd. We don’t have a booth number yet, but if you’re going come by and say hi!

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That’s gunna do it for updates! I do have a bit of news to share at the beginning of the semester, but I think I have to hold off until it’s officially announced (sorry to be a tease). I’m planning on posting some gamedev updates soon, so make sure to get the RSS feed for the EG blog!.

Thanks so much for reading and hope you’re having a good summer!

<3z

Nicholas
Essay Games