I am a writer and designer with nearly a decade of industry experience, working with big and small teams across different genres. I specialize in:

  • Systems and economy design; as Fallen London’s lead designer I was heavily involved in adding to, tuning, and maintaining a complex economy with dozens of resources.
  • Managing complexity within sophisticated narrative systems, such as the deep NPC reactions and interiority seen in Mask of the Rose or the player emotional state tracking in Neo Cab.
  • Design and implementation of narrative systems using in-engine scripting and narrative scripting languages like Ink.
  • Writing stories for card deck narratives, storylets systems, and other story systems that deliver narrative in small discrete chunks.
  • Assisting capable writers in becoming capable narrative designers, leveling up team members so they can adeptly build content for a narrative system.
  • Writing in the horror, comedy, mystery, and science fiction genres. I’m especially experienced with dense prose, difficult writing challenges, and other forms of writing that are ‘nontraditional’ within games; as an example, I localizeed a significant chunk of Pathologic 2’s English script into iambic pentameter.

If this sounds like a need you or your studio has: I am available for contracting. I’ve worked as a contract writer, as a consultant, and everything in between. If you’ve never worked with a narrative or design consultant before, I’m happy to talk you through what that process is like. My rates are probably lower than you’d guess.

Not sure why you’d work with a consultant? A few example cases where bringing in a contractor makes a lot of sense.

  • You’re a small team building a game with a small narrative scope, and you need a narrative designer to be responsible for that narrative on a limited basis.
  • You don’t have narrative expertise on your team, so you’re not even sure of how to hire for narrative, how to build a narrative department, or what your needs are exactly; you need someone to guide you through building that up.
  • You’ve found yourself with needs that are complex or unusual and you need a problem-solver who can tame that complexity or bring very specific expertise to bear. For example, your game has a lot of differing paths the player can take, and your narrative has to be robust to that without blowing the scope.
  • You’re under time pressure to solve a problem, and lack either the time or the headcount to go through a full hiring process to add a full team member.

Overall, consultants are brought in to solve specific problems and provide overarching guidance. I’m happy to discuss your needs with no expectations or commitments even if consulting isn’t right for you, or maybe I can point you towards someone else who’s a better fit than I would be.

For inquiries, drop me an email on hello@brunodias.dev.