Or: How not to give your mentees an existential crisis — Mentorship is not just advice. It is not a contract. And like most things in life, it takes time, and practice, to be good at it. Equally — and I regret that I’ve heard reports of this happening recently — mentors can inadvertently do more harm than good. So how…

Or: How to make friends and influence other departments. — Lots of people ask — me, and in various discord servers, or twitter, etc — how to get into narrative design? Or how it’s different to writing. Or how to build and present a portfolio. Those are all valuable questions that have been answered frequently elsewhere. But a more fundamental…

ORBIS AUREA FLORA INTRO INTRODUCTION TO A FRIGID ECOLOGY (Product page) At first glance, the brilliantine, frigid planetoid of Orbis Aurea is hardly the most verdant environment in the Aethera system. …

Or: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Craft It’s easy to feel like an impostor. But why? Perhaps it’s because you idolise your current or soon-to-be peers, and have therefore let the light of their accomplishments bleach out the marks made by their own failures, insecurities and missteps. …

This is a collaborative summary of the most common, and/or best tools you can use to write or otherwise design your game narrative. Should be fairly self explanatory — and we will update it every so often to reflect new changes/updates/challengers, etc! Either browse through or use the below list…

Jon Ingold is the co-founder of independent studio inkle (www.inklestudios.com), and co-designer of ink, alongside Joseph Humfrey. Jon wrote inkle’s games Heaven’s Vault, Steve Jackson’s Sorcery!, and co-wrote 80 Days with Meg Jayanth. This article was originally published in Wireframe magazine. Weaving branching narratives in ink: a beginner’s guide Ink is the open-source narrative scripting language behind inkle’s…

Hello, and welcome to the Game Writing Guide. This publication exists to aid both new writers and developers — whom for whatever reason can’t work with a professional writer — get the basics right, and improve their storytelling skills. This guide makes no attempt to be objective or definitive. We…

By Jon Ingold Heaven’s Vault is a game built on three pillars — exploration, translation and conversation. The player explores the ancient ruins of the Nebula — they find inscriptions in the script of the Ancients to translate — and then finally, they return to one of the hub moons…

Mobile games. Just take a second to recognise the preconceptions and bias that phrase has conjured in you. I’m not here to tell you that you’re mistaken — there is more than enough rough in which to dig for diamonds. …