Call me over curious but I’ve got a fewlot questions! Feel free to answer only as many as you want though :)
1. What’s your writing process like? Suppose more specifically what’s it like in group work settings vs solo writing
2. Any character design notes or just. Thoughts about it you’d like to give to the world?
3. Mostly a silly question but favorite RD character?
4. If you had to pick another game genre to work on/in what would it be?
5. If you do answer this can I send more questions? Silly also but you’re one of my main inspirations so it’s cool to learn more about your process and experience
A vast majority of the writing I've done so far in my life has been solo. The only group writing I've really done is on Rhythm Doctor, and even that did not have a "traditional" writer's room process where a group of writers work on something and a Head Writer gives feedback or makes changes.
RD writing can be split into basically two phases: outlining what's gonna happen in the game, and writing the actual word-for-word dialogue. The outlining I worked collaboratively with Hafiz [lead designer], not only so we could bounce ideas off each other but crucially because he had to decide how many levels there were, what the mechanics were, what types of patients would be in each level, etc.
We had long back-and-forth convos about this for Acts 1-4, then Act 5, then Acts 6-7. Earlier in the game, it was mostly him informing me what the levels and gameplay would be and then me creating a story to stretch over it and connect the levels. Later in the game, I drafted story ideas first and then we met in the middle and planned levels around it best we could. We brainstormed a lot of ideas back and forth until slowly chipping away at the one that "felt right" for the game, often to keep the scope small but keep the appeal exciting.
The dialogue writing was usually faster and maybe "less collaborative." Usually one of two things would happen: I would write up a draft of all the dialogue for a level or sequence of levels and then have Hafiz and other team members look over it for approval, OR vice versa, someone else would draft up some placeholder dialogue and then I would come in to revise or approve it. The further we got into the game, the more I would revise and re-draft my own dialogue. Like I'd write Act 5's dialogue and then come back to it a month later to see if I still like it, make changes, etc. then come back to it a month later again.
I hope to someday do a traditional "writer's room" / "writing duo" style project.
In general? Nothing too mindblowing. For designing characters I generally think of them as top-heavy or bottom-heavy, and want them to have at least one feature that is unique or "appealing" even if it's somewhat mundane. I also might think of characters as being composed of a "small, medium, and large" shape, combined in different permutations like you're building a snowman out of order. For designing casts, I often think of them as the playable casts in a N64, Dreamcast, or PS1 game (Snowboard Kids 2, Final Fantasy VII, Sonic Adenture, etc.) where they have to both gel with each other and also have a few that stand out in bizarre ways.
Boring answer, but probably Paige. I like Nicole and Lucky as well.
I hope to someday work on the following types of games: RPG, deckbuilder, incremental game, and trivia game.
Feel free to send more questions, but no promises that I'll answer them all!
