KENT MUDLE

Artist at http://tapas.io/series/BERET Previously: Director @ StillNotBitten, Skybound Games, and Telltale Games

[kmudle]

Anyone still use tumblr? Well, the Star Trek game I directed is out! If you’re looking for more of that telltale style goodness we got it, in space this time!

[kmudle]

hey! ive been thinking ab what i might wanna do when i finish school and think writing for video games would be something cool to consider! how did you become a director? what experience did you need to get to the point you’re at? and do you have any advice for people wanting to reach a similar place🫶

Hello!

I went to school for animation and storyboarding and thus started in cinematics. This means I was directly involved in telling the story, and worked closely with writers and designers to execute their vision, and add things myself. So while I was specialized in cinematics I learned writing and design (and had a passion for that stuff in my personal work anyways) and that got me farther up the ladder into more leadership roles and story work. It took years of just doing the cinematic side of things before I started getting roped into story and design feedback and creation myself.

If you don't have any experience in visual arts I would be surprised if you got to a role called Director but the role of Lead Writer would be the same level of input. Telltale episodes each had a Director, Lead Writer and Lead Designer working together to tell the story. Creative Directors can be writers but that's kind of a special overseer role that is partially creative and partially producer and organizer.

I did not train to be a writer and instead learned that part of game making on the fly being part of the greater team. So I may not be the best person to ask for writer specific advice, but there is one angle to game writing specifically that you could try to get a leg up.

You could try making something in TWINE, a free interactive writing platform. If you can learn the simple programming rules you can create a story someone can play, and learning to think about story in an interactive way is what makes someone a Games writer instead of just a writer. A "player" is different than a "reader" and understanding of that is still rare in a lot of writers trying to break into games. If someone plays your interactive piece and feels like they were being told a story instead of being part of a story then it needs another pass.

[spockasmr]

more of these since no one asked

[gabbelart]

They're dummies

[spacedlexi]

some warm ups i liked

[violetspurpleshoelace]

[kmudle]

oh my god

[spacedlexi]

been meaning to draw them in this shirt for a while 💖💜💙 happy pride

[spacedlexi]

i love drawing violet she is so shape 💜

[blusthings]

i will continue to draw them being helplessly in love and no one can stop me

+ this is how i imagine Clem and AJ’s room in the future!

[kmudle]

Kent! How are you!

I'm doing great, thanks for asking

[apocalypsebi]

sounds like the cat skull just cursed us for all eternity for disturbing it and clems like :D this is so sick jfmjfga

[kmudle]

Still Cool

[spacedlexi]

little doodle cuz i missed my favorite girlies

[twdg-textposts]

TWDG + Textposts (681/?)

[kmudle]

Check out how the new game is coming along!

Another video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzkxv6DhkPo&ab_channel=IGN

[kmudle]

What was your reaction to seeing Twau2 come to life? Seeing the sheriff return to his throne?

Oh, it looks glorious! Very excited for my friends over at Adhoc and new Telltale

[kmudle]

Hey Kent. Bet you're sick of the Walking Dead questions but...Why wasn't Kenny's hat in S4? Did it just slip the collective minds or was it intentionally left out?

I think at first it just slipped the collective mind, but when it was noticed we forgot, it was such a rare conditional that it was not considered worth the valuable production time to support.

If you recall, it was an OPTIONAL clickable in one of FOUR flashback scenes based on S2 endings. You can skip if it you click 4 things that are not the hat. It's gotten a lot of fan mind space over the years but I think people forget how narrow a needle you have to thread to actually get that hat.

Does the hat even appear in S3 after that scene? Clem loses her stuff when she gets booted from New Frontier, and Ava brings her a bag later but I don't think the hat shows up in there...? If that's the case, the only way Clem would have gotten the hat back is if it was at the fort in S4 and that would be both a huge coincidence that some other adult kept that hat with AJ for years, and weird tonally to throw a Kenny reference into that scene.

I'll say for what the thought is worth, that I did TRY to get the hat added to Clem's trunk in episode 1 of S4 in the definitive edition (then it would be lost in the crash and not seen again) but there was actually no model of Kenny's hat that wouldn't look really out of place in S4's artstyle without a lot of rework, and we didn't have an art staff on definitive edition for anything but bug fixing and 2D menu stuff, it was a very tight production.

[twdg-textposts]

TWDG + Textposts (625/?)