Eric Stirpe

Writing stuff at Remedy Games. Dad. I also write MultiVersus and some other stuff. Previously lead writer for Minecraft Story Mode. He/Him

[stirpicus]

Will there ever be a Season 3?

No probably not.

[stirpicus]

hello hi!! not a mcsm question but wanted to ask; how have you been enjoying finland for these years? 🔥 im from finland and my interest in mcsm recently resurfaced again so im back here hehe

also; have you learned any finnish?

Hey, that’s awesome! I’ve been here about 4.5 years now and, while it’s had its ups and downs, I’ve been really liking it! Helsinki has been an incredible place to raise my son, and I Iove that I can just walk everywhere. I also really love and respect the Finnish attitudes towards work/life balance and the emphasis on nature; we’re actually just finishing up a week out at a rented mökki so I’m doing my best to fit in. :)

As far as learning the language, unfortunately between my ADHD and my stutter, learning foreign languages is extremely difficult for me. But I’ve been trying my best to at least learn as much vocabulary as I can. I can at least navigate the grocery store now which I count as a win.

[stirpicus]

You did inspire me to start writing (first fanfiction, now an original story). Also some posts did give pointers... So hey, the blog did its job!

Aw, that’s very kind of you to say - thank you!

[stirpicus]

Any tips on passing a job interview to become a writer?

If you’re interviewing to be a junior- or mid-level writer, make sure to emphasize your love of collaboration, openness to feedback, and desire to learn. If you’re interviewing for a senior-level position, focus on talking about putting your personal perspective and POV in the work as well as your ability to own things without too much supervision.

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Hey Eric! Huge Minecraft Story Mode fan here! For years I’ve always wondered: how come Minecraft Story Mode never got merchandise? Every other Minecraft spinoff got toys and stuff, meanwhile all MCSM got I believe were convention exclusive T-shirts. Was there a licensing problem with Mojang, Microsoft and Telltale? And if MCSM toys WERE made, what would you have liked to see? Personally I would’ve LOVED action figures!

Man my DREAM was to have little blindbox figures for MCSM - we would’ve had so many options! Unfortunately doing MCSM merch just didn’t fit into Mojang’s plans so it didn’t work out.

[stirpicus]

Salutations mr stirpicus,

I would like to say that Xara is one of my favorite characters from Mcsm, I just think her personality and the things she had to endure very fascinating. I also wanted to ask some things about her!

- How did the casting for Xara went? (April Stewart did an awesome job with the voice acting!!)

- Was Admin Xara's design supposed to appear during the season?

- How did you choose the color motifs for her and the other Admins? Was it just vibes based or there is a symbolism?

- And now a silly one. If she has a Spotify account, which genre would she listen to?

Thank you very much for reading! Hope you have a lovely day/night :)

For casting, it was very typical - we sent out casting sheets to agents, got back about a hundred auditions, and April Stewart was our favorite.

We weren’t sure whether it would or not, but the concept artists designed it as part of the process of finding her look. Colors were totally just vibes and what “felt right” if I recall correctly.

Xara would want something as jarring and loud as possible to help her stay awake.

[stirpicus]

At the end of season 2, if you chose to stay in beacontown Radar will tell you that you've gotten letters from Aiden and W.P. (who I'm highly certain is the White Pumpkin), was there plans to tie these characters into a future potential MCSM S3 or future MCSM content? Thanks for your work on MCSM, I loved the game very much.

No, no specific plans for those two - it was all just me trying to show the player (and Jesse) that there were still lots of adventures in store and many other stories taking place across the world. Even though those two were only the villains for single episodes, I liked the idea that it was like a comic book or animated series where characters and villains could be recurring for years to come.

[stirpicus]

What countries have you been to?

Oooh, lemme see -

United States 🇺🇸

Canada 🇨🇦

Italy 🇮🇹

Norway 🇳🇴

Japan 🇯🇵

France 🇫🇷

Switzerland 🇨🇭

Germany 🇩🇪

Finland 🇫🇮

South Korea 🇰🇷

Ireland 🇮🇪

Honestly, not as many as I would’ve thought once I started adding them up!

[stirpicus]

Hello!!

Sorry if that was allready asked before, but do you have any fun facts about the developpement/writing of MCSM?

I’d recommend scrolling back through my tumblr; I’ve been answering MCSM questions on here for nearly ten years now so surely there’s a fun fact or two in there somewhere. :)

[stirpicus]

Sorry if this is personal, But since moving to Finland have you returned to the USA for a vacation or to visit anybody? Sorry if thats a rude question

Ha, no that’s not a rude question at all. I moved to Finland in 2022, and since then I’ve been back maybe five or six times? Once for GDC, the rest to visit my family. I just got back from my mom’s place like two weeks ago, actually.

[stirpicus]

What do you think of Rex MacGyver. He's the largest MCSM youtuber right now

I don’t really watch YouTube, especially not for stuff I worked on, so I have no idea what’s going on in that space, sorry.

[stirpicus]

Do you ever play minecraft?

I’ll occasionally get an itch to play Minecraft. It’ll mostly be when I want something multiplayer to play with my brother and sister (who both live back in the United States in New York) and we’ll toss in a couple bucks to do a multiplayer server for a bit. Last time we did that was… maybe February of this year? But Minecraft isn’t a game I play very regularly anymore. I played a lot of Minecraft back when it first came out in beta in 2009, and then a lot more when I was working on MCSM, and I think I burned myself out on it a bit.

[stirpicus]

What was TorqueDwag from episode 6 inspired by? Idk why he kinda reminds me of a WWE Wrestler like Macho Man Randy Savage.

Haha yeah you pretty much nailed it.

[stirpicus]

You’ve mentioned before how Stacy was originally supposed to die in Episode 6, but this was never realised due to it being too much of a crunch on the budget. Do you remember how early her death was cut in the writing process and how her death and the rest of the episode were planned to go?

Oh that wasn’t just Stacy; originally we had hoped that any configuration of deaths for any of the characters could happen AND that any of the YTers could be the killer. Unfortunately the reality of making that happen was exponentially complicated and we were already on a severely limited time table for that episode, so we had to start making cuts.

[stirpicus]

Since you worked on the walking dead season 2, Were you given any dev team items for it? Like a tshirt or plush or something?

Yes I believe we got a t-shirt, and then a personalized nametag for the hardware store that was in S2E1 (Blood-stained, naturally).

[stirpicus]

Sorry for the stupid/obscure questions Eric, but:

- What was your favorite mission or scene to write in High on Life?

- Was there any joke or dialogue that you thought would never make it into the final game but did?

- Were there any cut story ideas or characters that you really wish had made it into High on Life?

Appreciate any answers you can give and hope you have a amazing day!

Oh man was not expecting a High on Life question, ha!

Honestly, my involvement with that game was pretty limited. The game’s original director, Justin Roiland*, had the idea for the story but had never made a game before, so he hired me to help him make it more “game shaped.” Most of my work was helping with the super high-level structure and a lot of feedback on the beginning to help make sure the player felt invested and had all the info they needed to understand the story.

That said, the joke that I absolutely 100% did not expect to ship was “Space Applebee’s.” Justin pitched me the idea for this whole location that would be a perfect match for his local Applebee’s, except it was all “Space Applebee’s,” and I thought there was no way he wouldn’t get sued. But he just laughed and said “Don’t worry. Those guys love me.” Lo and behold:

* This was in 2019, several years before Justin was embroiled in numerous controversies

[stirpicus]

Hi!

I just wanted to ask, as I think you’ve talked a bit about it before, but what genres of music would you assign to the characters of mcsm?

I get this question (or permutations on it) a lot, and it’s always a bit of a funny one for me. The music of our world doesn’t exist in the world of Minecraft, so I can’t imagine the MCSM characters listening to any music besides the records that you can find in Minecraft proper. Sorry if that’s a weird or overly-literal answer.

That said, I love hearing what genres or bands people associate with the cast. I think it’s a really fascinating glimpse into what associations people make between the characters and other media.