Hi all – Ian here. I have some news! I’m stepping back from my role as an active Partner at Talespinners, effective the end of February 2021. I’ve accepted a new role at a game studio which will take all of my time, on an exciting project which – of course – I can’t discuss […]
0 0 Read moreIan has been working as Story Lead for Frictional Games on Amnesia: Rebirth for the last 5 years, and it's finally out, released on the 20th October! We're very grateful to Frictional for letting us be a part of this, and extremely happy with the reviews!
0 0 Read moreCongratulations to Dev Presbury, who has completed her mentorship programme with us! Here Dev discusses the piece she developed as part of the programme, Best Forgotten. There was a time not so long ago when my life seemed to revolve around schedules. As an executive assistant, I spent a great deal of time managing other [...]
0 0 Read moreWe’re delighted to announce that Dev Presbury has completed our mentorship programme and her hard work and dedication has culminated in the fantastic interactive story Best Forgotten. Best Forgotten is a sample chapter of a larger work about friendship, small towns, and mysterious powers and how easily deception can take over all aspects of your [...]
0 0 Read moreTalespinners is celebrating its fourth birthday this month and we've been incredibly busy over the last year! Michelle Clough is now a Partner We invited editor and writer Michelle Clough to work more closely with the team last year as an Associate, and as of this month she is now a full Partner and co-owner [...]
0 0 Read moreHuge congratulations to everyone at Studio ZA/UM on three BAFTAs! We're so pleased to see one of those was the Narrative Award - well done to the brilliant writing team, including of course our very own Cash DeCuir See the full list of winners here.
0 0 Read moreAmnesia: Rebirth, the newest game from narrative horror masters Frictional Games, has been announced for release in autumn 2020. Our own Ian Thomas is the Story Lead for the game - we can't wait for people to be able to play it.
0 0 Read moreWe're over-the-moon to be able to say that our very own Cash De Cuir has been on the writing team for Disco Elysium for the last year and a half! We're so pleased to see it out in the wild today, and can't wait to see what people make of it.
0 0 Read moreApple Arcade is out, and with it ustwo Games' latest title, Assemble With Care. It's a lovely game, focusing on repairing old objects and helping other people put themselves back together. We're very pleased to have helped out on the project, running one of our story workshops for the team at ustwo. What we achieved in [...]
0 0 Read moreIan gave a talk at Narrascope 2019 at MIT, on how to design games and larps to produce horror inside the players' heads. Karsten at Articy:Draft was a skilled enough cameraman to keep Ian in shot even when he kept wandering around the stage!
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Ian doesn’t just do the job you give him. He brings new ideas, new approaches and directions, and pulls, sculpts and batters your ideas until they look far shinier than they ever were - or would have been – without him. He is an excellent writer, coder, and logical mind that will help you and your project in far more ways than what is written on any contract or agreement.
Olly Bennett
Managing Director, Cardboard Sword
What we achieved in a day really impressed us! Talespinners helped us to clarify and amplify our own ideas, bringing them into a clearer structure...We see the workshop and the document that summarises the results as a big success.
Lea Schönfelder
Senior Game Designer, ustwo Games
Being just a two-person studio, working with Talespinners has been invaluable to us. From brief to delivery they're professional, friendly and punctual. It's reassuring to know that we can rely on them to create high-quality writing that adds an extra dimension to our game, allowing us to focus on the art and code.
Dave Miller
Co-owner, Runner Duck Games
Talespinners have been wonderful to work with; enthusiastic, imaginative, and organised. I thoroughly enjoyed our story meetings. They’ve delivered excellent dialogue and plenty of strong ideas that have lifted our narrative, and spotted story problems early that might have resulted in wasted work. Even if you have a good handle on your story, I would recommend bouncing your ideas off Talespinners – they’ll come back even better.
Chris Payne
Managing Director, Quantum Soup
It was a pleasure working with Ian on The Bunker, he has an expert eye for game design detail and an incredible talent for bringing real humanity to storylines. His logic in game narrative structure is flawless and he brought an amazing attention to detail to The Bunker, providing layer after layer of storytelling, making the game richer and more immersive.
Allan Plenderleith
Director, Splendy Games
Talespinners quickly grasped our concept and were immediately able to work it into a captivating and inspirational story. Whenever an issue with the narrative came up, Talespinners were always quick to respond and promptly came up with solutions.
Mostafa Hafez
CEO, Instinct Games
We had a rough and sprawling story and lore for The Exiled that organically developed over years of development. Ian came and turned that chaos into a structured and coherent document, in the course solving the many logical problems and inconsistencies that had developed. With tiny amounts oversight and feedback from our side he came up with an interesting lore and turned that lore into engaging words. Will work with him again on future projects.
Alexander Zacherl
Managing Director / Game Director, Fairytale Distillery
When you develop a game, you need a great writing team, and that is where Talespinners are indispensable. They are able to take your ideas and create whole worlds with them. From the initial idea all the way to final delivery, I wouldn't trust any other wordsmiths.
Mark Drew
CEO, Villainous Games
Decisively creative. Insightfully articulate. Committed to the craft. For example, Ian’s recent advice decisively reshaped our critical opening narrative moments to make them deeply affecting... [Talespinners] are consistently responsible, reliable, and efficient.
Luke Hughes
Project Lead, Burden of Command
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