Ian 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!
0 0 Read moreWe’re delighted to say that Michelle Clough has joined us as an associate partner. We’ve worked with Michelle on a number of projects since Talespinners started; she’s our resident expert on romance and sexuality in games, and it’s great to have her on board! Find out more about our team here.
0 0 Read moreTalespinners is celebrating its third birthday this month! Three years have flown by since Ian Thomas and Giles Armstrong co-founded the company, but this last year has seen the greatest changes so far. We’re still providing Story for Games, whether that is directly via games writing and narrative design, or more indirectly via consultancy and [...]
0 0 Read moreCongratulations to all the BAFTA Games Awards nominees, and in particular to Sarepta Studio on winning the BAFTA Game Beyond Entertainment for My Child Lebensborn – we helped out with editing and found it harrowing and rewarding to work on. Well done all!
0 0 Read moreInteractive Fiction & Choosing Green We’re delighted to announce that we’re collaborating with the University of Southampton on the Interactive Fiction strand of their Green Stories Writing Competitions. The main values behind the Green Stories Writing Competitions are to raise awareness of sustainability issues, practices, policies, and technologies via story. In so doing, the […]
0 0 Read moreCongratulations to Kelly Hornung, who - like Maja - has completed her mentorship programme with us! Here Kelly discusses the piece she developed as part of the programme, The Dinner Party. During my first conversation with Ian and Giles, I pitched to them a fully-imagined story that combined my deep interest in environmental economics and [...]
0 0 Read moreMeet Avo, the world’s first mystery-solving, action-loving, crime-fighting avocado! We’re so pleased to have been involved with this – Playdeo have done amazing work in bringing live-action and interactive animation together. We helped out in the early days of the project by running one of our Story Workshops for the company to explore the core […]
0 0 Read moreHuge congratulations to Maja Bäckvall, who has completed her mentorship programme with us! Here, she talks about the production of her piece Pilgrimage. Like most people I know, I have a redacted number of half-empty notebooks in my home, dedicated to various unfinished or migrated projects. Before my first mentor talk with Ian for the […]
0 0 Read moreHere’s our second mentorship piece! It’s by Maja Bäckvall, a medieval scholar based in Uppsala in Sweden, who has previously worked on runes and translations for God of War and Civilisation VI. Pilgrimage is a sample interactive chapter from a sci-fi story inspired by a medieval pilgrimage, written by Maja in Ink, and developed as […]
0 0 Read moreWe’re very pleased to say that Kelly Hornung has released her interactive short story The Dinner Party. Kelly developed this as part of our Mentorship Programme, and it’s been fantastic to see it grow from an initial idea into a full playable piece of work. Kelly will be writing more here about the development process, […]
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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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