Talespinners 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 narrative workshops, but we’ve successfully made the transition into becoming a cooperative of freelancers with an influx of new Partners – Cash DeCuir, Chris Tihor, and Matt Gibbs.
Becoming a cooperative has only helped reinforce the values that led Ian and Giles to co-found Talespinners – a means for freelance games writers to support each other, to have colleagues that they can turn to for advice and help, a second set of eyes or a pair of hands, and – perhaps most importantly – emotional support.
With more hands on deck bringing in work, this has led to one of the busiest New Year periods any of us has ever had. Currently, on our roster we have 42 clients/projects that we’re either working on or are yet to be announced, which – although we might not know the ultimate question – is keeping us out of trouble.
Games within the current 42 include work on titles such as: Burden of Command, The Cabin, Cryptant, Haiku Adventure, Inertial Drift, The Lost Librarian, Mosaic, Raiders of Erda, Raji, Siege and The Sandfox, and Frictional’s new top-secret project.
Looking ahead, we’re still taking small steps as we find our stride as a cooperative, as we do we’re hoping to invite a couple more freelancers to join us.
In the meantime, we’d like to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you to all our clients, to our fellow writers and game industry colleagues, to everyone who helps us tell and share Story for Games.
Recent News
Since our last State of the Nation update, six months ago:
- We’re thrilled that Sarepta Studio’s My Child Lebensborn has won a BAFTA, for which we helped out with story editing.
- We’re also delighted to announce that we’re collaborating with the University of Southampton on the Interactive Fiction strand of their Green Stories Writing Competitions. More details of this to follow in the coming weeks and months.
- Two of our mentees, Maja Bäckvall and Kelly Hornung have completed their pieces, The Pilgrimage and The Dinner Party respectively. Both of which are available online to play.
- Playdeo’s AVO has launched, for which we ran a narrative workshop to help find and shape the story they wished to tell.
- Ian and Cash attended GDC in San Francisco, where Ian was part of a panel on ‘Embracing the Co-op Studio Model in Indie Games’, which can be viewed via the GDC Vault.
- The Spectrum Retreat received a WGGB nomination for Best Writing in a Video Game; with the award going to Leigh Alexander for her work on Reigns: Her Majesty.
