George Ziets opening a new RPG studio - Digimancy Entertainment

[Gordian Nutt]

Are they working with Paradox?

Hope they are ready to get their leads fired

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1548650/view/4853167442603397504

LudoNarraCon Panel: Good Stories Must Die

About the Panel
In this casual panel we explore games and developers who faced the difficult challenge of ending their games. The panel will go over the topics such as branching narratives and how multiple endings function, the impression that a game leaves at the end of the experience, and the challenges which were faced in bringing everything together in a conclusive and satisfying manner.

Panelists
George Ziets, Annie VanderMeer, Märten Rattasepp, Ata Sergey Nowak

Ata Sergey Nowak
Ata Sergey Nowak is a game developer from Germany with an intercultural background. Eight years ago, his passion for games began to transform into a professional career, since then he worked on several games like Hearts of Iron 3: Their Finest Hour, East vs West, Squad, Terminal Conflict and acclaimed mods like Black ICE and Project Reality. While studying in Turkey, his experiences of political tension and instability inspired him to work on a new game to dive deeper in the subject. This led to the creation of Suzerain; a political narrative game where the player steps in the shoes of Anton Rayne, an upcoming President of Sordland in a fictional 50's universe.

Annie VanderMeer
Annie VanderMeer has been in the game industry since 2004, working on both AAA and indie projects, and in both design and writing roles. In 2009 she helped start DoubleBear Productions, was a senior writer/designer on their first title (Dead State) as well as directing its successful Kickstarter campaign, and the project lead on the second (PANIC! at Multiverse High). She has also contributed to tabletop projects (such as Fantasy Flight’s The Legacy of Dragonholt, Arkham Horror, and The Legend of the Five Rings), and freelance narrative design for the upcoming game Unpacking.

In 2019 she founded the Tiamat Collective - an organization for creatives of all stripes to find exciting opportunities and provide guidance to one another – and in very early 2020 she released a solo project, The Passenger, on itch.io. Her work has spanned from bizarre comedy to grim realism, genres from horror to high fantasy, and humor from dry wit to fart jokes.

Annie is currently working full-time as a senior game designer at ArenaNet, as well as freelancing in the occasional writing gig to ""keep her skills sharp"" (as well as a chance to write dumb lines about jalapeño poppers).

Märten Rattasepp
Märten is an ex-academic with a background in literary and cultural theory/criticism, with a side of semiotics, philosophy and classical philology. During his researcher days he focused mostly on modernism-postmodernism-amodernism, historiography and metafiction. Over the past ten years he has written a whole heap of reviews of books, movies, theatre and music, although that's been happening less as of late. After several years of grinding away at the analytical-theoretical angle, he decided not to pursue a doctorate (at least for the moment), and instead stumbled into video game writing.

Starting off, Märten worked as a Writer and Editor for Disco Elysium, then as a Lead Writer / Narrative Designer for Death and Taxes. He enjoys going on lengthy, several-hour-long walks (daily, if at all possible) and occasionally playing the drums (at a mediocre skill level). He currently works as a Narrative Designer for Digimancy Entertainment.

George Ziets
George Ziets has been a narrative designer and writer since 2001. He spent the first part of his career on MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online and D&D Online before running off to make more traditional RPGs. While working at Obsidian Entertainment and InXile, he designed or contributed to branching narratives on RPGs like Wasteland 3, Pillars of Eternity, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, Fallout: New Vegas, and many more. In 2019, George co-founded a new RPG studio, Digimancy Entertainment, where he’s hard at work on a super-secret, publisher-funded project.

 

[StaticSpine]

 

[Kev Inkline]

They all have their pronouns listed, and to our a particular demographics' disappointment all are heteronormative.

 

[Zer0wing]

"Good stories must die"
Indeed, there aren't many good stories in mainstream c/rpgs.

 

[Bulo]

Survival of the baddest

 

[Alpan]

Looks like someone on the organizing team wasn't quite sure of Annie VDM's gender, had to make it clear to onlookers, and then threw the rest of the pronouns in as a matter of consistency.

 

[DeepOcean]

Pronouns on twitter = expect nothing of value.

 

[frajaq]

h-he's just going along because he has to, price of doing business these days, he's still /ourguy/

 

[Infinitron]

It's live now, you big babies: https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561199049504708

 

[Dexter]

Nobody with Pronouns next to to his name is worth listening to about anything.

 

[CyberModuled]

As if the term "ludonarrative dissonance" doesn't already want me to hang myself with how overused it is within the sphere of modern video essayists, who thought it'd be a good idea to make an entire mini convention around it?

 

[Serious_Business]

Been listening for 5 mins or so. They're talking about freedom, choice, C&C, identity and

E M O T I O N A L
I N V E S T M E N T

Crpgs revealed as the play ground for postmodern identity

As if the term "ludonarrative dissonance" doesn't already want me to hang myself with how overused it is within the sphere of modern video essayists, who thought it'd be a good idea to make an entire mini convention around it?

Ludonarrative just means games having a narrative. I don't know why they wouldn't used that term, that's all they're talking about (narrative in games). No one said anything about dissonance you fucking imbecile

he's still /ourguy/

He'll be our guy when he'll be accused of rape, I guess

 

[Infinitron]

Looks like a video should be uploaded here tomorrow: https://www.youtube.com/c/FellowTraveller/videos

 

[CyberModuled]

Ludonarrative just means games having a narrative. I don't know why they wouldn't used that term, that's all they're talking about (narrative in games). No one said anything about dissonance you fucking imbecile

My bad for thinking it was tangentially related to a dumber term then.

 

[grimace]

Did Ziets say anything about his new company and project? If so, what?

 

[Kev Inkline]

Pronouns on twitter = expect nothing of value.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Outlander]

Nobody with Pronouns next to to his name is worth listening to about anything.

I agree, but Ziets doesn't have any of that silly bullshit on his Twitter profile.

 

[lukaszek]

anyone knows what are ziets ddo contributions?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Märten is an ex-academic with a background in literary and cultural theory/criticism, with a side of semiotics, philosophy and classical philology. During his researcher days he focused mostly on modernism-postmodernism-amodernism, historiography and metafiction

WTF did i just read lmao.

 

[luj1]

Marginal persona heading a team of woke SJWs. We have all seen this before with Pillars. Infinitron is sprinting into Zeits' asshole quickly, to absolutely no one's surprise.

 

[Infinitron]

luj1, since you arrived on this forum from RPGWatch, you've quite successfully try-harded your way to the top of the edgy social ladder. But sorry, I don't think you're going to get anti-George Zietsism to become a thing on the Codex. Not yet.

 

[Corvinus]

Infinitron is sprinting into Zeits' asshole, quickly - to absolutely no one's surprise.

The early shill gets the bribe.

 

[Nano]

But sorry, I don't think you're going to get anti-George Zietsism to become a thing on the Codex. Not yet.

If DS3 didn't do it, nothing will.

 

[Murk]

Is he just talking to them or is he hiring them?

Their website only shows the three founders, no list of other staff.