Awards season has ARRIVED, and to mark the occasion we've invited two writers representing two of the games nominated by the WGA this year for Best Game Writing : Jon Paquette (Lead Writer on Marvel’s Spider-Man, Sunset Overdrive, and Resistance 3, and formerly a Creative Director at EA, writer on Medal of Honor, and Medal of Honor: Airborne, and QA Lead on Jurassic Park: Trespasser) and returning guest Mel MacCoubrey (Narrative Director on Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, and formerly the Assistant Director of Narrative Design on Assassin's Creed Syndicate, scriptwriter on Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry, and scriptwriting intern on Far Cry 4)! Incredible topics discussed include Jurassic Park Trespasser, writing internships at Ubisoft and Insomniac, whether the core pillars of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Spider-Man stayed consistent throughout development, scoping challenges, game length, making big changes to the story once you have a playable build, preventing problems before they happen, always putting your best ideas forward, hardest part about writing for an open world, the worst professional advice they've ever gotten, maintaining a healthy work/life balance, underrated people working with game narratives, the value of voice actors, if there's anything they would change about game development, AAA games that don't have combat as main mechanic, the importance of Farming Simulator 19 as an esport, and moreeeeeeeeee.

Our Guests on the Internet

Jon's Twitter.

Mel's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Jurassic Park Trespasser

What Remains of Edith Finch

Florence

Brie Code

Return of the Obra Dinn

Gris

Inside

Farming Simular 19

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.