Karla Zimonja & Eric Stirpe

This week's coming in hot with Karla Zimonja (researcher and sound tech person on Bioshock 2, narrative and 2D art on Minerva's Den, story editor and 2D artist on Gone Home, and currently working on Tacoma) and Eric Stirpe (writer on The Walking Dead Season 2, Tales from the Borderlands, and Minecraft: Story Mode) joining us to talk about writing and editing processes, writing at Telltale and working with design, player trust, gaming literacy, the importance of Minecraft, trying to balance giving the player an experience that feels unique and tailored to them with the desire to tell a coherent story, ludonarrative dissonance, whether there's a place for cutscenes, how to handle pacing, things you can and can't do with a first person narrative, and so much more!

Our Guests on the Internet

Karla's Twitter and Tumblr.

Eric's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Double Fine Adventure!

Darmok

"Playdate" (Chris Ware's story about playing Minecraft with his daughter)

VIDEO GAMES CAN NEVER BE ART by Roger Ebert

The Witness

Firewatch

Growing up Weightless by John M. Ford

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Seveneves: A Novel by Neil Stephenson

Hail, Caesar!

Frontier | Youth in Decline

Learnt

Until Dawn

Tearaway

Roommates

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

Kaptara

The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

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