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As games have grown more sophisticated, narrative designers have become an increasingly common part of the industry. But what exactly is a narrative designer? According to Graham Goring, himself a narrative designer who’s worked on LEGO City Undercover, Planet Zoo and dozens of other titles, it’s just “a poncy term for a writer”. It’s a suitably irreverent answer from someone who made their way into the industry via stand up comedy. Goring clarifies, however, that narrative designer is also much more than “just” a writer. “It can be coming up with the idea, it can be writing barks,” he explains.…

It’s a story you’ve heard a hundred times: you come in on the ground floor as a waiter, progress into a kitchen as a cook and then, through hard work and perseverance, you work your way up to a QA Project Lead at EA.  As far as routes into games go, Nick Barrett’s is highly unconventional – and for a business as freewheeling and unpredictable as the games industry, that’s really saying something. Now the Founding Director of Edinburgh-based software testing house Proper QA, Barrett found his way into the upper echelons of one of gaming’s biggest organisations almost by…

A lot of Steve Bromley’s job involves explaining to game developers what it is he actually does. Steve is a User Researcher, meaning he is the person who finds out whether players actually experience a game the way its developers intended. Most game enthusiasts have probably heard of “playtesting”, and part of Steve’s job is to design and run those playtests. He gathers members of the public and watches them play while, in his words, “observing their experiences and asking them questions to understand what’s going on in their heads.” However, as Steve explains in his “My Journey” interview, there…