Welcome to the Cult!
Hi everyone!
As I’m just getting started on Substack, I wanted to introduce myself and share what I’ll be doing here.
Hey! I’m Nick. I’m a Writer, Narrative Designer, and Transmedia Producer from Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand for the non-Kiwis out there!). Over the past ten years, I’ve had the incredibly luck of being able to work in both Indie and AAA video games, contributing to successful projects like Path of Exile as well as collaborating with teams globally. For the past two years I had the exciting opportunity to work as Senior Narrative Designer at Sharkmob London.
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to try my hand at various forms of storytelling. From comic books to immersive theatre, virtual reality to podcasting, as well as screenwriting and more - it’s become my greatest joy in life to challenge myself and upskill my craft wherever I can.
Throughout my career, I’ve become fascinated by the narrative engines that exist behind our favorite stories - both in fiction and real-world history. This fascination has driven me to pursue extensive academic work where I delved into mythology and folklore, history, religion, politics and esoteric philosophies.
During all of this, I co-founded Tentacular Games alongside some of my closest friends, and together we’ve been working away for the past four years on a massive transmedia franchise that we aim to explore across comic books, a TTRPG and more in the very near future.
Now, as our entertainment industries are seemingly starting to crumble, I’ve decided that I want to start sharing what I’ve learned. It’s my hope, that long after I’m gone, my body of work as a researcher, creator and storyteller will live on for others to enjoy.
So. For now, I’ll be posting essays and articles previously written, along with excerpts from my currently out-of-print book The Player and the Pentacle. Larger essays, short stories and critical reviews are also in the works! Everything on here is currently free, but we will be introducing things like deep dives and developer updates as part of a paid subscription in the near future.
So please, subscribe! And if you have any topic suggestions, I’d love to hear them!
Talk soon,
Nick