I am fascinated in telling stories in a range of media. Over the last few years, I have written and acted as Creative Director on several games. As a writer, this medium is unique because it involves the unique process of 'sharing' your story (and your role as 'writer') with the player. In the games ‘Children of Dust 1-3’, I worked with Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and founder of The Startup Experience, Henrik Scheel, to develop games that taught kids about entrepreneurial thinking within a fun context. These point-and-click adventures focus on a group of kids who must rebuild civilisation after a plague wipes out all the adults.
Prior to working on ‘Children of Dust’, I cut my teeth by writing and acting as creative director on the acclaimed educational titles ‘Spy Class’ 1 and 2. These games represented a departure into the world of games for one of Australia’s leading textbook companies, Jacaranda.
The games were large in scope, covering the Australian Curriculum for years 7 and 8 mathematics students, and really embodied my belief that we learn best when we care. In this case, students came to care about three spies, and acted as their ‘handler’, solving puzzles and equations in order to keep the spies out of trouble and keep the story moving.
‘Spy Class’ 1 and 2 were nominated for multiple Australian education awards upon their release in 2015, and inspired me to undertake a PhD in Education at the same time in which I examined the role of a writer in creating narrative-driven digital educational games. The PhD would eventually produce 3 academic papers, links to which you can find on my research page.