Good luck.

"I’m selling movies, yes. But if I can do it with art, with beauty, in a way that reaches people and touches them... that’s what makes me happy." - Drew Struzan

This image on my Star Wars VHS Collection always blew me away.

RIP Drew Struzan.

RIP the legendary Drew Struzan (1947-2025) 😩

Even though we were expecting the news any day now, it makes me very sad. What an artist.

The Empire Strikes Back (1980): Filming the Executor-class Star Dreadnought model

Rough as hell right now, hope it’s just a cold. Last night I thought my heart beating in my ears was our en suite shower loudly dripping. But I had a better night with a constant dose of cold and flu tablets.

Magnetic Journey - From Jason Major (jpmajor.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/8dAfW1

"We’d like to give a big round of applause to our unexpected guest Mr Myers who came from Sid's Father's adult toy collection, especially to tell us an extremely detailed story into his character, which for all of you I imagine, will keep you up at night for a very long time...

All shot practically

And volume of side missions, collectibles and other elective content… maybe a third again.

Generally, you produce content in quality tiers. With a higher cadence of lines for your main and side mission missions, and as much as you manage down the line.

Depends on the game and how you play. But in games I’ve worked on…

The biggest chunk of script is usually the “barks”, systemic vo lines for combat, NPC’s background chatter, that stuff.

“Golden Path” main quests (including cinematics) are about a third, maybe.

Then depending on the quality level

-is, how much inspiration and gameplay space the team get from it.

But to be honest, you’re usually working “backwards” from a writers point of view, trying to make dramatic and logical sense of intended gameplay.

Unlike a film, a novel or a play, what a game “is” can mean a dozen different things, and it’s worth noting that very few games are “story first” productions. So it’s a big question.

But assuming the story is leading the game, your writing success is judged by how clear the “fantasy” and scenario-

There’s no hard and fast rules, so modify your portfolio to who you are applying to, but aim for short, impactful writing.

Your portfolio needs to show that you understand games. And that you can modify your voice, and write to purpose.

Alongside your best scripts and prose; samples of barks and systemic writing, samples of character and item descriptions, scenario briefings. Gamey stuff. Will always be well received.

I’m a professional games writer and narrative designer with 25 (ish) years experience. Ask me anything. #narrativedesign #videogames

/shudders

Some superb model work for ALIENS here - that atmosphere processor is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be, and the Queen miniature is a lot smaller!

UPDATE. We’ve found Rhea Perlman’s stock photo. Not many to go now…

open.substack.com/pub/joelmorr...

I’ve never seen Ratatouille

Ever wondered where all the Cheers title photos are from? I did. And I've gathered everything I can find into this post. That was fun.

joelmorris.substack.com/p/where-nobo...

Word of the Day is ‘tandsmør’, from Danish. It describes bread that is buttered so thickly you can see tooth marks in it after every bite. Its literal translation? ‘Tooth butter’.

The government want more coercive powers for the state against protests, and the main opposition party wants more coercive powers for the state against migrants.

Our political-media culture continues in a loop where the response to every perceived problem is yet more coercive powers for the state.

That’s a good thing.