Sarah Baylus & Mike Laidlaw

Somehow we're over halfway through the year, but this podcast is still going! Our guests this month are Sarah Baylus (Principal Writer at Larian Studios where she’s currently working on Baldur’s Gate III, and previously she wrote on Divinity: Original Sin, and its sequel Divinity: Original Sin II) and Mike Laidlaw (Chief Creative Officer at Yellow Brick Games working on an unannounced title, and previously was a creative director at Ubisoft, a Senior Creative Director on the Dragon Age franchise as well as a Lead Designer, and was the Lead Writer on Jade Empire), and they join us to discuss why Dragon Age’s storytelling has struck such a chord with people (especially in game development), what they look for in a creative director, what makes a good game writer, the best ways to keep teams updated on a game’s ever-evolving story, favorite software for collaboration, what’s one thing they wished games delved into more often, whether their definitions of good writing and narrative design have changed over time, common mistakes they see writers making these days, favorite game writing/design experiences they’ve had, writing/directing nightmares, localization notes, resources they go back to a lot, things they would've changed to their favorite game narratives, the most effective narrative-based techniques they like to see being used in games to immerse the audience, and more more MORE!Our Guests on the InternetSarah has an Inactive Twitter, but Larian Studios has Baldurs Gate 3 on Early Access right now, and Larian's hiring!Mike's Twitter, and Yellow Brick Games is hiring! Stuff We Talked AboutThe Dragon Age franchiseGoogle DocsMiroJam BoardCitizen SleeperThe Stillness of the WindAn Essay on Criticism by Alexander PopeJade EmpireDivinity: Original Sin 2Understanding Show, Don’t Tell: And Really Getting It by Janice HardyThe ending of TransistorThe last hour of Finaly Fantasy XIV: ShadowbringersStar Control IIMoon HuntersOur theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was done by Lily Nishita.