Emil Pagliarulo

Emil Pagliarulo
http://www.bethsoft.com/

Studios
Bethesda Game Studios
Ion Storm Inc
Sea Dog
Looking Glass Studios

Publishers
2k Games
Bethesda Softworks LLC
Eidos
Ubisoft Entertainment SA
Sold Out

Titles
Fallout 3
The Elders Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Thief: Deadly Shadows
The Elder Scrolls III: Bloodmoon
Pirates of the Carribean
Thief II: The Metal Age
Theif

Books and Articles
An article in EDGE on the ethics of design

Henrik Hansen

Henrik Hansen

The works of this man range from both the beautiful but deadly, to the stark and unforgiving, and then right back round again to the outright adorable. In everything, his style is present and yet nothing really looks totally like anything else. He is a skilled artist, and knows exactly what to present to his design team.

Studios:
IO Interactive A/S

Publishers:
Eidos
Electronic Arts

Titles:
Hitman: Contracts
Hitman: Blood Money
Hitman 2: Silent Assasain
Kane and Lynch: Dead Men
Mini Ninjas
Freedom Fighters

Books and Articles:
I cannot find any that he has written himself, but I might edit these sections later and link to articles about each person, not just the ones they have written.

Hrrm...
I have yet to play any of the games he has worked on as an artist or as an art director. I will find some demos as soon as I can and then redo this bit.

sources: www.develop-online.net, www.mobygames.com, GamesTM

Paul Woodbridge

Paul Woodbridge
http://www.relentless.co.uk/

How terribly enigmatic! If this purveyor of party games has a blog or a twitter, I can't seem to find it. Anyway, I've managed to dig up quite a bit...


Studios:
Computer Artworks
Relentless Software

Publishers:
Sony

Titles:
Buzz!: The Music Quiz
Buzz!: The Big Quiz
Buzz!: The Mega Quiz
Buzz!: The Hollywood Quiz etc etc
The Blue Toad Murder Files


Books and Articles:
There are a few articles on the Relentless Media website.
And also he does things like this a lot too.


Buzz...
Is fun, the first few times. Then you need to leave it a few months. Like all quiz and party games the playability depends on your personal burnout rate, once you can remember the answers to various questions without really trying then you get bored very quickly. However the new Blue Toad Murder Files project is exceedingly good. I entirely reccomend them to everyone, though I can't tell you which bits are Woodbridge's doing, because honestly I have no idea.

Same with Buzz really.

sources: wikipedia, www.wiredsussex.com, www.relentless.co.uk

Ragnar Tørnquist

Ragnar Tørnquist
http://ragnartornquist.com/

A norwegian designer with a firm grasp of all things grim and untold. (I'll edit this bit again and make it sound better, and you know, be more than a sentence long.)


Studios:
Funcom

Publishers:
Natsume
KSS
Interplay
Acclaim
Funcom

Titles:
Casper
Dragonheart: Fire and Steel
The Longest Journey
Anarchy Online
Dreamfall
The Secret World (In development)

Books and Articles:
Anarchy Online - Prophet Without Honour

This looks...
Amazing, and by this I mean THIS. The game isn't even properly out yet, and its already attracted a huge amount of attention. The Secret World is set to be the first really groundbreaking MMO for a good few years, with the commercial appeal of some of its cheesier peers and with an individuality worthy of a Tale of Tales title. As for the man himself? After reading his blog and a few of his twitter posts, he seems pretty decent with a wicked sense of humour, which I hope makes it into his current production.

According to some reviewers, Tørnquist looks set to move into the writing and direction departments with less of an emphasis on design.

sources: wikipedia, gamespot, gamesTM, ragnartornquist.com, darkdaysarecoming.com

Tale of Tales

Tale of Tales
http://tale-of-tales.com

This is a games studio for the thinking consumer, their main deal is to create games as unique and beautiful as they are engaging and poetic. You will not find many commercial blockbusters or mass media violence in their stock of games, but it doesn't matter. For Tale of Tales, its quality not quantity that rules the day.

People:
Auriea Harvey - Designer/Founder
Michaël Samyn - Designer/Founder
Lina Kusaite - Character Designer
Laura Raines Smith - Animator
Gerry de Mol - Music Composer
Jarboe - Music Composer
Jan Verschoren - Sound Effects
Ronald Jones - Sound Design
Stacy Diana Clark - Concept Artist
Martin Maximillian Michl - Concept Artist
Gorik Lindemans - Concept Artist
Ferry Marcellis - Programmer
Alex Mouton - Programmer

Titles:
Fatale
The Path
The Graveyard
The Endless Forest
8

Associated Studios:
Dragonfly Production Studios
Ringtale Studios
International Hobo

Personally...
I have never played any of Tale of Tale's Games, however they are very frequently referenced in several publications that I read on an almost religious basis. They are artists in a world of design and seem to be making quite a go of it. After studying their website and several review sites I have decided to try a few of their games at least, though I will reserve judgement until after then. I like what they are trying to do in the industry, but it is not the path I will be taking I think. I will edit this after I have played their games.

Sources: www.tale-of-tales.com, GamesTM, Gamespot

Rhianna Pratchett

Rhianna Pratchett
website: http://www.rhiannapratchett.com/

If you're first thought was "Terry" then you're along the right lines. She's daughter of the world famous author and purveyor of ghastly tales from Discworld, but definitely not in the same lines and totally out of any semblance of a shadow. Recently Pratchett was voted one of the most influential women in gaming, and even more recently won a Writers Guild Award for her work on Overlord.

Studios: (recent)
Triumph
EA DICE (Digital Illusions CE)
Firefly
The Creative Assembly

Publishers: (recent)
EA
Codemasters
2k Games
Sega

Titles:
Mirror's Edge
Heavenly Sword
Prince of Persia
Stronghold Legends
Viking: Battle for Asgard
Beyond Divinity
Overlord
Overlord: Dark Legends
Overlord: Minions
Overlord: Rising Hell
Overlord II

Books and Articles
Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing
Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Video Games

A little bit of magic...
What Pratchett brings to the design table, is a unique voice and a beautifully dark wit. Her scripts bring pixels to life, and give characters a whole and real form. To me, it seems like Pratchett achieves this by considering everything, from what the character likes and does not like, to its motivation, whether its happy or sad, whether it likes you or not, and even its aspirations. This is not something that the average player will notice, but the extra effort creates such a rich and textured backdrop, that when you play a game with a script by this author, you quite often loose all sense of time.

The title from Pratchett's list of works that gets played most on my computer is Overlord. My other half just discovered the franchise and addiction has set in. Its a perfect example of Pratchett at work, and if you have the time you should definately check it out:
www.overlordgame.com

Sources: Wikipedia, Rhianna's Website, GamesTM, Other-places-to-that-I-closed-the-tabs-of-before-I-remembered-to-include-sources.

Contex-whaaaa?

So I'm doing this thing, and the nature of it will become very apparent as this place starts to fill up. Anyway, for this thing, there are a lot of names which keep coming up and floating about, so I decided to keep them all together. For the good of the thing.

I will update a few times a week with some contextual studies about the people from the thing, which basically means, I will be posting images and talking about people and what they have done and how they did it.

And.

Why you should care.

So yeah!

So far I've decided on these post catamagories:

• Writers
• Artists
• Developers
• Designers
• Superstars
• Luminaries
• Fandom
• Random Blather

Though I promise the amount of the latter will be to a total minimum. Seriously.

Ja ne - Ree