The short version is that I was the Narrative Lead at Doborog, an indie game studio, for the last 2.5 years. Recently, the studio ran into money trouble. It’s a precarious time in the game industry. My boss reluctantly let me go as part of a wave of layoffs and departures. Today is my last day. I’ll really miss Doborog.
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I loved being the Narrative Lead at Doborog. I haven’t had much time to reflect, but in my 20 year career as a game writer, I think it was the best full-time job I’ve ever had. I was hired by studio founder and director Erik Rydeman to own the narrative for Clone Drone in the Hyperdome, our big sci-fi VR action game. Even though I had less than a year to write and design the narrative, I pushed the boundaries of my craft as far as I could. The story I wrote ended up giving structure to the entire game. My roguelike script had deep wells of dialogue and subplots for players to discover. I designed a relationship system to make the player’s actions in the Crashloop arena feel more meaningful to the player. After launch, I designed a generative (old school generative, not GenAI) dialogue system for our robot commentators, so they could react to the player’s combat moves in real time.
And those are just the things that fell under my job description. I found a professional voice director and casting director for the game, which allowed us to cast top voice talent like Debra Wilson (Star Wars Jedi) and Dana Snyder (Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Dana was bewildered by the length and complexity of the spreadsheet script, which I take weird pride in? I was part of every voice record session, offering notes, context, and additional direction. More exhaustively, and rewardingly, I recorded hundreds of motion capture movements to accompany every line of dialogue in Hyperdome to give each scene more life. I also was an advisor to the marketing department, giving notes on Hyperdome trailer drafts from hotel bathrooms on my trip to Japan.
When Hyperdome wound down, I assumed my time at Doborog would come to a close. But Erik and I had established an excellent creative rapport and he wanted more narrative in Doborog games. At GDC, he offered me a full-time position. I was thrilled! I’ve been a contractor for most of my career. There are definitely benefits to being freelance, like making your own hours and not having to go to boring weekly staff meetings. But I knew I would enjoy a little stability for once. PTO! Glorious PTO! I loved being on vacation and getting an email saying I was getting paid! No invoice or “hey just checking in about that invoice” required. And the game jams! I was part of four company game jams, which were so much fun. Each of them was a great learning exercise.
My duties as Narrative Lead remained eclectic. I designed a dialogue system to accompany the new cosmetics feature. I wrote tons of design documents and pitches for projects, including one that will likely be Doborog’s next game. I wrote all the dialogue for a few Clone Drone in the Danger Zone updates, including the upcoming 10th anniversary update. It gets even crazier, because I not only wrote the premise for that update, but I got to script cutscenes, storyboard them, and direct the animation. As a lifelong animation fan, that was an amazing opportunity! For a while, Erik was seriously considering going into production on a roguelike deckbuilder I designed in the Clone Drone universe. I would’ve been Creative Director on that project. I figured it was a longshot and I was right, but I was flattered he considered it.
Erik was sad to let me go. Some Doborog employees have been around for 7-10 years. I was hoping to be one of them. If the studio was doing better financially, I wouldn’t be writing this newsletter. Hyperdome was well-reviewed and loved by players, but Meta – who invested in the project – did a poor job of promoting and featuring it, in my humble opinion. Ultimately, my employment came down to whether Danger Zone would be renewed for XBOX Game Pass this year. It didn’t, so the team had to shrink accordingly.
I bear no ill will toward Erik. He’s a great boss! How many employees would say that about their boss the day they were fired? He’s generous, collaborative, creative, and trusting. He gave me a month to prepare for this. Erik’s trying to keep his small business afloat. I know what it’s like to run a creative business on a tiny budget. It ain’t easy!
Anyway, today’s my last day. Every other Friday, Doborog has a “Retrospective” meeting where we talk about the last two-week sprint of work. What went well, what went poorly, and what can be improved. My answers will expand the scope a bit. What went well was getting to work with a very talented team of developers from around the world. What went poorly was having to leave Doborog too soon. I really wanted to be part of the next game. What can be improved is keeping in touch, something we don’t do enough of with beloved colleagues after a job ends. Everyone there is so talented and fun to work with, I’m rooting for them to succeed.
My career has always felt to me like the 1970s show The Incredible Hulk. At the end of every episode, Bruce Banner leaves the town where the episode took place and heads back onto the road for his next adventure. Ready or not, I find myself back on the road.
🎲 Your Turn: Have you ever gotten fired? Was it a door closed / window opened situation or did it just suck? What’s your favorite job you ever had? Are you hopeful you’ll ever find a better gig than that? I’d love to hear from you! Reply to this email or post a comment by hitting the orange button below.
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