LUCA FISHER
BLANKSWORD
The River Runs Through Us
Mouse Friends in the Forest
Other Publications
Stories people tell about me...
"Luca is a tremendously dedicated and productive member of Blanksword's narrative design team. Through a workflow that involves detailed research on any emergent subjects, he adapted quickly to the project's individual needs, and by force of his unbridled creativity and battle-tested problem-solving skill, he is indispensable to the team's swift progress towards a finished product. He is also committed to maintaining a harmonious environment in the workplace, and has mediated disputes with a deft hand when the need arose. I highly recommend his services."— Quinn K., Creative Director of An Outcry, There Swings a Skull: Grim Tidings, and BLANKSWORD"Luca Fisher is a talented, well-read writer whose diverse interests and skill with language make him a pleasure to work with. His writing deftly weaves in subjects such as mythology, architecture, and memory to produce insightful commentaries that provide the reader with new ways of understanding video games."— Merritt K., Former EiC at Fanbyte, Columnist at 1-900-HOTDOG, Game Writer"I’ve had the pleasure of working with Luca on a number of different projects, and came away impressed every time. As both a writer and an editor, he has a keen eye for detail but never loses sight of the bigger picture. His particular focus on character work helps make any script feel more vibrant and lively. On top of that, he truly knows how to collaborate, and will do everything he can to make any project the absolute best it can be. I cannot recommend him highly enough."— Alexander Blaustein, Sound Artist & Programmer"Hey, remember that time you tried to fight a bear with a sword? My dad still tells everyone that story. I still tell everyone that story."— Sara, Former Roommate, Lifelong Friend
A TRAGEDY SLEEPS in the hiking trails and run-down mills of Western Massachusetts. It lays dormant in the collective folk memory — but not for long. Play as Camlin, a 20-something-year-old college student who begins to hear the sounds of a centuries-old flood through their audio equipment. Read along and make key choices in this sound novel to help Camlin unravel the mystery of the 1874 Mill River Flood.Will you hold the guilty accountable?
The River Runs Through Us is a suspense-horror sound novel about ghosts, capitalism, and manmade disaster. It's set in rustic Western Massachusetts, inspired by my experiences growing up in New England.
Made in two weeks for Kombucham #2 - Unity Fungus Game Jam; rated #1 in the Story category.
Featured on Safe Room, a weekly horror video game podcast hosted by Neil Bolt and Jay Krieger of Bloody Disgusting. From their August 2022 episode: "Much as the title [suggests]... The River Runs Through Us has very fluid storytelling in the sense that it goes from the personal, to the folklore, to a little bit of backstory about New England and mill towns... it is multi-faceted in tone. It balances the haunting aspect, the personal aspect, but also has a really fantastic sense of humor... What I wouldn't give for another five or ten minutes in this world."
This was my first time working as the Lead Writer on a published game project. In the span of fourteen days, I was responsible for developing and managing our team's concept, characters, lore, dialogue, narration, and sanity.
SCRIPT EXCERPT #1
[ O, TO DROWN instrumental fading in over the sounds of the flowing stream. Unassuming at first, but creeping nearer. ]When I was a kid, I thought the veins meant I was dying. This heavy, rising panic always welled up in me when I thought about them for too long. Like wearing leather boots and wading into a pool.Gravity pulls you under.—[ A bubbling sound, like being submerged underwater. ]The veins look like maps of rivers. Tributaries scatter from my pulse, running wild and free. Currents of blood and cortisol that can't be held back.My hands shake, and my neck tightens.
SCRIPT EXCERPT #2
"I'm back, Dad!"[ The sound of the kitchen door peeking open. ]—Dad peeks around the corner of the door leading into the kitchen. He's wearing his latest project: a 16-foot scarf made in the image of a fluffy, googly-eyed moth. It's very cozy — I took him to the fabric store and made sure he got the best fabric for his buck. He's a little prone to accepting "good deals" and "special discounts" when he doesn't run them by me first…But that's just how he is. He likes the people at the shop, and doesn't see any reason not to trust them.—"Look at you," Dad chirps. "Grass in your hair, bags under your eyes... did the veins get you?""Do I look twelve years old?""Maybe."—When I was a kid, I thought seeing veins sometimes when I blink meant I was dying. I spent an embarrassing number of late nights on Gurgle worrying about them. Which made me feel worse, but I kept doing searching it up anyway.You know, like…—"am i dying veins in eyes?""help why veins when i blink?""eyes broken help?""how fast does veins in your eyes kill you"...—… variations of that, basically. Like some fucked-up canon played by a tonedeaf orchestra.I knew it was too stupid to ask someone about out loud, so the internet would have to do. And boy, did the internet do — did a great job tenderizing my little eleven-year-old beef brain.Dad finally got it out of me one night, though. He caught me online at three in the morning, curled over my laptop like a goblin with snot running down my nose. He sat me down at the kitchen table and made us both chamomile tea."Whatever it is," he said, "I promise I won't laugh."—At that point, I was so exhausted I just blurted it all out. And guess what? He laughed anyway! What a dick. I said so, but that only made him laugh harder.Maybe I needed that from him, though. Maybe I just needed someone to give me permission to laugh about it.—He told me not to be afraid of the crooked lines in my skull. "They're like maps," he said, "of rivers and their tributaries."He pointed to a poster we've had on our wall for as long as I can remember. I'd heard this whole spiel before, but hearing him say it always calmed me down."These are all the rivers back home. You're right here," he said. His finger traced along the Camlin River. I followed its winding path from Lough Gamhna to Longford in the south. A wandering blue vein along the body of Ireland. "Camlin. My crooked little river."—
TECHNICAL PROCESS
The Kombucham #2 - Unity Fungus Game Jam is run by the creators of a narrative games framework called—you guessed it—Fungus. Over the course of our allotted two weeks to make this game, I had to really buckle in to learn Fungus' infrastructure. This included...
Managing our flow charts for dynamic decision-making and story structure. I became very good at understanding our story on the macro level at a glance. Frequently asked questions: "Where would this scene fit?", "Will adding another node here make this moment drag on for too long?", "Can I swap the order of these options and still deliver relevant information to the player?", and "Can I please have an appley juice box and a nappy?"
Using visual scripting blocks to assign actions, sounds, animations, so on. This involved not only understanding the order of operations in a given scene, but also understanding the pacing of those operations. Much time was spent fussing over millisecond counts for audio cues.
Implementing text and assigning speakers to each text box, which thankfully became second-nature in the first few hours of development.
Hitting that tiny play button at the top of Unity's interface, pausing, screaming into a pillow, and then hitting it again until, finally...
Voilà! Results!Seeing the story come together into scenes that actually worked made all of my learning efforts worthwhile. It's a very small thing, but I'll never forget the rush of euphoria that came with seeing these colorful boats from the local park in a real, functional video game. I hope to never forget these beginnings, and to bring that same joy and dedication to any project I work on in the future.
Blanksword is a Roguelike RPG with strategic turn-based battles, a rich layered story, and a one of a kind brain management system. Enter a land full of dangers as BLANK, an amnesiac wandering Angel, and come to the aid of those that were wronged by God’s cruel law.
Helmed by IGF-nominated developer Quinn K., Blanksword (henceforth abbreviated to BLSW) is the biggest and most vibrant game I've worked on yet. So far, I have...
Contributed dialogue for multiple existing characters in the game's story, adapting to their individual voices and to the game's overall house style.
Created new characters in the form of overworld NPCs, and wrote incidental dialogue for each of them.
Assisted in the overall narrative pacing and structure of the game's first three major areas.
Performed comprehensive proofreading of our script and provided both edits and feedback to my cowriters.
Learned how to use narrative frameworks like Scribble and Gossip 2 in conjunction with GameMaker for direct text implementation.
As the game is still in production, the work shown here is still a work in progress, and may not reflect the final product. There are also many more things I've written beyond these samples that I can't wait to show off when the time comes!
IN-WORLD DIALOGUE
