...Laura Anderson
Wellington-based narrative designer Laura Anderson has shaped the stories behind some of the world’s most-played mobile games. Originally from Scotland and now Senior Narrative Designer at Balancing Monkey Games, Laura’s worked across games, film and TV for more than 15 years, with her work reaching over 70 million players worldwide.
We caught up with Laura to talk about writing for games, the rise of cosy experiences, and why accessibility and inclusion matter more than ever.
What drew you to narrative design in games?
I have what we’ll politely call a ‘varied’ background, both in my professional and academic life, and narrative design somehow seems to marry up a lot of my random skills and experience. Getting to dream up stories and characters, write the dialogue, design the way it’s presented to the player, track it all in a giant spreadsheet and then implement and test it? It’s all amazing.
My first couple of professional roles as a screenwriter in Scotland were in games, and as I was already a gamer I loved the experiences. I was in London years later and bumped into a friend from my Screenwriting postgrad who had transitioned from film to games, and he thought I’d love it too. It turned out that he was right! He put me in touch with a new studio looking for a narrative designer, and that’s how I got my first full-time games role with Trailmix.
Right now I’m working on Beyond These Stars with Aotearoa’s own Balancing Monkey Games. It’s a citybuilder which will have a non-linear, dynamic storyline with some important themes. Managing the different scenarios and keeping track of every possible outcome has been a really great challenge for me, and it’s things like this that keep me excited by the job.
But as well as the job itself, a big thing that has kept me in narrative design is the people I get to work with. I have collaborated with so many incredible people working in every discipline, and I’m always inspired by them. There’s nothing I love more than sitting down with an artist or game designer and creating something new with them.
You’re known for your work on “cosy” games. What makes that genre resonate right now?
If you look at stats you’ll see lots of different reasons that people play cosy games, with relaxation, an escape from stress, and low pressure play coming out as fairly standard answers. I’d say there’s something more, though, and it’s about community.
At their core, a lot of cosy games are about characters who were alone coming to a new place and becoming part of a community. Many of them evoke a real sense of belonging, and when we log in to a game after a period of absence it can feel a bit like coming home. It’s a safe and warm respite after a hard day.
We’re living in a time where there’s a lot of terrible things happening in the world that feel completely out of our control, but that’s not the case in cosy games. They make you feel like what you do matters, just as much as how you do it. For instance, when you build up your dream café in a cosy game you do it not by employing violence, competition or capitalism, but by making it comfortable, charming, and important to the other characters. Sounds like a balm right now.
I understand it is of particular appeal to women? Why do you think that is?
It’s obviously hard to get exact stats, but from studies it does seem that more than half of cosy gamers are women. We also know women statistically experience more stress than men, so if escaping from stress is a pull towards cosy games, then that could be a big reason!
But we know women play all sorts of games (I certainly do!) just as clearly lots of people who aren’t women play cosy games too, so I wouldn’t personally pin it down to anything like mechanics, gameplay or theme.
Instead, I’d say one appeal is that in a lot of cosy games the characters tend to be far more representative of the real world than other games, which means they’re more likely to feature women as lead characters. It’s an attractive thing about cosy games for lots of people; there’s space for all of us, and many of us are creating cosy worlds because we don’t feel seen in other games. And as cosy games generally don’t reward or encourage violence and aggression, I think they can be safe spaces to be a gamer, too.
Accessibility and inclusion are a focus in your work — what does that look like in practice?
For inclusion, I think there’s real beauty and power in diversity. It’s a human right to be seen and represented, and part of my job is to help make that happen. To that end, I have a few golden rules for myself when I’m writing. I hold myself accountable to make sure game characters represent the real world as much as possible and to know (and avoid using) common triggers. I’m specific about character ages, gender, ethnicity, sexuality etc when I write briefs for art and marketing. I am respectful of others, and stay open to learning by being curious and consuming stories from people who are not like me. I also value and listen to feedback from my team, testers, and players. Finally, I’ve been fortunate enough to work in very diverse teams and in companies who care about inclusion, and they have encouraged me to build representation into my narrative design in the first place!
Just as everyone has the right to be represented, everyone should also be able to play games. For me that means accessibility has to be baked into narrative design. In a former life I worked in digital marketing and trained in screen accessibility. When I came into games I could see how many of the accessibility rules that are standard in writing for the web could be applied. Some games are careful to get their accessibility controls and settings working to a high level but don’t do the same for text and story. So I have some best-practice rules for accessibility that I apply to any game I work on.
You’ve worked on titles played by millions. How does that scale influence your approach to storytelling?
I’ll start by saying I try my best to forget numbers when I am working on something with high player count, otherwise it could be a terrifying stopping block!
For Love & Pies I approached the narrative design as if the game was a sitcom, even writing it in Final Draft (the film/tv screenwriting software) before converting it for game implementation. I worked on the narrative design so that each game day was essentially a sitcom episode, and I deliberately incorporated some fun Telenovela tropes and then subverted them. This meant that people would feel a sense of familiarity with some of the storylines and plot structures before being surprised. Knowing that the ambitions for the game were huge meant that we had to really get that beginning right, and we spent a lot more time testing, rewriting and polishing the first few game days than we might have otherwise.
When I know I have a lot of players reading my words, I feel a real duty to get things right and keep standards high. That’s where I make sure that I’m consistently applying my golden rules for representation and accessibility, that I’m getting regular feedback from people who are invested in the storylines and characters, and that I have kept everything properly logged in my trackers so that I don’t drop any story beats or mess things up!
Where do you think cosy games will go next OR what do you think will be the next growth area in games?
The million dollar question! I do think cosy games will continue to rise in popularity and we’ll see more games where people can become part of a community, nurture friendships, build safe spaces, and try to destress. I also think that players will soon value authenticity and human voices more as AI slop rises, so I hope to see growth in game stories that are a little more quirky, personal, and meaningful. And if it can be done with cute art and awesome gameplay, count me in.
