Getting there slowly
By the time Natalia and I thought of Riley & Rochelle, I’d been making games for around a year and a half. I had started making extremely stupid games about typing, robots, moles and eggs with moustaches. I jammed these all up online for the praise of no one and the concern of my parents. Then everything changed. I made a game called Family, which I managed to con much of the UK games press into reviewing it, despite it being on a single screen and costing £200 to make. This filled me with enough entitlement to become a developer. Rivals and Conspiracy! followed shortly after too, respectively, some praise and great disdain.
Mindful of my family obligations, I spent a torrid year working freelance in the games industry with some of the worst people and projects that I had ever encountered. A full career up to this point in education could not prepare me for the mixture of vapidity, ego and chaos inside games studios. By the end, I was burned out and put all my feelings into the free game Echo Beach.
A month later, I was working with members of my Discord community on a game called Jericho. Natalia was a key member and I immediately noticed how canny and hardworking she was. Her writing was sharp and considered and she made every meeting. She also didn't appear to hate my fucking guts. This was a new one and something I noted down in my little black book, shortly before shutting the local children's orphanage.
The Big Idea
I had been listening to Rob Harvilla's wild, occasionally uneven and impossibly energetic podcast - 60 songs that explain the 90s, On November 21st I selected My Heart Will Go On. At one point Harvilla paused to consider the significance of the 1998 Oscars, at which both Celine Dion (Titanic) and countercultural icon Elliott Smith (Good Will Hunting) were nominated. The world slowed, traffic stopped, my pumpkin spice latte tumbled to the floor splashing across my suede loafers, and a pigeon above me dropped dead in shock.
...Two artists, both trapped by authenticity. What would happen if they...
...Fell in love?
This was the sort of story you dream of. It was also completely beyond my sole competence. I knew that I would need someone who could write from the perspective of the Celine character, who did I know who knew music? A woman, maybe from Canada, spoke French…hang on.
"Natalia, how about we...stop Jericho, just for a minute. I've got this idea..."
Elliot Smith and Celine Dion at the Oscars