Hey Trailblazers, it’s yer boi, yer gal, yer narrative designer Jen.
I come from the land of comics but have been entranced by video games from the first time saw the manhole cover explode in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Video games were prohibitively expensive for a divorced family and I rarely asked for new games, the Game Boy was revolutionary because it could travel with me. My sixth birthday was in a New York arcade, back when arcades existed. Kids had two hours to play all the games they wanted, except the claw machine, pizza and cake, and then the birthday kid got to play the claw machine until they won something. I would host the same party today for my friends.
Jen as the villain in an annual dinner theater production at the University of Texas at Austin called Madrigal Dinner.
Now there are games at the library or mediatheques, which I know a younger version of me would have loved. Games can be rented for free or played at some libraries, they are included in streaming apps. But the library was my main home and best friend as we moved (every summer) until high school. We moved so much that the first place we visited once moved in was the library so I could get a card and my mom would ‘give permission’ for me to check out books from any section (many libraries let kids check out anything, as they should, but my mom wanted to make sure it was noted in my file).
Not to be ‘that person’ but I read everything, or try to. I always try to have one non-fiction book going along with fiction because in there lies the keys to so many new stories. But I’m also a sucker for horror, science fiction, fantasy, and mystery. The unknown revealing itself calls to me. From reading Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived Here, to scaring myself in Vermont with Stephen King’s IT, to pledging my fealty to Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir to traveling Gethen in The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin to attending Oozma University in the Binti by Nnedi Orkorafor.
Covers for Gideon the Ninth, The Left Hand of Darkness, and the Binti collection.
When I was high school, I went to a romance/fantasy reading group run by my best friend’s mom, we would often get free copies of books from publishers in exchange for feedback, writing honest reviews, and to with help word of mouth. I was soon able to decipher the rhythm of romance, it’s a nice comfort genre but the thrill of science fiction, the different magic systems of fantasy, and the hoping to hell the hero makes it through in horror or finding the murderer have a bigger draw as they are the things I am least likely to grasp within my lifetime.
Screenshot of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (1995)
These were same genres I’m attracted to in video games! The exquisite glory of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on PC, which I replayed recently, as a way to encourage people to use the included encyclopedia was a giant bridge for reader like me to get into games more. As a kid, the definitive ending of each mystery, racing against my own brain, felt perfect.
One of the boss fights in Paper Mario: Origami King. With clear blue skies.
Now, what often what draws me into a video game is the color palette: limited or moody, evoking a feeling. So many games use every color and it’s not in service to the story. If the mood of the game was a color or the easy pairing of like colors vs the jarring dissonance of complimentary colors, what would it be? How can you revisit this prismatic thesis? Maybe I’m an art snob, or it relates to comic book printing (my full work background is in comics) but I will play an okay board game with gorgeous art, but I have to be bribed with cheese to play an ugly looking board game with great mechanics. Case in point: Paper Mario: Origami King—absolutely loved that game, it was fantastic and scratched all those itches but boss fights fought in the bright sunlight are so wild to me. Being color palette-inclusive, I just made up this phrase, is a way to appeal to wider audiences I suspect. But, damn, put out a game only in coral pink, navy, and teal—I’m wishlisting it.
Still from the movie adaptation (2018) of Annihilation (2014), featuring plants growing into the forms of humans in conversation.
I joined the Strangers team in late 2024, and it was clear they loved Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Rimworld. Luckily, I had read, watched, and played most of the influences the team agreed on and began to work in my own world-building as well. Some of my big influences for Trailblazers are the Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance, the first of which was made into a movie); Ingress, Niantic’s firstish geolocation game, and the Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente.
Logos for two podcasts; the first is of The Magnus Archives, the second is The White Vault.
With some dashes of The X-Files, Control, and the SCP Foundation (thanks to Arnaud Gattlen for introducing me to this), and the travelogues of real world explorers and expeditioners who met their doom. As a cartoonist who listens to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts, the collection aspect of stories like The Magnus Archives and found ephemera like The White Vault definitely seeps into the March as well. One of the biggest themes these worlds have in common is the environment itself is a character. Which means, it can change, it can grow, it can be hurt, and it can harm.
Screenshot from Control (2019) featuring main character, Jesse Faden, staring at some floating employees of the FBC, Federal Bureau of Control.
The body horror and evershifting landscape met with the beaurocratic-military urge to control it is never not funny and fascinating to me, as seen in the Southern Reach trilogy in Area X, the same for the AWEs in Control. It feels like a Western world theme, domination and power over the elements, instead of learning to live with them. This is the biggest choice you must make in Ingress, there are alien elements invading the world via Exotic Matter on the map, and you can choose to Evolve with it (as the Enlighted team) or Fight back against it (as the Resistance). The way Ingress folded diegetic audio elements in with their game play, so as you walked closer to an area dominated by one of the two factions the ambient audio changed, honestly blew me away. This wasn’t uncommon in video games, but this in an ARG (augmented reality game), I was playing on my phone and walking in my neighborhood. I wouldn’t play the game if I forgot my headphones or (later) hadn’t charged them, it felt crucial for immersion in the game.
The cover of The Past is Red, A panel from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki, and the symbols for the two original factions from Ingress.
It’s that same rhythm, or more like under-the-skin-tapping I felt reading The Past Is Red, where the main character lives in an apocalyptic world of rising waters and everyone lives on trash islands, munching on their favorite microplastics with hints of real food. The rise of Funko Pops, custom dice, acrylic standees, keychains, all the many plastics that I encounter at conventions is the baseline for this possible future author Catherynne M. Valente penned so clearly. In this book, it is very much the people who are 100% to blame for their current situation. In Trailblazers, a science-fantasy, there’s a bit more to it than just our own hubris.
So yeah, do I think Trailblazers are literary people? Abso-f**king-lutely. However, they rose from the ashes and had to rebuild libraries and write new masterpieces as well as beach reads. Cunning Trailblazers might have found a book from the Time Before out in the March, secreted it away, and rewrote it as if it were their own writing. Assuming, of course, that book was GOOD.
“May I present to you Selene Netherland’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Wait, dammit.”
Some Trailblazers still have stories from the past passed down via oral traditions, or via drawings. In a future devlog, I’ll talk about the different factions and their lore! The story we are most excited for, of course, is the one you make in the game.
I hope you liked what was essentially a prose version of a slideshow of “stuff I like and want to write within the same vibe.” I’m sure you want to hear more about the lore of the factions or March next time, so let me know in the comments or if you have any questions!
Books on the floor in the Trailblazers game.
Jen