Narrative designer Leah Hoyer has joined Telltale Games as the studio’s vice president of creative. In her new role, Hoyer will directly oversee the teams working on writing, design, and voice-overs and help the studio grow as it takes on new projects and franchises.
Hoyer will also be heading up the Telltale Creative Workshop taking place March 2. Though the event is invite-only, the workshop will be held adjacent to GDC in San Francisco, California. The workshop is geared at people who ultimately want to work in narrative design and offers a select group of applicants the chance to workshop and pitch ideas directly with the Telltale team.
The idea for the workshop sprung out a conversation she had with an executive producer and studio manager shortly after joining Telltale in October, Hoyer explained.
"I asked if we could teach people, maybe get some promising folks in a room and let them immerse with us and learn what we do and see who picks it up." said Hoyer.
"I’m looking forward to spending the day with these people, talking about what we do, and giving them the chance to work with the talented team here to craft their own Telltale-like experience. Ideally, we will find some people we want to hire. But regardless, I’m excited to encourage people interested in game story to pursue their passion."
Before joining Telltale, Hoyer spent over two years as the Head of Narrative at Guild Wars creator ArenaNet. In years prior she has worked as the director of narrative design at Microsoft on games like Quantum Break, Sunset Overdrive, and Killer Instinct. Hoyer also brings experience gained from various roles at Disney, including work as a creative executive on TV shows like Phineas & Ferb.
"I’m a firm believer that game story is at its best when all of the disciplines work together. We have so many more tools at our disposal than books or even film and TV," shared Hoyer in an interview with Gamasutra.
"People who want to create narrative for games need to understand what the other disciplines do and how they are integral to the story experience."