RhiannaPratchett
Latest
'Tomb Raider' writer Rhianna Pratchett says goodbye to Lara Croft
Rhianna Pratchett is a veteran video game writer who most recently penned the scripts for Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider, but today on Twitter she announced her amicable departure from the series. Pratchett helped usher Lara Croft, the franchise's legendary protagonist, into the modern era when Crystal Dynamics rebooted the series in 2013.
Rhianna Pratchett penning Overlord 2 script
Mirror's Edge and Heavenly Sword scribe Rhianna Pratchett is taking up duties once again for a less female-empowering franchise. Codemasters announced today that she will write the script for Overlord 2, along with all the other Overlord spin-offs currently in development. Pratchett's name had previously been mentioned as part of the projects, but it appears her dark covenant with the Codemasters overlords has now officially been consummated.Pratchett received a British Writers' Guild Awards nomination this year for the original Overlord script. What, no recognition for bringing "twing-twang" into our lives in Heavenly Sword? Overlord 2 is expected sometime in 2009.[Via Big Download]
Heavenly Sword writer to script Mirror's Edge
As we nurse a queezy stomach from playing EA DICE's Parkour-inspired Mirror's Edge, we'll be doing so to a story penned by writer and story designer Rhianna Pratchett, who's known for her work on titles such as Triumph Studios' Overlord and Ninja Theory's Heavenly Sword.The story centers on free runner Faith as she jumps, climbs, and tumbles her way to uncovering the truth behind who framed her sister for murder. Notes Pratchett, "Faith is skilled, but she's certainly not a superhero. She has her flaws, like all of us. In short: she's real. That's her appeal." Mirror's Edge remains one of the more interesting original titles in EA's 2008 salvo, and is expected to leave us feeling vertigo when it ships for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC this winter.%Gallery-27271%
Joystiq talks about Heavenly Sword's Chatterbox and more
Rhianna Pratchett is the esteemed writer of Sony's upcoming PS3 action game, Heavenly Sword. In a revealing interview with Joystiq, she reveals her inspirations and the responsibilities of a game writer (you know you want to be one).One of the more interesting aspects of Heavenly Sword's dialog system comes from its "Chatterbox" system. As she explains: "the Chatterbox system that the Ninja Theory guys have talked about way back when they did the cover of Heavenly Sword in Edge. You've got the soldiers talking away to each other during fights, mocking Nariko, mocking each other, reacting to the player's moves etc. The enemy will have a noticeable change depending on how many of them there are in the fight. If there are lots then they'll be more upbeat and bolshy. If there's just a few they'll be much more panicked or cowardly."Read Joystiq's full interview to find out more about Heavenly Sword and game writing.
Joystiq interviews Heavenly Sword's Rhianna Pratchett
While at the Develop Conference we had the opportunity to sit down with Rhianna Pratchett, script writer and story designer for Heavenly Sword. We discuss the story of the game, her inspiration, the role of storytelling in video games and, among other things, her dad's (author Terry Pratchett) influence on her work.Why are you writing for games, in particular?I've always been a gamer, since I was about six and I started playing Mazogs on the ZX81. My dad was very techy and into computers, electronics, robots and that kind of thing. He'd bring something that clicked and whirred home and I was an only child so, of course, I was fascinated with whatever my dad was doing. Games were only really becoming commercial then and maybe he thought it was quite cute to get his six year old daughter playing a game where she would run around with a sword killing giant bugs. I asked him about Mazogs the other day and he said that he remembers me being rather frightened of the bug creatures, at first. Although once I found I could kill them, I was much happier! I got hooked from that and I would get all his hand-me-down machines. We would play lots of games together, mainly isometric adventure games. Or rather, he would play them and I would sit beside him drawing all the maps for him. When I was around eleven years old, a girl called Katie moved next door to me and we would play adventure games together (there was precious little else to do in our tiny, one-road village!) but this time it was our adventure. We played games like Monkey Island, King's Quest, even things like the old Leisure Suit Larry games (we'd have to guess all the 'are you 18?' questions – which were mainly, and rather bizarrely, about the American political process!) I studied journalism at university. I didn't really think about games writing back then, so I started off being a games journalist, in about '98 on a magazine called PC Zone, which was (and still is) quite a hardcore PC magazine. I also did some work for The Guardian for a couple of years. Then about four years ago, I started going freelance and then I got my first gig as a story editor for a game and it took off from there as I started to get more and more projects.%Gallery-3174%
