Season 1 Episode 5: Ludonarrative Harmony for Narrative Designers
Explore ludonarrative harmony and what it really takes to create nonlinear interactive narrative in modern videogames in this week’s episode with Whitney Beltrán, a multiple award-winning Mexican-American Narrative Director with over 12 years of experience in narrative design and professional writing whose experience spans triple-A video games, mobile games, extended reality games, tabletop roleplaying games, and pretty much anything interactive. As a creative leader, she understands that visionary leadership isn’t just about having the ideas: it’s creating the space and structure in which teams can thrive chasing a shared narrative vision, as she did successfully on her award-winning immersive game Holovista. Whitney is also an accomplished video game academic whose specialty in the intersection of mythology, psychology, and play is best demonstrated by the runaway success of her Kickstarter tabletop RPG Bluebeard’s Bride. In this wide-ranging exploration of the craft of narrative design, we pull back the veil on the core concepts behind ludonarrative alignment and the nuanced world of narrative design tools across the industry, and will inspire narrative designers with candid reflections about creative leadership and navigating the world of venture capital.
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Featured in this Episode
Whitney Beltrán, Award-winning Independent Narrative Designer
Whitney Beltrán is a multiple award-winning Mexican-American Narrative Director with over 12 years of experience in narrative design and professional writing. She was previously the Narrative Director at Hidden Path Entertainment, where she headed the narrative on a AAA Dungeons & Dragons video game project in partnership with Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast. Whitney is known for her gripping work on internationally celebrated titles like Bluebeard’s Bride and HoloVista, as well as State of Decay 2, Beyond Blue, Raccoon Lagoon, Dungeons & Dragons (tabletop products), and myriad other video game and tabletop RPGs.
Whitney has been voted Top 100 Women in Games 2022, selected for the Game Awards inaugural Future Class in 2020, and has received a number of additional awards, both personally and as part of a team for the games she’s worked on including two IndieCade wins; Best Narrative (2020) and the Grand Jury Award (2018). She has served as a judge/juror for the Diana Jones Awards, Golden Cobra Game Competition, and IndieCade. She serves on the advisory board of Fantasy Network.
Quotable Moment
When I personally talk about game soul, I’m talking about when all the designers sit down together to make a game, it’s that feeling in their chest: it’s that feeling: “We did it. We’re communicating the thing. It’s our pure vision.” And no game makes it through production as a pure vision. Just to be super clear, that doesn’t happen. But if you’re lucky, if you work hard, and if you’re smart, there is the ability to take that feeling in your chest and protect it and guide it through the entire process of making that game. To “keep the soul of the game alive” so that when it is released, players pick it up and they’re like, “oh, what is this? I feel this.” It’s the game soul now on AAA games that’s pretty hard to pull off because there are so many hands, there’s so many things that can go wrong. There’s so much challenge in alignment because there are hundreds or thousands of people working on the game. It CAN be done. It’s much more probable on smaller games or indie games because it’s a smaller team with a singular vision.
– Whitney Beltrán on Game Soul
Show Notes
Supporting Links
| Blog: Bright Whitney | https://brightwhitney.com |
| Academic Publications | https://pacifica.academia.edu/WhitneyBeltran |
| Game: Holovista (iOS) | Holovista on the Apple App Store Preview Article at The Verge |
| Game: Dungeons and Dragons (TTRPG) | Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft |
| Game: Bluebeard’s Bride (TTRPG) | Bluebeard’s Bride at Magpie Games |
| Selected Accolades | The Game Awards: Future Class 2020 Indie Game Developer Network Game of the Year 2018 (Bluebeard’s Bride) Indiecade 2021 Narrative Winner (Holovista) She Plays Games 2022 – Top 100 Women in Gaming |
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitney-beltran/ | |
| BlueSky | https://bsky.app/profile/brightwhitney.bsky.social |
Episode Outline
| Scene | Timestamp | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Podcast Start | 2:40 | Introductions |
| Level 1 | 4:14 | Exploring Narrative Design |
| Host Commentary | 6:18 | Video Game Engines |
| Level 2 | 8:04 | Self-Driven Narrative Training |
| Level 3 | 9:52 | Custom Narrative Tools in Game Design |
| Level 4 | 13:38 | Ludonarrative Harmony and Dissonance |
| Level 5 | 16:20 | Defining Game “Soul” |
| Level 6 | 20:24 | Game Narrative vs Game Writing |
| Level 7 | 23:30 | Career Reflections as a Studio Head |
| Level 8 | 26:14 | Career Progression and Motivation |
| Host Commentary | 30:00 | “Porting” a video game |
| Level 9 | 30:33 | Platform-Informed Narrative Design |
| Level 10 | 33:30 | Scaling Narrative Design Teams |
| Level 11 | 40:25 | Scripting for Narrative Designers |
| Host Commentary | 42:24 | Getting started with Unity or Unreal |
| Level 12 | 42:54 | Communication that Works |
| Host Commentary | 46:17 | Game Studios as the Ultimate Design Challenge |
| Level 13 | 47:20 | The Problem with Venture Capital |
| Level 14 | 54:00 | Sustaining Narrative Career Dreams in Tough Conditions |
| Final Podcast Level | 57:22 | Links and Follow-up |
The Game Development Strategy Guide
Whitney Beltrán is featured as Player 6 in Cheryl Platz’s new book, The Game Development Strategy Guide: Crafting Modern Video Games that Thrive. Order direct from publisher RosenfeldMedia.com to receive a free ebook with every physical purchase. Use discount code ENDURINGPLAY1 before December 15, 2025 to receive 15% off your purchase.
