is Crowe Whitney, a non-binary narrative designer, community manager, and multi-media artist from Boston. He passionately pursues storytelling throughout media and aims to continuously push the envelope on the intersection between storytelling and play. He is currently looking for new projects that can aid in that pursuit.
Ascend Learning: Nursing Simulations
& Podcasts
A series of podcasts and interactive simulations included within a greater learning plan designed to replace textbooks. I worked on multiple projects that made it into the released product.
Project Role: Narrative Designer
Working With A Designer: Fire Fiasco
A short Twine game about game development, a cut level, and working as a team to fill in the gaps. Made for a module within The Narrative Department's Game Writing Masterclass One.
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer
A Town by the Sea
A TTRPG where players build a lush community together and then watch the sea tear it down as they struggle to save what they built and transform what they can't. A map-making, map-destroying game about ecological grief.
Project Role: Game Designer, Rules Writer
Fishtopolis
The city of Fishtopolis needs better transit structure, and it's up to your panel of advocates to make the best plan you can! In this pitching game, sell your project to your team and lead the charge for better transportation!
A card game for 4-35 people.
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Rulebook Layout & Writer
Urban Games Sampler
A project from Trust In Play, an exploration into urban games mixed with the concept of trust. The Urban Games Sampler is a charcuterie of simple concepts to ease players into the world of urban gaming and finding fun in the space around them.
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Project Manager, Rules Writer
Stuck in an Elevator:
Test of a Hero
What would happen if Link from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Fandaniel from Final Fantasy XIV, and Paimon from Genshin Impact were stuck in an elevator together?
From Susan O’Connor’s Game Writing Masterclass.
Chemical Lab Stealth Op
A script for a beginner stealth mission in a hypothetical stealth/action game, focused on dialog and minor decision trees. Comedic with a dramatic twist.
Example Barks: Loic
Hypothetical barks for a shopkeeper character in an urban fantasy setting. The character sampled is Loic, a strange and mysterious shopkeep and apprentice to an oracle.
Excerpts About the Fae Folke of Imsii'os
Showcases some of the world-building done for my fantasy setting of Imsii’os. Specifically about one of the five countries of the known world, The Amaryllis Courts, and the cultures found within. Based on the four seasons.
Ascend Learning: Nursing Simulations
& Podcasts
A series of podcasts and interactive simulations included within a greater learning plan designed to replace textbooks. I worked on multiple projects that made it into the released product.
Project Role: Narrative Designer
Working With A Designer: Fire Fiasco
A short Twine game about game development, a cut level, and working as a team to fill in the gaps. Made for a module within The Narrative Department's Game Writing Masterclass One.
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer
A Town by the Sea
A TTRPG where players build a lush community together and then watch the sea tear it down as they struggle to save what they built and transform what they can't. A map-making, map-destroying game about ecological grief.
Project Role: Game Designer, Rules Writer
The Curse of the Wolf With Many Eyes
Take a coming of age style pilgrimage to cure yourself of a curse that takes away your autonomy. Throughout the journey you may find hidden items and text left behind by those before you that may shed some light on this "curse".
Made in 48 hours for the 2022 Global Game Jam.
Project Role: Game Designer, Writer, Programmer
> wander
An experimental procedurally generated game. Wander through a unique land with uniquely generated objects and scenes. Wander too far, and the day begins anew and a whole new map is there to explore.
Made in 48 hours for the 2021 Global Game Jam.
Project Role: Programmer, Writer, Sound Designer
The Blue Room VR
Barter and pawn in a VR shop called The Blue Room, a space where you - The Broker - can remove and replace memories of your customers in return for Luck. Use real-life conversational gestures to interact with customers and determine the value of their memories to help them or profit off of them.
Project Role: Game Designer, Programmer, Writer
Lucien
Travel again to past journeys through the eyes of a retired adventurer. A short narrative game where you go through the various items picked up over time, reminiscing about the past.
Project Role: Game Designer, Programmer, Editor
Exam Arcanum
Undergo a scramble of last minute preparations for a wizarding exam. A short interactive story about Ridley, a wizard-in training!
Solo Project – Skills Used: Game Designer, Writer, Graphic Designer
Fishtopolis
The city of Fishtopolis needs better transit structure, and it's up to your panel of advocates to make the best plan you can! In this pitching game, sell your project to your team and lead the charge for better transportation!
A card game for 4-35 people.
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Rulebook Layout & Writer
Killer Dinner
Everyone is masked and has their own hidden agenda. Ask questions, collect items, and attack other party-goers to accomplish your hidden agenda before anyone else. Blend in while figuring out who to trust — and who to kill — before it’s too late!
A table-top game for 2-4 players, played in under an hour.
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Rules Writer, Project Manager
We Will Not Walk In Fear
The rich live longer and longer, where those trying to eke on by go missing... perhaps the two are linked. Take on teams of fellow investigative journalists as you try to be the first to publish news on the biggest conspiracy the city has ever known.
A table-top game for 4-6 players.
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Project Manager, Writer
Urban Games Sampler
A project from Trust In Play, an exploration into urban games mixed with the concept of trust. The Urban Games Sampler is a charcuterie of simple concepts to ease players into the world of urban gaming and finding fun in the space around them.
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Project Manager, Rules Writer
Distance Disclosure
An installation where two people, strangers or friends alike, break down barriers and learn about each other. The only catch? The method of sharing your story is dictated by the cards you choose together - from whispering in a cozy tent, to posting your answers online for all to see.
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Programmer
A Town By The Sea
Project Role: Game Designer, Rules Writer
Our town is filled with landmarks that both newcomers and locals can pinpoint in no time, but everything is bound to change… the sea level will rise and will take away our town, zone by zone, landmark by landmark, memory by memory.What can we save?
A Town by the Sea is a prototype for Playful Futures, a Collaborative Engagement on Societal Issues (COESCO) pilot, funded by the European Commission.The goal of this project was to provide a playful experience that also addresses topics such as ecological grief and the sea level rising. The final iteration was also documented and analyzed by an ethnographer from one of our partners.Players start with an unlabeled map of an area next to the sea. Together, they create characters and collectively imagine the identity of their coastal home.
By creating the landmarks of the town, players get involved in complex ways with the town itself. Later on, in the game, these relationships serve as background for community negotiations on what gets prioritized to be saved from the sea. Finally, the destiny of the landmarks is rolled and by the end of the game, the appearance, the soul of the town and you, the townspeople, are changed.The game is set in the sci-fi world of Witness, an open-source fictional world. This world is different from other fictional worlds, in that it pays a lot of attention to its economies, and makes its economies radically different from the one we live in. Learn more here.This game was designed in collaboration with Matteo Uguzzoni and Viditya Voleti. 10 sessions were hosted between January and March 2023, with a post-mortem discussing the ethnographer's study in August 2023.
The Curse of the Wolf With Many Eyes
Project Role: Game Designer, Writer, Programmer
Take a pilgrimage to a sacred sight to cure yourself of a curse that takes away your autonomy.
The Curse of the Wolf With Many Eyes is a narrative exploration game where you travel up a mountain. As you progress, the game takes your control away from you more and more as the curse runs its course. Throughout the journey, you can find hidden items and texts left behind by those that traveled before you. Perhaps they can shed some light on where you are, how you got there, and who you may become.This game was created over the span of 48 hours, in collaboration with Damon Stallman during the 2022 Global Game Jam.A more polished 3D iteration is slowly being developed.
> wander
Project Role: Programmer, Writer, Sound Designer
Explore a mysterious landscape with strange objects and events to discover.
> wander is an experimental game where (you guessed it) you wander through a randomly generated map, interacting with randomly generated objects and scenes. Once you wander too far, the day begins again and a whole new map is there to explore.The map is procedurally generated, and the text pulls from a list of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, gathered together using Tracery, a program that allows for procedurally generated stories.This game was created over the span of 48 hours, in collaboration with Damon Stallman during the 2021 Global Game Jam.
The Blue Room VR
Project Role: Game Designer, Programmer, Writer
Barter and pawn in a VR shop called The Blue Room, a space where you, the Broker, can remove and replace memories of your customers in return for Luck. Use real-life conversational gestures to interact with customers and determine the value of their memories to help them or profit off of them.This game was created in collaboration with Damon Stallman. At the moment, a VR build exists, but plans to make a more accessible version are on hold. Should you wish to test out the VR build, shoot me an email and I'll send it over.
Lucien
Project Role: Game Designer, Programmer, Editor
Travel again to past journeys through the eyes of a retired adventurer. A short narrative game where you go through the various items picked up over time, reminiscing about the past.
Lucien is a short narrative adventure made in YarnSpinner in Unity. It features short snippets of adventures that the character had many years prior. The main challenge was to create something with the feeling of nostalgia, despite the player's first time interacting with the content.In order to form this feeling, sound was carefully picked to evoke the soft and slow process of going through old things - perhaps while cleaning up a space or going through the possessions of a loved one. Similarly, the design focused on the same slow actions, taking the time to read about each item and fading in and out between scenes. Should it be too snappy, the game would lose that rhythm; Too slow, and you'll lose the patience of the player. Thus, the design focused on this balancing act.This game was created in collaboration with Damon Stallman, based on our Dungeons & Dragons game in college. Updated Release will be coming to Itch.io in the near future.
Exam Arcanum
Solo Project – Skills Used: Game Designer, Writer, Graphic Designer
Ridley, the exam is in three hours… You should probably get ready.Exam Arcanum tells the story of Ridley Myric, a student learning about all things arcane. With five different endings, make decisions throughout the 3 hours before it’s time for the exam you are not yet prepared for. Like, at all. Good luck!
Fishtopolis
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Rulebook Layout & Writer
Advocate for better transit projects for the feeple of Fishtopolis!
Fishtopolis is a game for up to 35 players, played in teams of 4-5. Players take the role of transportation enthusiasts and have to create and pitch different projects to make the transportation for the fish people (“feeple”) in Fishtopolis better! Players alter each other’s pitches, vote on the most successful pitch and the player with the most votes after three rounds is declared the winner.This game was created in collaboration with Michelle Pineda. It was designed in partnership with the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance to be used in their Transportation 101 course.
"Fishtopolis, the locally-designed card game , is a really good way to understand why some transit projects actually see their way through to completion while others don’t." - Alex Holt, Greater Greater Washington
Killer Dinner
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Rules Writer, Project Manager
Host or disrupt a killer dinner party. Who is your friend, and who is planning on stabbing you tonight?
Killer Dinner is a game for 2-4 players, played in under an hour. Everyone is masked and has their own hidden agenda. Ask questions, collect items, and attack other party-goers to accomplish your hidden agenda before anyone else. Blend in while figuring out who to trust — and who to kill — before it’s too late!This game was created in collaboration with Damon Stallman, Chuck N. Sawit, and Carina Krafft.
We Will Not Walk In Fear
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Project Manager, Writer
Can your team of journalists reveal the biggest headlines of your careers?
We Will Not Walk in Fear is a team-based competitive board game for 4-6 people. Players duke it out as sets of competing Journalists, taking turns interviewing an undercover Witness to gather information on the powerful and secretive Inheritance Society without the other teams snagging their scoop!This game was created in collaboration with Corran Nolan and Vian Nguyen, with art by Tenzen Llamo.
Urban Games Sampler
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Project Manager, Rules Writer
Want to get into Urban Gaming, but are not sure where to start?
The Urban Games Sampler is a booklet of mini-games meant to serve as an introduction to the genre of Urban Games! It contains 6 small games able to be played outdoors or indoors, designed to help introduce new players to the world of urban gaming.This collection was created in collaboration with Léa Leroy and Jenna Yow, with additional support from Trust in Play and the MICA Game Lab.
Distance Disclosure
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Programmer
Shall we close this distance between us?
Distance Disclosure explores the changing levels of intimacy that develop through the conversation between two players and the various number of spectators. Randomized questions appear projected for all to see, and players take turns choosing between eight methods of communicating. These methods range from private and personal, like whispering in a cozy tent or putting it in a sealed letter for your partner to read after the game, to public and loud, like anonymously tweeting the answer for the world to see or yelling it across the room.This installation was created in collaboration with Kathy Guo, Nastia Garachtchenko, and Vian Nguyen.
Ascend Learning: Nursing Simulations & Podcasts
Project Role: Narrative Designer (Contract)
At Ascend Learning, I designed and wrote interactive simulations and podcast scripts around learning objectives set for each individual project. I would meet with Subject Matter Experts to learn more about the particular content from a nursing perspective, then turn that into a conversation design document or podcast script.For the simulations, the conversation design document would feature dialogue and interactive activities designed to teach and test specific module content, like recognizing different heart rhythms in a patient by comparing EKGs.Both simulations and podcast scripts would undergo iteration passes, where experts and learning designers would review the work and give feedback based on our design goals. I would then continue the drafting process until approved and moved onto the next steps, implementation or voice over recording.Released Products can be found here.
Learn more about Ascend Learning here.
Working With A Designer:
Fire Fiasco
Project Role: Game Designer, Graphic Designer* Contact me to gain a password to play!
Welcome to Wise Chicken Games, a scrappy, modestly-sized indie studio working on a hack-and-slash project set in a fantasy world with a focus on the four elements of nature. The narrative department at WCG is just you, the singular Game Writer. Unfortunately, the project has been subject to scope creep for a while now. As a result, some tough decisions have had to be made ...
How bad could it be?
Working with a Designer: Fire Fiasco is a short interactive fiction game that simulates a series of complications that could arise in a game studio. You play as the sole Game Writer on the team, navigating some of the challenges that real game developers face. The game features five different endings, directly based on decisions the player makes while playing the game.Susan O'Connor, CEO & Founder of The Narrative Department, contracted me to collaborate with writer Philip Balli to create this short educational game for her Game Writing Masterclass. This Twine serves as a tie-in for a learning module on how to effectively collaborate with designers as a game writer. I handled all of the game logic and narrative structure while my collaborator provided the writing.
"Crowe is simply the best. Period. They pour their heart and soul in everything they do, and what they deliver is truly magical. In addition to being passionate and creative, Crowe also has a brilliant mind. Their ability to recall information and present it in useful and actionable ways makes them a key member of every team. It's not just a team that needs Crowe... it's the entire game development industry." - Mario Mergola
"Crowe is a one-of-a-kind storyteller that understands programming and game design, as much as they do narrative. They have a deep comprehension when it comes to conveying a story in any medium they create a project in. Any company would be lucky if they had a chance to work with Crowe." - Andrea Saravia-Pérez