Adam Heine's Blog, page 8

Q: What kind of writing samples do you want for game work?

Gunther Winters is looking for a writing position in the gaming industry. He says:

...all those ads [that interest me] require the submission of "samples" of one's own work, and I suspect that those that don't clearly require it just take it for understood. ...what is adequate for "submitting"? How many "pieces"? How long? Of what  kind? Most ads mention no details whatsoever...

Any other advice for an aspirant "writer" who is trying to approach the gaming industry?

I can't tell you specifi...

Q&A: Can you rest anywhere in Torment?

Alessandro from Torment's Italian fan blog says:

You've talked extensively about Effort in many occasions by now, but there's still a piece of the puzzle missing, at least to me. How do you intend to limit rest in the Torment?

I mean, managing Effort is an interesting gameplay mechanic. but only because Effort is a limited resource. If players are able to rest whenever they want, the whole thing explodes.

Now, I know that during Cryses time is a factor, so resting will be either limited or impos...

Torment Novella Fan Art

In case you missed it, I got my first for-real fan art the other day for the Torment novella. From Michael Malkin, this is "Ama, seeker of the Golden Tide."


I like the golden light shining in from the left. That's a nice touch. Thanks, Michael!

Read the entirety of "The Patch Man"

My Pathfinder story, "The Patch Man," has now been published in its entirety. If you're like me, and you don't like reading something that you can't finish, well you can finish it now: chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, and chapter four.

(And if you're better than me, and read things the moment you can read any part of it, know that today you can be complete.)

And oh my gosh, I just realized I never told you how this came to be!

It probably never occurred to you. I mean, I'm the Design Lea...

Favorite Games of 2014

It's still January. I'm not late.

Well, except for the part where these are games I played in 2014, as opposed to games that may have come out in 2014. Whatever.

BANNER SAGA
I've talked about this one. It looks pretty. It sounds lovely. It asks me to make hard choices and then question them, and for some reason I love it all the more because of this. I'm thinking of playing through it again on Hard.

I will probably fail. I don't actually care.

THE LONGEST JOURNEY
Adventure games are kind of my thi...

Copyeditor Bar Jokes

Click to embiggen.

Q: Game quality on a variety of systems?

Taking advantage of asking me anything, Steve says:

If one writes a book, the reader gets exactly what the writer put across.  Doesn't matter what format they read it in - it's basically the same experience. But with video games, everyone’s machines are different, from ancient to cutting edge. With all the variables of OS, RAM, video cards, and everything else thrown in as well.  Which have changed since you began the project and will have changed again by th...

The Patch Man is up at Paizo.com

My latest short story, "The Patch Man," is up at paizo.com (at least the first chapter is -- the rest will come soon). It takes place in the world of the Pathfinder RPG which, if you're not familiar with it, is very similar to D&D, but with a lot of its own twists. "The Patch Man" is about a half-fiend named Blit who makes a living cleaning up evidence for the less-reputable guilds in Pathfinder's largest city, until he starts getting in over his head.

This marks the second short story I'v...

5 Weird Facts About 2015

These facts are weird to me, at least. Most of these are true this year. All are recently true.

(1) We've lived in Chiang Mai longer than we had lived in San Diego.

San Diego's our home, man. At least it used to be. But we've been living in a place where all TV shows are geo-blocked (and also available down the street for $1/disc), and where Sprite is pronounced "sapai," for more years than any place I've lived in except the place I was born.

(2) We've been attending our current church longer th...

How to Get Schooled by a 4-Year-Old

My daughter Anica is beautiful, ruthless, and ridiculously smart. She embodies every connotation of the word precocious.

In this chapter, she and I play a game called "I'm Thinking of an Animal" -- kind of a kindergarten version of Twenty Questions. (I designed it myself. I'm so very smart.)

Sometimes, Anica gets bored and messes with me.

Me: "I'm thinking of an animal that's black and white." Anica: "A cow!" Me: "AND it has wings and swims very well." Anica: "A birdcowfish!"
— Adam Heine (@adamh...