Ink Inside
Client:
Blackfield Entertainment
Key Roles:
Creative Director, Marketing Director, Writer, Producer
Year:
2025
INK INSIDE is a co-op action RPG that started as a pilot script I wrote and pitched to Nickelodeon. Now it's become an "indie RPG gem" according to PC Gamer, one with vibrant characters, unique combat, and a deep lore narrative partially told in FMV sequences. I worked primarily as Creative Director, Marketing Director, Writer, and Producer.
The video that's playing above is one I created and edited specifically for the console launch of the game, and has nearly 60k views on YouTube. The social media links to the left lead to the pages we created for the game including our TikTok that currently has over 2million+ views.
VISUAL DESIGN: Narrative based games need strong characters whose visuals are as rich as the story - which means having stellar design principles, and flawless animation. To accomplish this, I worked closely with our Art Director, Justin Booth to develop a design process that included traditional 2D animation principles alongside well established video game ones. In addition to typical character iterations during our design process, we also included the creation of turn-arounds for the 3D modelers, and pose sheets covering character expressions for the animators. This allowed us to find animations and “looks” that fit each character best, while also understanding the time budget each would require when put into production.
WRITING: RPG’s require a strong narrative, but INK INSIDE’s “Saturday Morning Cartoon” theme also required a very specific tone. Players needed to learn about the world, get hooked by their curiosity of the mysteries within it, and they needed to laugh at the antics of the main characters as they got closer to them. By prioritizing the central narrative in preproduction, we could allow for the time needed to get the tone right without affecting scope. For each version of the script, I created a rough animatic with my narration (and bad acting) to get a feeling for the tone, and to see where there could be any scope concerns for the amount of locations and characters needed for production. This also allowed us to spend more time finding (and scheduling) the best talent available to voice each character.
