Kurt McClung is an American born writer who started up as an engineer. He lived in France, and moved to France when he was 23.
Kurt McClung is passionate for building inspirational experiences and believable fictional worlds. His writing and world-building talent were first put to use in graphic novels and video games. They have also turned into television and animated series.
He has developed his own methodology, 360 narrative design, for building original interactive experiences and worlds that he teaches to cinema and video game students in several prestigious universities.
Skype Interview with Kurt McClung in Narrative Designer:
How did you get your job as a game writer?
I had a childrens’ book company and a game company, that I sold to a comic company. Then I wrote my comic book called Dragon Seed a long time ago. For my first job, a friend of mine actually called me to do dialogue for an adaptation of the video game The Mummy, this was over twenty years ago. That led to Ubisoft asked me if I want to work on a game they just bought, called Might and Magic. I left working on that. I did Might and Magic games for a while. After all of that, I became the lead writer of the IP (intellectual property).
What is your favourite part of the job?
My favourite part of the job is when you see the theme that you want to express. When you see the rules of the game designers, the narrative designers and writers, the art designers, and artist, they’re all telling the same story about the same subject. I love it when I see them and go “Ah, my story is in alignment with our rules, our game design and it’s in alignment to our art direction”. It’s kind of like a light in your head and you realise that creating something, you are creating a world where people could go and learn something about the real world, that’s my goal.
Nicole’s Blog 