I have 5+ years of screenwriting experience, ~10 years of experience as a Game Master of various tabletop role-playing games, and over the past 3 years or so, I've been creating all sorts of video games.
narrative systems
I have designed and implemented narrative systems using Lua and C# and using spreadsheets as a tool to simplify writing for complex and branching narratives.
The Heist of the Argonaut Limited
2024 - Solo Developer / Writer
A text adventure game for Panic's Playdate, inspired by classic TTRPGs, where you play the part of a witless criminal on a train heist where everything goes wrong.
Argonaut Limited (pictured above), was built using Lua with the Playdate SDK to support a variety of character "voices" and textual expressions.
At the 2024 Playdate Community Awards, we were honored with winning Best Narrative!
On Argonaut Limited I worked on everything as the sole developer (though I collabed with a pixel artist and musician) but most notably the--
Heist of the Argonaut Limited
solo developer / writer
A Playdate text adventure where you play the part of a witless criminal hired for a daring train heist where everything goes wrong.
Vanitas
2025 - Game Designer, Narrative Designer
A jazzy mystery game where you play an evolving dice game with the strange passengers on a train to nowhere.
Vanitas (pictured above), utilizes a restricted camera system to communicate mechanics and narrative.
Vanitas was developed in Unity using the Yarnspinner plugin for handling dialogue. My contributions include—
Vanitas
game / narrative designer
A jazzy mystery game where you play a constantly evolving dice game with the strange passengers on a train to nowhere.
storytelling
On top of the technical aspects of narrative design, demonstrated above, the core of my experience as a storyteller comes from film and television.
Following, I've included a couple of short screenplays that demonstrate the sort of tone and themes I usually gravitate towards.
ʻAumākua
2023 - Writer
A screenplay for a short animated film about a young boy lost at sea. This screenplay has dialogue written in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language) with translations in English.
ʻAumākua
writer
Lilo ke keiki i ka moana. Kōkua kona mau ʻaumākua iā ia.
Paul is Dead
2019 - Writer
A short dark comedy horror screenplay about a band member confused by a blasé imposter. Paul is Dead was originally a pitch for the Abaddon that was scrapped when the anthology concept solidified. I still really like this script.
Paul is Dead
writer
A short screenplay about lead singer, Liv, confronting a devious doppelganger who is impersonating her bandmate, Paul.
collaborating
Lastly (and proudly), I have worked a good number of different jobs in my life. I've worked as a bartender, barista, runner, electrician, producer, colorist, and writer just to name a few. Almost all of these jobs involved me working closely with others under pressure and communicating constantly with collaborators and clients. Check out my résumés to see more details.
You made it to the bottom of the page! Check out the following links if you want more info and don't hesitate to reach out to me at me@nicoailani.com.