I write a lot of different things. Very different things. So that can make me quite hard to sum up.
What makes me unusual is that I bring old-fashioned storytelling skills to new forms of media. I have classical training in English drama and literature but I enjoy the narrative design challenge of telling stories in new ways – which is why so much of my work is in video games, interactive theatre, or bizarre transmedia formats that defy categorisation.
For example, I worked with Aardman to bring their plasticine heroes Wallace & Gromit into the modern era with augmented reality and location-based gaming. Before that, I wrote an interactive adventure for the TV show Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman and Mark Gatiss. Read all about it.
In the world of console games, I’ve worked on blockbuster titles such as Star Wars: Battlefront II and Need for Speed: Heat and wrote a detective game called The Trace, which turned up on The Guardian’s list of the Best Android Games of the Year (and picked up a few more accolades along the way).
Some of my odder projects include creative-directing an interactive animation of a classic poem, writing a live-streamed murder mystery film for the TV channel Alibi, and planning the Live Writing Series, which saw me writing and improvising live in the National Portrait Gallery in front of 4,000 people. That’s on top of my ARG projects and my more conventional work in radio.
I’m always looking for opportunities to break new ground and tell interesting stories, so if you’d like a chat, feel free to get in touch.
David Varela 