My name is Tom and I am a game designer and writer based in Paris, France.
What I enjoy most about video games is the sheer variety of situations their development involves. There is no time to be bored when you have to conceptualize, research, write, actually integrate and debug your work. Each task comes with its own mindset and skillset, making sure you never stay stuck and always move on to something new.
Outside of video games, I mostly write short Science Fiction and Fantasy stories. You can read them on my personal blog! (Texts only in French so far.)
In my free time I read, cook, play video games and tabletop rpgs and scan the internet for random knowledge and useless trivia. You never know what piece of knowledge might come in handy for your next project.
I also enjoy participating in all kinds of challenges! Challenges are a good way to step out of your comfort zone and learn new tricks and stuff about yourself. You’ll find below a short description of some of my favorites. If you know about other fun challenges, make sure to tell me about it!
NaNoWriMo
A challenge of endurance and consistency
Short for National Novel Writing Month, it consists in writing a 50-thousand-word novel in 30 days (typically during November). It’s very hard, especially for someone mostly used to short stories like me, but it’s really gratifying to see what you are able to do under this kind of constraints!
Project Bradbury
A challenge of creativity and adaptability
Named after Ray Bradbury, who once said: “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row”, this challenge is a bit different from NaNoWriMo. It forces you to be very consistent for a very long time, not only in your work but also in your coming up of ideas. I attempted it once in 2016, and although I did not manage to complete the challenge, I did write 32 stories and I am very proud of many of them. Two of them even got published in anthologies!
Writing contest
a challenge of focus and speed
If the other two challenges are marathons, then this one is a sprint. During a writing contest, you form teams of three people. Each person in the team chooses one out of three themes, which are common for all the teams. Then you have a limited time to write your stories (typically around 2 hours). You can choose to draw one or two random constraints to increase your time limit, but you must now include them in your story. Your team members are here to help you if you struggle with your plot, or a word, or even to proof read you if you finish in advance. At the end of the contest, readers vote for their favorite story in each theme, and their favorite story in general. I love this challenge because it forces you to act quickly and to shut down your perfectionnist mind.
Game Jams
a challenge of teamwork and efficiency
Of course I love Game Jams too! Depending on the team gathered for the occasion, I may act as a game designer, a writer, or both. It’s thrilling. Game dev is usually a very long process, but during a game jam you can see your game coming together in real time. It can be really stressful and draining too, so it’s very important to keep a healthy relationship with your work and thus to rest often, even if the Game Jam only lasts 48h.