Stevie Rodriguez

Game Writer | Narrative DesignerCurrently working on:
- LoveBites, a werewolf sapphic visual novel
- Our Vampire's Den, a vampire romance story featured on the Dorian app

About Me

Stevie Rodriguez

Game Writer | Narrative Designer

Currently Playing: ENA: Dream BBQ, Magia Exedra, Fate/Stay Night, Infinity Nikki
Favorite Games: Deltarune, Undertale, In Stars and Time, OMORI, Slime Rancher, Portal 2, Animal Crossing
Favorite Print Authors: Aiden Thomas, Andrew Joseph White, Shirahama Kamome
Favorite Animations: Madoka Magica, Frieren, The Owl House, Jentry Chau vs The Underworld, WALL-E, ENA

Hello! My name is Stevie Rodriguez (they/them). I am an award-winning game writer specializing in RPG and visual novel style games. I am particularly fond of crafting romance and fantasy stories, but am flexible towards other genres as well.Over the past few years, I've worked as a freelance game writer on visual novel style mobile games, and am currently looking to get more involved in the indie games space. I'm constantly working to improve my narrative skills through new projects. At the moment, I am working on finishing up LoveBites, a werewolf sapphic visual novel, featuring three love interests, partial voice acting, and a complex morality system.I am an alumni of the IGDA Foundation's Virtual Exchange program, Susan O'Connor's Game Writing Masterclass, and the Art and Design: Games and Playable Media B.A. program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. During my time at university, I served as one of the writing officers of the Game Design and Art Collaboration club on campus as well. In addition, I was recently selected as a Different Games Ambassador for this year's GDC.I take pride in crafting immersive stories emphasizing the power of friendship and love, with hope prevailing against all odds. I'm also committed to featuring diverse characters in my games in a way that feels authentic and uplifting to the player. Overall, I strive to craft interactive stories that make a difference in the player's life. Whether it's a huge impact or just bringing a bit of joy to their day, I love to create games that inspire people!I am currently open to game narrative opportunities. Please feel free to get in touch if you'd like to chat, collaborate on a project, or have any other inquiries regarding my work. You may contact me through email at [email protected], LinkedIn, or through the form below!


Turnstyle

Writer, Character Concept Artist, Background Artist


Turnstyle is an urban fantasy turn-based RPG developed for the senior capstone series at UC Santa Cruz. Make your way through the subway and fend off strange monsters as you follow the conflicts between this tense group of roommates!

My contributions to Turnstyle include:• Wrote four in-game cutscenes, including dialog for all five characters
• Worked with a team of twelve collaborators to write, edit, and organize narrative documents, including character sheets, scripts, and a plot outline
• Designed three rounds of concept art for two of the main characters (Jade and Koralie)
• Illustrated two variations of the background art for the opening cutscene
• Put together moodboards for environments and characters
• Kept track of and updated the art and narrative tasks on our production plan, as well as set up department meetings for those specialities


Take a Ride on the Subway

I worked on Turnstyle as the lead writer and an artist. I aimed to create a narrative with diverse characters, focusing on their queer identities and complex relationships with each other.While the basic battle mechanics were decided early on, I was given a lot of freedom to determine what the story of Turnstyle would become. We decided as a team to surround the story around the cast's conflicts, both with each other and their inner struggles.

For the class, I decided to write a chapter focused on the character Amery. This chapter also introduces the world and other main characters. A major struggle I faced was attempting to give all the narrative aspects enough screentime, while also being able to finish Amery's character arc in four cutscenes. Overall, I feel that it went well and that this project has been a valuable experience in learning how to achieve a good story balance.

I'm really proud of how the story turned out! While we decided as a team to put Turnstyle development on hiatus for now, I definitely would love the chance to make something similar in the near future. Please read the dialogue scripts and misc docs for Turnstyle below if you'd like to see my writing for the game.

Game Projects


The following is a list of my games!Click "More" for details on my work for each game. (Full page for LoveBites is pending!)Click the button below to view and download my game projects.


LoveBites (2024)
Visual Novel Writer
LoveBites: An Existential Romance is a werewolf sapphic romance visual novel. You find yourself ripped away from your monotonous life, kidnapped by a mysterious werewolf woman. Will you escape your captor's claws with your humanity intact, or embrace her corrupt love for a chance at a new life?


Our Vampire's Den (2024)
Game Creator, Writer
Our Vampire's Den is a visual novel style vampire romance game, featured on the mobile app Dorian: Interactive Dramas Hub. Form close bonds with four alluring vampires in order to solve the mystery of why they have captured you in their vampire's den. Gain clues to escape...or fall in love trying.


Turnstyle (2022)
Writer, Character Concept Artist, Background Artist
Turnstyle is a turn-based RPG where you balance five party members on a rotating pentagon. Navigate a public transit system infested with monsters, budgeting the party's cash and their patience with each other as you make your way around the city.


Magical Mending (2022)
Writer, Designer
Magical Mending is a magical girl-themed TTRPG in which players are tasked with protecting the dying realm of Lolarina and bringing hope and joy to all. Will you succeed in restoring magic prosperity to your realm or will your magic burn out permanently in your efforts to protect the people of Lolarina?


Buds (2020)
Writer, Concept Artist
Buds is a platonic visual novel and plant care simulator where you play as someone who is coping with the recent loss of their sister. Although you are hesitant to move on, you slowly warm up to the new people you meet. See your relationships grow and bloom as you interact with the people of Hitachinaka!

Magical Mending

Writer, Designer


Magical Mending is a magical girl-themed TTRPG intended for 2-5 players, developed for the Experimental Tabletop RPG Design class at UC Santa Cruz. As a team, players are tasked with their duty as magical girls: To protect the realm of Lolarina and bring hope and joy to the commoners of the land. However, the magic of the land is rapidly depleting, as the common folk struggle to remain lively in the trying times befalling them.How will your team choose to help your people, while also balancing your own needs and self-care? Will you succeed in restoring magic prosperity to the land or will your magic die out permanently in your efforts to protect the people of Lolarina?

My contributions to Magical Mending include:• Wrote all elements of the game, including the background lore, rules, and sheet sets
• Did narrative research on magical girl tropes
• Organized the layout of documents and graphic design elements
• Researched similar TTRPGs, both in terms of game mechanics and theme
• Created a diagram demonstrating the paper tearing mechanic


The Magic of Lolarina

While designing Magical Mending, I researched games that were thematically similar to my idea, in that they were also magical girl focused. I also took inspiration from the experimental TTRPGs we played in class, such as Tearable RPG and Lasers & Feelings. I had never made a TTRPG before, so this process was a new and fun experience for me!

I knew that I really wanted to make something similar in plot and tone to Madoka Magica, which has been my favorite magical girl anime for many years. Through many playtests, I was able to figure out what mechanics and plot points were working well to achieve this experience goal. Overall, I think this project turned out well for my first TTRPG and I would like to make more of these kinds of games going forward!

I had a great time making this throughout the quarter and learned a lot about making and publishing TTRPGs! In the near future, I plan on adding more to this game than I had time for during the class, such as my own art assets and additional elements to the existing mechanics.

Buds

Writer, Concept Artist


Buds is a platonic visual novel and plant care simulator developed by the Game Design and Art Collaboration club at UC Santa Cruz. You play as someone coping with the recent loss of their sister. You have just moved to a new city, Hitachinaka, aiming to get a fresh start. Although you are hesitant to move on and be open about your feelings, you slowly warm up to the new people you meet. See your relationships grow and bloom as you interact with the people of Hitachinaka!

My contributions to Buds include:• Managed writing tasks for a game team of 60 people
• Wrote the route for Shiori, one of the main characters
• Researched aspects of the narrative such as setting, character identity, and Hanakotoba
• Organized documents including the plot outline, character sheets, and scripts
• Worked together with other departments to guarantee ludonarrative resonance
• Created moodboards for characters and environments, as well as rough concepts for flower arrangement and character designs


Meet New Friends in Hitachinaka

Throughout the development of Buds, I acted as the writing lead for the project. Buds was one of the first games I ever worked on, much less with a large team. I came into the project unsure of if I had the skills to lead the writing department, but I was willing to take on the challenge.My main contributions to the game were organizing narrative documents and writing the main character Shiori's dialogue. While I struggled through some aspects of writing development due to inexperience, I feel that the game turned out well in the end and that I learned from my early mistakes.

Buds received a World Building Award for “excellence in written, interactive, or environmental storytelling” during UCSC’s 2020 Games Showcase.I'm really proud of receiving a distinguished award on one of my first games! I am glad that I was able to successfully lead the writing team and that we achieved such a significant goal.

All in all, I am super happy with how Buds turned out and I enjoyed working with everyone who was involved with the project! I ended up collaborating on games with many of the people who worked on Buds for the remainder of my time at university. I really appreciated the opportunity to work with such kind, talented people. I definitely can say that this was a great experience as my first large game project!

Our Vampire's Den

Game Creator, Writer – Dorian: Interactive Dramas Hub


Our Vampire's Den is a vampire romance visual novel style game, featured on the mobile app "Dorian: Interactive Dramas Hub". The initial draft of Our Vampire's Den was selected as one of the winning pitches for the Dorian Legends Creator Fund. You play as a young adult vampire hunter, hailing from a long lineage of legendary vampire hunters. You go out on the hunt, expecting an easy job as usual, but find yourself trapped in the clutches of your biggest enemies yet.Form close bonds with four alluring vampires in order to solve the mystery of why they have captured you in their vampire's den. Gain clues to escape...or fall in love trying.If you'd like to play through the first episode, please use the emulator embed below! (If for any reason the embed is not working, or you'd like to read with a larger resolution, click here!)

My contributions to Our Vampire's Den include:• Received $1000 towards successful story pitch, and met deadlines as outlined by the Dorian Legends Creator Fund rules — delivering 1 episode per week (4,000-6,000 words), as well as supplementary writing (episode summaries, promotional material, etc.)
• Exceeded expectations for story performance benchmarks, earning a 46.5% player completion rate for my "pilot episodes"(episodes 1-3), with the average/target rate of episode completion on the Dorian app sitting at 30%
• Collected and applied research on vampire stories, romance tropes, and popular trends on Dorian app
• Organized dialogue and action lines using spreadsheets, as well as learned how to use the Dorian text importer tool to implement my story in-engine
• Collaborated with editors and artists to improve initial story drafts, as well as performance outcomes for paid player choices
• Created moodboards for characters, as well as provided reference images for the story covers


Enter the Vampire's Den

In preparation for the Dorian Legends pitch contest, I played through similar titles on the Dorian app (Crimson Bonds, SlashFic, etc.) in order to get an idea of what Dorian readers find engaging in their favorite stories. From this, I created rough concepts for my story and characters. I then put together my pitch carefully, balancing worldbuilding, characterization of the MC and four love interests, and emotional stakes all within just 1000 words. This work all ended up paying off, as I ended up being one of the winners, earning $500 towards my initial pitch! Over the next few weeks, I worked hard to deliver weekly episodes, prepare moodboards and character briefs for my collaborating artist, learn further about Dorian creator best practices, and more.While not a requirement of the Dorian Legends program, I also took on the challenge of using the Dorian Text Importer tool. Although Dorian creators have the option to manually write content in each node (similar to tools like Twine), the Text Importer tool allowed me to format my story episodes in a spreadsheet and directly import my writing into the game engine. While I have worked with writing in similar spreadsheets before, this was my first time implementing narrative content into a game by myself. This ended up going very well, in fact I enjoyed writing directly in the spreadsheets! It also helped make my workflow faster, being able to instantly import my writing into the engine and test for bugs seamlessly. I am grateful for the opportunity to get more experience writing in spreadsheets, and hope to experiment more with implementing my own writing in-engine for future projects.

Character moodboards, beta designs, and final designs for the love interest characters (Kalissa, Emerson, The Queen, and Dagney)

View of the node graph on the Dorian story editor page

Snippet from the episode 1 story spreadsheet

Overall, Our Vampire's Den ended up performing well during the duration of the Dorian Legends Creator program, earning an additional $500 towards the game! As shown from the Performance Review Image, the pilot episodes exceeded expectations for reader retention.Furthermore, Dorian readers left many kind and supportive comments on the Our Vampire's Den page. Many expressed attraction towards their favorite love interests, interest in the dynamics between characters, as well as excitement to see how the story will develop further. It was great to become more involved with the Dorian app community through the Legends program and to see everyone's love for my story!

I'm currently working to finish up my other current project, LoveBites, before I continue writing weekly releases for Our Vampire's Den. In the meantime, I am planning out small edits to the current content, such as revising paid options to be more appealing to readers, creating a new story cover image to improve marketability, and balancing character traits in my love interests to give more varied options to players. I look forward to starting up development again soon!If you're interested in seeing more materials regarding Our Vampire's Den, feel free to check out the full spreadsheet for episode 1 and the character moodboards below. You can also play through more of the story by downloading the Dorian app!

Writing Samples

Branching Narrative

A text-based story made in Twine focused on the nonbinary lovers Miguel and Harper, who are embarking on a journey to kill an evil monster plaguing their land. Includes interactive branching dialogue and two different endings depending on player choices.To Free and Love Myself was featured in the Trans Witches are Witches itch bundle, which raised over $215,000 to support LGBTQ+ creators.


A collection of samples demonstrating my branching narrative skillset, including how I structure a branching combat scene, how I build layers into a NPC conversation to balance the amount of story delivered to players, and how I incorporate design ideas into game storytelling in a manner that allows for multiple endings based on player actions.


Linear Narrative

The above link leads to a 10 minute play I wrote for my playwriting class at UC Santa Cruz (THEA 157). The story follows Alzina, a cocky witch working at a magic shop, and a shy vampire Veronica who is a regular patron of the store. Antics ensue when Victoria asks Alzina for a dark magic item outside of her usual order.


Bark Sheets

The above link leads to a sample of spreadsheets made for my Writing for Interactive Narrative class (ARTG 140) containing dialogue for a magical girl character named Violetta. I imagined this to be for a magical girl combat game, similar in gameplay to the mobile game Magia Record. These barks cover a variety of states in game, such as taking damage and performing special moves. In total, I wrote 109 barks for Violetta throughout the course of the class.