Ahoy! Your voyage has brought you to the legacy version of my portfolio, kept online for any traveler who might stumble across a link to it. You can find my new portfolio (same great stuff, better organization) here.
I’m G.C. Katz, an author and game designer known primarily for my historical fiction, short SFFH, and draft-horse-like work ethic. Read some stories and snippets below and decide if I’m right for your team! (For a full list of publications, check out my stories and articles, games, and novel. You may also enjoy my itch.io page.)
In a hurry? Download a condensed portfolio of just the as one PDF, omitting everything after RPG Design. Also check out my resume (this publicly-posted version has personal information removed; for contact information, email me).
Like what you see? Get in touch!
Jump to:
Dialogue
Prose
Character Design and Barks
World-Building
RPG Design
Technical Narrative Design
Process
Playable Games
Stories
Dialogue
➣ Keep It Together script excerpt: Breaking the Telescope (500 words)
As the administrator of a run-down space station a few decades past its prime, you must fend with breaking equipment, slashed budgets, and a bickering crew.
In this excerpt, a search for a meteor doesn’t go quite according to plan.
➣ What the Sea Wants script excerpt: The First Battle Wound (600 words)
In the pirate survival-horror game What the Sea Wants, you must get your crew to a safe harbor before a mysterious fungus overgrows the ship and kills everyone aboard.
In this early scene, you reassure a young deck hand who has just received his first injury.
Prose
➣ Arbor: Selected Letters (500 words)
In this gentle gardening sim, your father sends you letters while he’s away at war. These letters both set the tone of the game and provide information about how to play.
➣ Care: Full Script (1000 words)
This dark point-and-click adventure is narrated by an abuser who seeks to isolate you and make you doubt your own mind. This is the full script of this five-minute game.
Character Design and Barks
➣ What the Sea Wants: Character Profiles and Barks (600 words)
In What the Sea Wants, keeping your crew alive is your top priority, so it’s paramount that the game feature complex, engaging characters who will win the player’s empathy. These profiles outline just a few of them.
World-Building
➣ Nightwell Inn world-building: The Shattered World (700 words)
A gritty, dangerous world underlies Nightwell Inn, a high-difficulty sim game where you run an inn on the edge of a magical abyss. Learn about the warring factions, the magic-saturated world, and the ancient cataclysm that only you can set right.
➣ The Book of Beasts world-building: The Spheres (700 words)
Flying whales, lava-eating salamanders, birds that use music to propel themselves–discover all these and more in The Book of Beasts as you attempt to catalogue all the species of a colorful fantasy world. Along the way, uncover a lost civilization, weird physics, a corporate conspiracy, and more.
RPG Design
➣ One-Page RPG: I’m Not a Cat, I’m a Lawyer (500 words)
A whimsical RPG for one, created for a one-hour design challenge. It is extremely silly and by far the most popular game I have ever created.
➣ The Olympiad: The Silver Sylph (600 words)
The Olympiad is a rowdy, rollicking pub crawl through Waterdeep for D&D 5e. This stop, the Silver Sylph, is a classic monster fight.
Technical Narrative Design
➣ What the Sea Wants: The Reputation System (400 words)
Single-axis reputation systems oversimplify the complexity of human interaction. Learn about the multi-axis reputation system in What the Sea Wants and give it a whirl.
➣ What the Sea Wants: The Character Generator (300 words)
Do randomly-generated characters sound simple? Think again! In What the Sea Wants, skills, nationalities, interpersonal relationships, and more interact to create random characters who are as believable as the scripted ones.
➣ What the Sea Wants procedural storytelling: The Urchins (300 words)
As the plot of What the Sea Wants chaotically unfolds, the text adapts to reflect what has happened. In this early scene, one of a trio of children has stolen something, but who and what varies depending on the player’s choices.
➣ Keep It Together: Crafting the Algorithm (600 words)
An explanation of the algorithm that meshes random events and branching plotlines into one coherent but always-different story.
Process
➣ What the Sea Wants: Prototype to Alpha (800 words)
See how this story moved from a skeletal prototype to a fully fleshed-out story with characters, subplots, and tons of flavor.
Playable Games
➣ Arbor (30-minute play)
When your father leaves for war, he leaves you to care for the tree you planted together. Tend your garden, sell crops, and listen to your neighbors’ stories in this gentle mini sim about finding hope in the face of war. Created for Adventure Jam 2022. As the producer and lead narrative designer on a team of nine, I directed the overall story and wrote the letters.
➣ What the Sea Wants: Playable demo (10-minute play)
Survival horror at sea! As captain of the pirate ship North Wind, you’ve just made a lucky score–but the treasure came contaminated with a deadly fungus. Rally your crew, stop the infection, and stay alive long enough to reach harbor. This short demo contains only the opening of the story, not the mechanics.
➣ Care (5-minute play)
Don’t you know I care about you? A five-minute exploration of emotional abuse from within the victim’s mind. Created for Brackey’s Game Jam 7.
➣ Keep It Together (30-minute play)
As the administrator of a space station a few decades past its prime, you must deal with grumpy crewmembers, breaking equipment, and an unimpressed boss in a desperate attempt to make it to retirement. Winner of Indie Game Academy Cohort 3’s pitch contest. As the team lead on a team of five, I did most of the programming and about 25% of the writing, including the excerpt above.
Stories
➣ Portrait of Three Women with an Owl (2100 words, external link)
Three artists disappear under mysterious circumstances in occupied France. Eighty years later, a retrospective art show seeks to address some unanswered questions. An epistolary fantasy first published in The Future Fire and featured in We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020.
➣ Oil Bugs (4300 words, external link)
The downfall of the oil industry as narrated by two PR flacks desperately trying to spin the situation. A sci-fi epistolary published in Translunar Travelers Lounge.
Introductory Rates
Looking to hire me for short-term contract work? For a limited time while I’m building my portfolio, I’m offering introductory rates of $25/hour or 10¢/word for game writing work. These rates are negotiable; I may offer lower rates or alternate compensation methods for newly-launched indie studios, charitable causes, or designers who can offer skill trades. If you’re interested in taking advantage of these rates, please contact me–I may end this offer at any time.
What About the Art?
Yep, all the art in this portfolio (except for Keep it Together) is mine too! Since I’m not specifically applying to artist jobs, this portfolio doesn’t contain an art section. If you’re interested in hiring me for a position that involves art and you’d like to see more of my work, get in touch–or just look around.
And the Programming?
Busted again! Yep, I’m a programmer too, and I did all or almost all the programming on Keep it Together, Care, and all the What the Sea Wants projects. My skills tend to be focused rather than broad, with a focus on menu-based games, strings and dialogue, and back-end algorithms. Technical narrative design and advanced Ink/Twine are a specialty. If your game is a good fit (such as a visual novel), I’d be happy to work with you!