About Us
Ian is a writer, narrative designer, director, and programmer who’s handled interactivity and storytelling for a living for over two decades. He’s worked in interactive television, education, puppet-making, film, publishing, larp, and the games industry, and has contributed code, writing, or design to franchises from LittleBigPlanet to LEGO.
He founded Talespinners in 2016, and under that banner wrote, consulted, and directed on over 60 titles; mainstream PC and console games, mobile, AR, interactive audio, and arena-scale VR.
He was nominated for the Best Writing in Videogames Award by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain for his work as Story Lead and sole writer on Frictional Games‘ most recent title Amnesia: Rebirth. He was Narrative Director at Ubisoft Stockholm, and now works at Resolution Games on VR and AR titles.
Outside mainstream games, Ian’s work includes the Napoleonic horror movie Fallen Soldiers, a film adaptation of The Three Musketeers, a World War 2 adventure Fortunes of War, the children’s Cthulhu book Where’s My Shoggoth?, the best-selling interactive story Pendragon Rising, and the podcast roleplaying series Flotsam.
He’s also written, designed, and directed immersive larp experiences since the early 90s and founded the Crooked House event team alongside Rachel. Most recently, he led one of the world-building teams for the Empire large-scale game system, and co-created events such as the acclaimed ghost story God Rest Ye Merry, the Three Musketeers event All for One, and the World War II women’s airforce recreation Wing and Prayer.
He regularly consults on story and narrative design for all sorts of interactivity, runs story workshops, and gives lectures and talks for universities and conferences.
Ian is currently Narrative Director at The Chinese Room.
Rachel was a founder of The Cuckoo’s Nest larp organisation at Glasgow University in the early 90s, and played and ran Lorien Trust events for years. She was a writer of Profound Decision’s Empire before being tempted back into larping at the system.
She is a founder of Crooked House, runners of acclaimed high-concept and high-budget events since 2002, including the 1950s Christmas ghost story God Rest Ye Merry, the pulp event Dick Britton and the Voice of the Seraph and the musketeers event All for One.
She discovered Nordic larp playing Fairweather Manor, College of Wizardry and a variety of events in the UK and on the continent.
She enjoys escape rooms, interactive narrative in many forms and storytelling. She has organised Science Fiction conventions; worked as a photographer at music festivals, independent films, and burlesque shows; and performed in cabaret and theatre.
She is interested in improving larp production, exploring the economics of larp, and running and playing other interactive narrative events. She writes about it on her Medium blog.
She ran a successful veterinary business, which sold to a large veterinary company for a seven-figure sum in 2017, and still works within the veterinary world, which gives her a thorough grounding in business, logistics, problem-solving, and communication.