Tom Jubert

Tom Jubert is an award-nominated British freelance writer who works primarily in video games, covering everything from basic dialogue to the more involved role of narrative designer.

He is one of a new breed of writers who have focussed specifically on writing for games, rather than shifting into the industry at a later date from other mediums. He began writing for games as a student studying at Southampton University and looked to get jobs among smaller games companies that would be more likely to employ him.

His big break was in getting employed by Frictional Games, who went on to produce the cult-hit Penumbra

series for which he earned a great deal of acclaim. He got the job having seen an introductory build of Penumbra: Overture and sending them back a version which he had adapted with the cheeky suggestion that the writing in the game could be improved by employing a specialist writer such as himself. He duly got the job, which was relatively early on in the game's development, and so was able to offer narrative design suggestions which would have a profound effect on the structure of the game. In 2008 he was nominated for a Writer's Guild of Great Britain award for his work on Penumbra: Black Plague, which Rhianna Pratchett went on to win.

Although originally involved in Frictional Games' next project, Tom Jubert and the Frictional team were looking to take it in different directions and so parted ways on this particular venture with the suggestion that they might still work together in the future.

Tom Jubert's most recent projects include narrative design for The Swapper, the English script for Lost Horizon, and work with specialist games writing agency, Sidelines on Driver: San Francisco and Binary Domain. He is currently broadening his portfolio by working on unannounced games for iPhone and Facebook.

Tom Jubert has described himself as being particularly interested in writing for games that feature dark comedy and also in generally advancing the medium of games-writing as a whole.

Relevant Links

• Tom Jubert has released his own indie project ir/rational which can be downloaded from his own website here.
• He recently started a blog titled 'Plot is Gameplay's Bitch' and writes mainly about story in games, his own work and particular games to look out for.
• Various interviews with him and commentaries on games that he's written can be found here.