Cara Ellison | |
---|---|
Born | 28 September 1985 |
Nationality | Scottish |
Occupation(s) | Critic, developer |
Cara Ellison (born 28 September 1985) is a Scottish video game writer and critic. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Ellison made regular contributions to publications PC Gamer, Unwinnable and Rock Paper Shotgun beginning in 2012. [5] [6] [7]
She has also written gaming related articles for New Statesman, Paste, [8] Edge magazine and Kotaku and is a regular contributor to The Guardian games blog. [9] From 2014 to 2015, Ellison wrote a bi-weekly column called S.EXE for Rock Paper Shotgun about the depiction of sex and romance in video games. [10] She also contributed video game related articles to VICE UK in 2014. [11]
In 2013, Ellison won the Games Media Award 'Rising Star' for her work writing about games, and The Guardian placed her number ten in the 'Top 30 Young People in Digital Media' list 2014. [12]
In 2014, Ellison successfully sought funding on Patreon for her "Embed with" series, in which she became an itinerant games journalist, travelling the world and writing about the lives and processes of games developers. [13] [14]
From February 2021 to June 2022, Ellison co-hosted The Inspirational Quarterly with Davey Wreden, a podcast dedicated to reading, reviewing, and discussing Keith R. A. DeCandido's 2006 novel StarCraft: Ghost: Nova. [15]
Ellison worked for Rockstar North as a QA tester on Grand Theft Auto IV until 2008. [3] [16] In 2013, Ellison wrote the text-based interactive fiction game Sacrilege, which The New York Times described as a "raw exploration of female sexuality that also includes some astute observations about male desire". [17] Ellison also has collaborated with artist Howard Hardiman on Badger's Day Out, funded by a combination of a successful Kickstarter, with backing from the Arts Council England.
She was contracted by Arkane Studios as an external narrative consultant for the 2016 title Dishonored 2 . [18] [19]
In August 2015, she gave a keynote at Dare to Be Digital. [20]
Ellison provided voice acting for the character of 'Peanut' in the 2015 game Assault Android Cactus . [21] [22]
She worked as the writer of Void Bastards .
She was a senior narrative designer for the Hardsuit Labs project Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 until she left the project following the departure of Brian Mitsoda and Ka'ai Cluney. [4]
In June 2021, it was announced that she, alongside Brian Mitsoda, had joined The Fermi Paradox development team at Anomaly Games. [23]
World of Darkness is a series of tabletop role-playing games, originally created by Mark Rein-Hagen for White Wolf Publishing. It began as an annual line of five games in 1991–1995, with Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming, along with off-shoots based on these. The series ended in 2004, and the reboot Chronicles of Darkness was launched the same year with a new line of games. In 2011, the original series was brought back, and the two have since been published concurrently.
Troika Games was an American video game developer co-founded by Jason Anderson, Tim Cain, and Leonard Boyarsky. The company was focused on role-playing video games between 1998 and 2005, best known for Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is a 2004 action role-playing video game developed by Troika Games and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows. Set in White Wolf Publishing's World of Darkness, the game is based on White Wolf's role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade and follows a human who is killed and revived as a fledgling vampire. The game depicts the fledgling's journey through early 21st-century Los Angeles to uncover the truth behind a recently discovered relic that heralds the end of all vampires.
Harvey Smith is an American video game designer and writer, working at Arkane Studios.
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Rock Paper Shotgun is a British video game journalism website. It was launched in July 2007 to focus on PC games and was acquired by Gamer Network, a network of sites led by Eurogamer, in May 2017.
Brian Mitsoda is an American video game designer and writer best known for his work on the 2004 game Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. He is the founder of DoubleBear Productions.
DoubleBear Productions is an indie game studio founded in June 2009 by writer and game designer Brian Mitsoda.
Downwell is a 2015 vertically scrolling shooter video game with roguelike elements. It was developed by Ojiro Fumoto and published by Devolver Digital for iOS and Microsoft Windows in October 2015, for Android in January 2016, and for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in May 2016. A Nintendo Switch version was released in January 2019. British studio Red Phantom Games developed the Switch and PlayStation ports.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is an upcoming action role-playing video game published by Paradox Interactive. A sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (2004), the game is part of the World of Darkness series and based on the tabletop role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. The game was initially developed by Hardsuit Labs, but by 2021 had been moved to The Chinese Room. It is scheduled to release for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S in late 2024.
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Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is a role-playing video game developed by Big Bad Wolf and published by Nacon. It was released in May 2022 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S and in September 2023 for Nintendo Switch. It is based on White Wolf Publishing's tabletop role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, and is a part of the larger World of Darkness series.
Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife is a virtual reality survival horror video game developed and published by Swedish studio Fast Travel Games, released in 2021. It is based on White Wolf Publishing's 1994 tabletop role-playing game Wraith: The Oblivion, and is part of the larger World of Darkness series. The game was released for Oculus Quest & Rift, Steam VR, PICO 4 and PlayStation VR, with support for the VR headsets HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, PlayStation VR, and Valve Index.
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How Do You Do It? is a 2014 video game by independent developers Nina Freeman, Jonathan Kittaka, Emmett Butler and Decky Coss. The game is a short browser game in which the player is a young girl who attempts to understand how sex works by experimenting with her dolls. Developed as part of the 2014 Global Game Jam, the subject matter of How Do You Do It? was designed as a short and humorous experience inspired by Freeman's childhood memories of playing with her dolls in the same manner. Upon release, the game received positive reception, with publications praising the game's light-hearted tone and representation of childhood experiences of understanding sexuality. The game was also nominated as a finalist for the Nuovo Award at the 2015 Independent Games Festival.