Creative Lead / Designer / Writer 

My name is Mark Darin and I have been working in the interactive media and games industry for over 15 years!  
I’ve spent most of my career at Telltale Games refining my knowledge and skills as a Game Mechanics/Gameplay designer, Narrative Designer and Creative Director. I specialize in marrying Narrative Storytelling with Interactive Mechanics and deeply understand the importance of Agency and Investment as a pillar of interactive narrative.
Most recently I was able to bring these skills to Endless Entertainment as their Director of Design to manage the department and encourage game design sensibilities within their Interactive Novel style mobile games.
During my career development I've had the opportunity to grow and expand my skill sets by embracing the following:

  • Director of Design (Endless Entertainment): Managed a team of narrative designers and mentored non-interactive writers on how to best write for a immersive interactive entertainment. Additional responsibilities included project staffing and scheduling, creating guidelines for design team professional growth and reviewing and editing content to ensure a reader-centric experience.

  • Creative Director (Telltale Games): This role was focused on maintaining the training, establishing career paths and upholding the morale of the Design Department in general with the guidance of the Design Director. 

  • Lead Designer (Telltale Games): Responsible for establishing and upholding the mechanics and game play flow for a “Season” (4-6 episode arch for a typical Telltale Game) and understanding how to create the most focused user experience within the time and budget afforded to us.

  • Lead Writer (Telltale Games): Writing the story and interactive dialog for several episodes of Telltale games with a focus on keeping the player goals forward facing to ensure agency while maintaining the importance of the narrative message.

  • Content Programmer: (Telltale Games) Basic understanding of LUA to create prototype examples of interactive game play as well as wiring basic game play structure for shipped titles.

  • Indie Developer: (Pinhead Games) Creator and solo developer of award winning narrative-driven Adventure Games.

Project Highlights