My name is Connor Runyon, a game narrative designer.
In particular, my primary skillset encompasses many back-facing design skills, such as creating detailed worlds, character bios, long-term plot outlines, and more. As for front-facing design, I specialize primarily in dialogue writing and, more generally, any character-focused writing.
Below is a collection of some of my best works. Click on a project to see more about my contributions, skills, experience, and dedication to game design.
Table of Contents
Featured Projects
Role: Solo Creator, Designer, and Writer
Notable Work: Complex Social Interactions/Structures, Fictional Languages, Realistic Maps
Developer: Solo Creation (DigiPen student project)
Timeframe: September 2024 – December 2024
Roles: Narrative Designer and Technical Designer
Notable Contributions: Writing Scripts, Overarching Narrative Structuring, Editing Scripts, Technical Integration, Pitching and Producing
Developers: Team ICEaGE (5-person DigiPen student team)
Timeframe: April 2024
A Wistful Cry / Familiar Delusion
Role: Solo Creator, Designer, and Writer
Notable Work: Writing for an Audience, Technical Features, Working Within Constraints
Developer: Solo Creations (DigiPen student project)
Timeframe: February 2024 – March 2024
Accolades
GDC Game Narrative Review Competition
Gold Winner (2023 and 2025)
The GDC Game Narrative Review Competition is a yearly contest held by the Game Developers Conference. It challenges game design students across the country to submit essays analyzing a game narrative of their choice, with the best submissions being awarded a free pass to that year’s GDC and an opportunity to present their analysis at the conference.
I was selected as a Gold Winner in both 2023 and 2025—awards given for my 17-page analysis of the game Steins;Gate and 15-page analysis of Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon-, respectively. In conjunction with each award, I was invited to present at the 2023 and 2025 conferences alongside the other winners. For each presentation, I created a supplementary poster as a visual synopsis of my paper and gave a brief speech summarizing the analysis.
2023:
2025:
About Me
I’m a game designer with a Bachelor of Arts in Game Design degree from the DigiPen Institute of Technology, graduating in 2025 as the valedictorian of my degree program. While at DigiPen, I had the pleasure of working on many long-term projects in conditions designed to emulate the real game development industry. While working on these projects, I collaborated with all sorts of people—from other designers to programmers, artists, and audio designers—in team sizes ranging from 3–19 people.
In my free time, I enjoy playing many different types of games both alone and with friends; in particular, I love turn-based RPGs, tactics games, 2D action games, puzzle games, and visual novels. When I’m feeling more creative, I prefer to spend my time doing game design and programming, creative writing, or conlanging (developing fictional languages).
Connor Runyon 