Hello, I'm Dan Lance
Writer & Game Developer

• About
• Games
• Writing Portfolio
• Resume

• Twitter
• Email
• LinkedIn
• Itch.io

About Dan

Highlights* Published over 20 small games on a major indie games platform.
* Scheduled projects while laying out tasks and milestones, including managing scope while retaining project vision.
* Built and licensed multimedia assets for digital games.
* Wrote dialogue and story sequences for interactive storytelling.
* Plan and research projects, visual direction, and narratives using documentation software.AboutI'm an autistic Texan game developer and artist. I have done narrative work for games since about 2013. Previously I was a Senior Content Developer at an ed-tech company for almost 8 years where I built multimedia lessons that included elements of narrative design, branching and linear dialogue writing, and instructional design.I'm experienced with Twine, Notion, Ink, Bitsy, Unity, and other software. Most of my projects are narrative-driven adventures, focused on dialogue and worldbuilding rather than pure gameplay. I've created open-world tiny games, hypertext cyberthrillers, linear Dadaist/Fluxus mysteries, holiday-themed comedy rap games, and small games that explore caretaker stress and autistic overstimulation. While I usually develop games as a one-person show, I do have experience with collaborative projects.My other experience includes researching & organizing information, building graphics, technical writing, creative writing, creating product analysis, and being a user advocate on tool design & user needs. I am proficient at crafting detailed worlds and breaking concepts down into consumable chunks. Overall I try to offer a wide array of skills that make me an adaptable teammate who can fill almost any skill gaps while working to lift the entire team up.As an artist in illustration, writing, and games, I love creating. I get fulfillment out of planning and making things. In a way I come from a family of artists, so I guess it comes with the territory.What do I want to make?I want to make stories. And games. Games that tell interesting stories that are grounded in their characters. I want to make dimensional characters who exist as more than just wrapping paper on an interaction. I love dialogue almost as much as I love descriptions, after all, I am someone who grew up loving encyclopedias & manuals more than novels. I also love movies. I'll be the first to admit that is a bit of a fault, as my writing can often read more like a script than prose. But this is often a benefit, especially when laying out the narrative. I also enjoy making janky trash every now and then.

• Back
• Portfolio

• Twitter
• Email
• LinkedIn
• Itch.io

Writing Samples

• Dialogue & Scripts
• Lore & Descriptions
• Quest Design
• Long-Form

Dialogue & Scripts

GHOST HELPER Intro dialogue for 'Culture Exchange'

The following is an excerpt from an early quest the player character receives from one of the NPC ghosts. The quest is one of several ‘conversational quests’ in the game and involves talking to a ghost about movies. This dialogue is the start of the quest.
LINK TO DOCUMENT____________________________

GHOST HELPER Character dialogue for 'Secret Quest'

A script for character dialogue for a secret quest that is triggered by having two specific quests active simultaneously and interacting with the NPC quest givers.
LINK TO DOCUMENT____________________________

DATA THEFT Memory Implant Scene

Data Theft (working title) is a potential science fiction action game that mixes Shaw Brothers wuxia with the styling of films such as Total Recall. A thief, Sarah Fabre, undergoes an extensive memory implant in order to defend herself from the hordes of villains sent to kill her by the corporate executives she stole from. Throughout the game, players must choose between maintaining Sarah's own memories or sacrificing them for muscle memory and combat prowess.The following excerpt is early in the game when Sarah undergoes the memory implant in the back of her longtime friend's pawn shop.
LINK TO DOCUMENT____________________________

I'M BORED, LET'S EXPLORE (MALL) Interactions Script

The I’m Bored, Let’s Explore series began as a jam game about friends exploring a dead mall and reflecting on their past within it. It has since expanded to a dungeon crawler starring a pair of siblings and a game about a couple spending one last evening at a park where they had their first date…and complaining about the whole thing.The following is an excerpt from I'm Bored, Let's Explore (Mall). The story follows two unnamed friends as they explore the ruins of their childhood mall and contemplate the reality of the structure versus their nostalgic memories of what it was.
LINK TO DOCUMENT____________________________

BRAINCASE Memory 0816

Braincase is a sci-fi interactive fiction game about a whistleblower searching for evidence of corruption via the memory implant of a victim of police violence. The game is a commentary on surveillance and how police often try to dehumanize their victims by reducing them to their perceived ‘crimes.’ The game consists of viewing the recorded memories of Corey Rowe, a disabled army vet. The game explores who they were as a person contrasted with how the police force wants to portray them. This was made for the 2020 Spring Thing IF competition.The following is an excerpt from the game. As it's a Twine game the excerpt presented is extracted straight from the game.
LINK TO DOCUMENT

Misc. Scripts

Writing sample scripts.
The DecisionBack & ForthDiscovery

Lore & Descriptions

MISC. ITEM DESCRIPTIONS

Item Descriptions for various items across different genres.
LINK TO DOCUMENT____________________________Swords in 20 words or less. A writing challenge combined with the 'Swordtember' annual art challenge.
LINK TO DOCUMENT____________________________

SPEC WRITING EXERCISE

An exercise I made for practicing writing within the specifications of a pre-existing IP. This is essentially fanfic worldbuilding and not affiliated in any way.
I decided to choose Star Wars as I enjoy the series and had an idea for a stealth game within the universe. As there are few covert weapons within the current canon, I decided to design my own, based on the Welrod pistol.Along with the spec piece, I created a version with all IP references removed. Instead, the design is made to fit a generic sci-fi setting.
LINK TO DOCUMENT (Spec)
LINK TO DOCUMENT (Generic)

Quest Design

DUNGEON OF LIFE Hermit Path

In the post-apocalyptic action RPG Dungeon of Life, the player is a shield-wielding adventurer who sets out on a quest to find the titular dungeon. The location, an overgrown and long-forgotten botanical garden is the last hidden dungeon and the sole location of your prize: a beautiful rose for your significant other.This is one of three main paths to reach the dungeon.
LINK TO DOCUMENT____________________________

DUNGEON OF LIFE Shaman Path

In the post-apocalyptic action RPG Dungeon of Life, the player is a shield-wielding adventurer who sets out on a quest to find the titular dungeon. The location, an overgrown and long-forgotten botanical garden is the last hidden dungeon and the sole location of your prize: a beautiful rose for your significant other.This is one of three main paths to reach the dungeon.
LINK TO DOCUMENT____________________________

Long-Form

Sphinx Excerpts

Sphinx is a story I've been working on based on a game I played in a dream I had. In the dream, I stumbled upon the game after arriving at a curio shop that specialized in collecting and preserving rare, unreleased, and prototype games. The game was a sort of proto-Dark Souls by way of The Terminator on the Dreamcast.The story is about a jaded veteran knight that gets hired by a village to hunt and kill a monster called the Sphinx. Along the way, she discovers the history of the human-machine war and the consequences of it that still linger on both sides.It is still early in development, but here are a few excerpts.
Excerpt 1Excerpt 2____________________________

RoboKind Why We Choose Identity-First Language

As part of the upcoming Autism Acceptance Month in April, I was asked to write a blog post and contribute to several other articles. The article for the blog was about the company's recent switch from person-first (person with autism) to identity-first (autistic person) language. The switch was prompted by an internal push from me and a few others to change the company's messaging and move away from support of groups the autistic community finds questionable.
I wrote and submitted the article for an April 1 launch.NOTE: The section What is the difference between identity- and person-first language? was later added by someone else.LINK TO THE ARTICLE____________________________

• Back

• Twitter
• Email
• LinkedIn
• Itch.io

Art

Other Art

• Back

• Twitter
• Email
• LinkedIn
• Itch.io

• Team Projects
• Solo Projects
• Misc. Projects
• Back

• Back

Smithee
ENGINE: Unity
^{Writer, Designer, Artist, Programmer}

A first-person Dadaist/Fluxus adventure game about a broken game, and the ai-generation tool that gained sentience and tried to fix it. I made this as a rejection of crunch culture and to see what would result from making a game with no plan. It was in a way like doing straight-ahead animation for the entire development process. Even my own interpretation of this game came after I finished development.This aimless process produced something strange and unique in its own right.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• Back

• Back

• Twitter
• Email
• LinkedIn
• Itch.io