Aaron A. Reed
Game Writing Portfolio
About Aaron
Hi! I'm a writer and game designer focused on finding new ways for gamemakers and players to tell stories together, in both analog and digital spaces. I've been recognized for my digital games (IndieCade, SXSW, IGF), writing (Kirkus Reviews, Lambda Literary Awards), and tabletop roleplaying design (ENnie Awards), and I've spoken about game narrative at venues from PAX to Google to WorldCon to GDC.
I bring both technical and creative skills to a project, with a PhD in computer science and interactive narrative technologies, as well as a track record of writing and releasing my own award-winning games (and books about games). I'm based in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.
Below is a selection of some recent projects I've been involved with, either as a writing contributor or as a designer. You can find a more complete list of my projects as well as a CV and other details on my main website.
Testimonials
It has been an absolute pleasure to work with Aaron! He's a creative mastermind who smashes deadlines and impressed us at every turn. Even when faced with an unfamiliar world he exceeded all of our expectations and quickly got elbow deep in our universe, history, and gameplay nuances to create an evocative and interesting story that we are excited to be able to tell for years to come.
The Achaea Producer Team: Nicola Newton, Charlie Russell, and Sam Kendall
What Aaron delivered showed a deep understanding of both the needs of our players and the potential of the platform itself, and his work has already inspired us to generate new ideas and content products we’ll be introducing later in the year.
Doug Valenta and John Zajac, Mote
Aaron A. Reed is working on it [Thousand Hells], who is one of the best minds in interactive fiction, so this is one to watch.
FailBetter Games, August 2025 newsletter
Selected Work
Downcrawl
The Eternity Stair is broad enough for fifty to walk abreast. It is made from a stone of dark and pearlescent green that has never been identified. From a wide flat ledge it descends inexorably down into a chasm whose floor is lost in shadow: lost, perhaps, in more. For the end of the Stair, some say, touches the end of time, which quickens the further one descends... (read more)
An indie tabletop roleplaying game that helps players collaborate on stories of weird underground empires.
The Ice-Bound Concordance
I have been at work with my tiny fossils for some hours now, unlocking tiny secrets. When engrossed in work I do not notice the time so much; that is why the mistake with the tea. But here in the ice the hours slip by with even softer footsteps... (read more)
Winner of IndieCade's "Best Story / World Design" award, this collaboration with Jacob Garbe paired a digital game with a printed art book, exploring the story of a writer resurrected by technology and tormented by an incomplete final masterpiece.
The Zone
After hundreds of dead and barren worlds, the Eighth Extrasolar Survey found Phaethon: the first and only known alien world blessed with life. Every inch of every biome writhed with it, utterly strange, unquestionably advanced: oceans threaded with gold neuronal strands, cyclopean mounds of organic matter remaking themselves like restless cities come to life; millions of flying things flocking in patterns too complex to be anything but perfect... (read more)
I was commissioned to write an alternate sci-fi setting for this tabletop roleplaying game's "Book Of Twists."
Virtual Virtual Reality
(channeling Norma Desmond by way of Judy Garland played by Meryl Streep in Oscar mode) Time was, they _needed_ me. Any new graphics tech needs a demo, and every demo needs a whale. Why, you couldn’t announce a headset or crowdfund a render farm without me. Gliding majestically through volumetric god rays... breaching the surface of chaotic fluid simulations in tasteful slow motion... and let me tell you, honey, leaping in slow motion is hard work! (read more)
I wrote multiple characters for this award-winning indie game from Tender Claws, including "the whale that appears in every VR demo."
Blade Runners (Prototype)
action hunting-replicants:
gloss: "hunts renegade replicants"
report: "{@runner}, a Blade Runner, is hunting for renegade replicants."
roles:
runner: initiator
associations:
runner: productive, dangerous
hearer: interesting
preconditions:
@runner.job?.profession == "Blade Runner"
@runner fits onTheJob (read more)
This unreleased prototype from award-winning indie studio Hexagram proposed a licensed game built around a living city of thousands of simulated NPCs, acting and reacting to complex stimuli. I led the creation of an action library for NPCs: atomic units capable of combining into emergent stories of cause and effect. (Post art courtesy the official Blade Runner roleplaying game.)
Achaea
The runes on the cover glow hot, then leap into the air. They swirl madly, burning and multiplying until they fill every corner of the gallery, condensing into the shape of a ghostly figure.
The spirit moves, breathes. It turns to face you, a shape made of runes and sigils, writing and rewriting each other in whirling scratches... (read more)
I was invited as a special guest contributer to create a quest line for one of the longest-running commercial MUDs of all time.
Subcutanean
I’m not sure how to tell you this. I don’t want to gut you, reach inside and pull things out. Some tales are better left untold, and you’ve heard this one before, haven’t you? Even if our stories were never quite the same.
But that’s what writing this is for. If it’s a story, maybe we can understand, make peace. Pretend it’s not ours. (read more)
This generative horror novel changes for each new reader, using procedurally assembled combinations of entirely hand-authored text. A Lambda Literary Awards finalist in 2020.
