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Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈

@haraldhagen.bsky.social

180 followers 180 following 230 posts

[ Available for work! ] ✍️ Game Writer + Narrative Designer, to the great disapproval of my cats. Based in Yorkshire. He/him. 🎮 BG&E2 ▪︎ Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows ▪︎ The Stillness of the Wind ▪︎ NEO Scavenger ▪︎ etc. 💼 haraldthehagen.com

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Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · Aug 28

Welcome!

I'm a game writer and narrative designer from 🇮🇩🇧🇻, now UK-based. Over the past decade, I've worked freelance on a bunch of cool games, including the ones below.

Indie/AAA, sole writer/team co-writing, joined early/recruited late. All sorts of shenanigans.

Feel free to connect and say hey!

Key promotional art for the game The Stillness of the Wind. Depicts a two-house farm standing in the middle of a golden desert beneath dusky skies and a darkening storm to the distance, rightward. The farm is fenced with a windmill to one side. Outside the fence, standing near a well, is the small figure of an old woman and a goat.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 5m

But yes okay I'll choose Hope first for the next few days. It's just a tall order these days, folks, ooph.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 7m

I have a horrendous feeling about these teaser images. And mobile? This just stings now.

Opera Omnia was a damn fine entry. Tons of content and voice acting. A lot of folks would pay for a remaster or just straight up port (gacha aside).

Same goes for Duodecim on PSP, which was fantastic. I yearn.

Gematsu @gematsu.com · 5h

New Dissidia Final Fantasy title for iOS, Android to be announced on October 14

Square Enix will announce a new Dissidia Final Fantasy title for iOS and Android on October 14 at 3:00 a.m. PT / 6:00 a.m. ET / 19:00 JST, the company announced. You will be able to watch the "Team Boss Battle" title…

New Dissidia Final Fantasy title for iOS, Android to be announced on October 14

Square Enix will announce a new Dissidia Final Fantasy title for iOS and Android on October 14 at 3:00 a.m. PT / 6:00 a.m. ET / 19:00 JST, the company announced. You will be able to watch the "Team Boss Battle" title announcement trailer on YouTube (English, Japanese).

www.gematsu.com

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 10h

Oh how much the world's fuckedness is caused just by people looking for things in the wrong places.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 19h

Still, I need to see where Rebirth goes from here. These thoughts may all be void if there's a worthy payoff down the road. On I go!

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 19h

One of the best strengths of FF6 was its strong cast, each well defined with their own motivations. No better demonstration of how vastly different characters can align goals is with the great Ruin at halfway, shifting the primary POV (arguable) from Terra to Celes.

Still the cast gathered again.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 19h

The bartender quest could have centred Tifa and another side of her beyond martial arts (multiple interests!). The flower crown quest could have focused on Aeris and maybe what she thinks of the close Chocobo Ranch siblings when she herself grew up an only child.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 19h

Still early in my FF7Rebirth run, but some of these early sidequests around Kalm really show how Cloud-centric the remake is, ostensibly despite the fact that it is a many-times expanded sequel-retelling of the original.

There is so much more room for them to breathe. Who are they without Cloud?

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 19h

This might also explain why certain human-shaped garbagefires march unimpeded into, say, a somewhat circular office in a bleached building.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 20h

Suzie Plakson casually chewing and chiseling every line with great relish. I noticed it only now with the Klingon character. Gonna have to rewatch her other roles soon!

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 20h

As I continue moving through TNG for the first time, I once again jump with glee at reaching another K'Ehleyr episode. Superb performance.

a woman sitting in a chair with the word no written on her shirt

ALT: a woman sitting in a chair with the word no written on her shirt

media.tenor.com

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Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 23h

Link

She-wolf of Naarm, Prowling for Narrative Work @jadedsynic.bsky.social · 1d

Link

Sa-ilent-hill Bajaj (Still Looking for Work) @sahilbajaj.dev · 1d

Link

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 1d

I'm many many years late to this realisation but A SHORT HIKE is a deft and deeply elegant game that remembers the innocent side of fun.

Exploration over indulgence.
Personal stakes over global crisis.
Slice of life over grand epic.

Beautifully done!

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 1d

Weekly photo op of The Dark Sisters.

A photo of two cats napping next to each other, close up on their faces.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 1d

Me and a couple of friends have had one of those as well - the ones that got away, so to speak. We carry them like old wounds.

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Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 1d

Welp. Time to get me jab jabbed.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 1d

Sad is the basket of parted socks, until the day it fills and I get to play match-2 and watch each pair fall in love all over again.

Reposted by Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈

David Varela @writingstudio.bsky.social · 1d

Creative Assembly is looking for a Principal Narrative Designer.

No affiliation. Just sharing the link...

jobs.jobvite.com/creative-ass...

Creative Assembly is looking for Principal Narrative Designer.

Creative Assembly is one of Europe's leading games development studios, founded in 1987 and located in West Sussex, UK, Newcastle, UK and Sofia, Bulgaria. We craft deep and detailed games that matter...

jobs.jobvite.com

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Reposted by Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈

David Varela @writingstudio.bsky.social · 1d

Two Point Studios is looking for a Senior Designer/Writer.

No affiltiaton. Just sharing the link...

jobs.jobvite.com/sega-europe-...

Two Point Studios is looking for Senior Designer/Writer.

Two Point Studios is looking for Senior Designer/Writer. Learn more or Jobvite a friend.

jobs.jobvite.com

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Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 2d

It's a kind of writing that is overwrought and loaded with long sentences and words, often drawing attention to itself at the expense of the story.

But the line between excess and detriment can be subjective at times. A text that's just very flowery for some folks comes across as purple to others.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 2d

Much as 'purple prose' denotes an intended criticism, I absolutely love that shit. Reading and writing. I maintain 3 things:

1. There is good purple and bad purple.

2. It doesn't belong everywhere and it isn't for everyone.

3. By god if there IS a place for it on a project, I will FIND it.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 2d

Trying to think of a specific food or drink that I really enjoy but cannot have more than a portion of at a time because it's just too rich and complex in flavour or too heavy.

Anyway that's how I feel about the Interview With The Vampire series. It is so devoted to its purple, i fucking love it.

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Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 2d

Surely at this point it becomes about not getting hit, in which case-

a man in a cape is flying through the air

ALT: a man in a cape is flying through the air

media.tenor.com

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 2d

Nooooo :(

Every week now? Twice a week? It's a bloody streak and it's just horrible.

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 2d

😂 entirely valid way to say it

Harald Hagen 🏳️‍🌈 @haraldhagen.bsky.social · 3d

Oooooh THAT'S how you pronounce agate!