Ellie Tsang
San Mateo
Summary
Award-winning RPG narrative designer with a love for worlds where player choices actually matter. Across shipped titles, indie projects, and published writing, I've worked at the intersection of mission design, dialogue systems, and IP-faithful worldbuilding — collaborating across disciplines to help bring reactive, story-driven games to life.
Overview
5
5
years of professional experience
Work History
Senior RPG Designer / Game Writer
Zero-Order Device
03.2025 - 01.2026
- Led one of two writing pods as Senior Writer — coordinating meetings, reviewing work, and shepherding story treatments, missions, and dialogue through feedback cycles to Narrative Director review
- Designed missions and dialogue built around RPG skill checks and state-driven logic with die-rolls
- Served as the team’s primary industry professional; taught Articy:Draft and other industry-standard tools, established a formal production roadmap, and stepped into leadership roles as needed across a 12-month development cycle
- Established an informal team book club to review core source material to ground all design decisions in deep IP lore and theme
RPG Game Writer (Contract)
Seismic Squirrel
03.2025 - 06.2025
- Pitched and implemented missions, branching dialogue, and unique overworld encounters for a Decopunk narrative RPG where player choices shape the fate of New York City; recognized for Best Narrative at Gamescom BIG Festival 2026
- Contributed to a shipped, fully voice-acted RPG that press compared directly to Baldur’s Gate 3 and Disco Elysium; designed content within a companion-driven world with reactive, state-tracked narrative systems
- Wrote within a richly researched alternate-history setting, maintaining deep consistency of tone, lore, and character voice across a large cast of Companions and NPCs
Narrative Designer, Creative
Monolith Productions
06.2023 - 03.2025
- Developed Nemesis and Canon character voices, wrote casting docs, descriptions, behaviors, traits, and procedurally triggered barks and ambient dialogue
- Led cross-departmental efforts in narrative worldbuilding, operating within the guidelines of a well-established IP while creating new lore
- Supported Narrative, Systems, and Mission teams on development of new features and prototypes designed to enhance the delivery of narrative elements organically through gameplay
Missions Designer, Associate
Monolith Productions
06.2022 - 05.2023
- Designed, implemented, and iterated on narrative-driven missions using Lua-based scripting and C++ gameplay programming in tandem with proprietary content creation tools
- Collaborated across design and other disciplines to brainstorm, plan and review content
- Maintained Confluence documentation of internal missions and gameplay design wikis for reference by other team members
Creative Director
Vidaly
03.2021 - 06.2022
- Designed game missions, including first story treatments, flowcharting and defining gating mechanisms, implementing, testing, and iteration
- Wrote all player-facing text, including cinematics, dialogue, missions, codex entries, tutorials, UI, and flavor text
- Crafted over 30 NPC profiles, including relevant backstory, art briefs, speaking style guides, and key relationships
- Led the adaptation of preexisting social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum into educational, browser-based gameplay in Unity Engine
Education
Master of Fine Arts - Game Development
Academy of Art University
San Francisco, CA05-2024
Bachelor of Fine Arts - Gaming And Animation
OC University
Edmond, OKSkills
- Quest & Mission Design
- Branching Narrative & Dialogue Systems
- Player-Facing Pacing & Narrative Flow
- Writing from Established IPs & Voices
- Cross-Departmental Collaboration
- State-Driven RPG Systems & Skill Checks
Timeline
Senior RPG Designer / Game Writer
Zero-Order Device
03.2025 - 01.2026
RPG Game Writer (Contract)
Seismic Squirrel
03.2025 - 06.2025
Narrative Designer, Creative
Monolith Productions
06.2023 - 03.2025
Missions Designer, Associate
Monolith Productions
06.2022 - 05.2023
Creative Director
Vidaly
03.2021 - 06.2022
Master of Fine Arts - Game Development
Academy of Art University
Bachelor of Fine Arts - Gaming And Animation
OC University
Publications
- Promises and Payoffs in The Game Narrative Kaleidoscope
- Deep Space Drift in Elegant Literature #52
Speaking Events
PAX East 2025, Panelist
“Devils, Tieflings, and Feelings: A BG3 Retrospective” with Samantha Béart
Game Developers Conference 2024, Microtalks Speaker
"Dancing Backwards and in Combat Boots: Knowing Your Worth and Keeping Your Sanity"
Geek Girl Con 2023, Panelist
“Making Games More Like Us: Diversity in the Game Industry” with Monolith Productions
Girls Who Code 2022, Speaker
“We are the Storytellers: Why Code?”
Awards
Gamescom BIG Festival 2026
Best Narrative for Aether & Iron
Unity EdTech Creator Challenge 2021
Top 25 Indie Games Winner for Vidaly
International Serious Play Awards 2017
Silver Winner for Advance U: The TALENT Machine
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution 2006
National Fiction Winner, 2nd Place
Certification
Game Writing Masterclass 1 - The Narrative Department (2022)
Game Writing Masterclass 2 - The Narrative Department (2024)
Proficiencies
Game Dev
- Proprietary Engines, Unity, Unreal Engine 5, Git, Perforce
Narrative Tools
- Node-based Scripting, Scrivener, FinalDraft, Ink, Articy:Draft, Twine, Celtx, LocalizeDirect, Excel, GSheets
Project Management
- Jira, Monday, Slack, Teams, Asana, Trello, Axosoft