Meghna Jayanth, eminent writer and narrative designer
Meghna Jayanth is an award-winning writer and narrative designer. Her game 80 Days, an anti-colonial retrofuturist retelling of Verne’s classic novel, won the Independent Games Festival’s Narrative award, earned four BAFTA nominations (including Best Story) and was named TIME’s Game of the Year. She won a Writer’s Guild of Great Britain award in 2015 for her work on 80 Days, and a Writer’s Guild of America award in 2018 as part of Horizon: Zero Dawn’s writing team.
She contributes worldbuilding, story design and writing to narratives, most of them indie games, including Failbetter’s lush story-driven games Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, expansions of 11 Bit’s gritty, uncompromising This War of Mine, Kitfox Games’ queer dungeoneering dating sim Boyfriend Dungeon, Outerloop Games’ story of colonial liberation and companionship Falcon Age, and Shedworks’ evocative coming-of-age adventure Sable.
Her particular interests are elegant choice design, sociocultural speculations, branching narratives, and subverting the design tropes of conventional protagonism.
Digital Games Research Association, India 