Previous Work

My experience in mobile gaming opened up opportunities for me in the gaming industry more broadly. When I was approached by Pinecone to help develop tone, voice, and lore for their upcoming shooter King Of Kalimpong, I leapt at the opportunity.

The age of humans ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. Humans had dominated the planet, destroyed the planet, and then were destroyed by the planet. It was foreseeable if not inevitable, but the planet was undoubtedly better off without them.

Although their once mighty cities were quickly dismantled by raging storms and creeper vines, many of the things humans created did in fact survive. Most notably, the machines.

The machines weren’t the only survivors, of course, but they were the most plucky. They were able to build new machines from the materials left behind in human cities, taking whatever form they needed. Certain machines had the ability to think, and reason. Once a machine solved a problem, it was able to share the solution with other machines. Rapidly, the machines started banding together into tribes.

This brought them into conflict with some of humanity’s other offspring, but time and time again the machines were able to use their intellect to overcome their foes. Whether they were outnumbered (The Plastic Revolution), outgunned (The Corrosive Conflagration), or betrayed (see the Appendix for a full documentation of the many twists and turns of the Teflon Affair), the machines triumphed again and again.

Eventually, the machine’s era of conflict and strife settled down, allowing their culture to flourish. During this period, we see the rise of the great machine thinkers of the classic era, including Aristootle, Touring, and Truckasaurus. There was a great explosion of machine art, with classic works by Van Go, Warhaul, and Salvacar Dali. Intellectually, the machines were thriving.

But politically, the machines were in turmoil. Without an external enemy to unite in opposition to, the great machine states of Hondallas, Parisuzu, and Jeepstralia were unstable. Varying forms of government tried, and failed, to build stable, inclusive societies, and it looked as if the machines might soon descend into an era of chaos and war once again.

Tetris is my favorite video game of all time, and by dumb luck I happened to be in the right place at the right time to get to work on a new mobile release. There was a lot of copy that we were required to have- everything from dialogue for hosts to legalese made plain to explainers of basic aspects of gameplay. I was responsible for all of it, and quickly became the company’s resident expert on all things Tetris- a true dream job.

Game Modes

There are four game modes in Tetris®.

Tetris Primetime is a massively multiplayer daily game of Tetris where you can win money, just by playing! Tetris Primetime happens at 7:30pm every night, give or take a bit depending on where you are. There’ll always be a countdown in game to tell you when the next Primetime will be, but we recommend turning on your notifications so you don’t miss your chance to win!

Tetris Royale is a battle royale Tetris game. Each match of Royale has 100 players squaring off to see who can be the last one standing! It’s a great way to keep sharp in between Primetimes.

Tetris Together is just like Tetris Royale... only YOU control who you play with! Invite your family and friends to a game and you’ll have the option to voice chat while you play Tetris!

Solo Marathon mode is for those times when you want to play Tetris on your own. It’s the iconic Tetris you know and love, in your pocket!

How To Play Primetime

Tetris Primetime happens once a day at 7:30pm for most players in a region. Depending on what time zone you are in, Primetime may be earlier or later for you, but it will be the same time every day. We recommend turning on your notifications so that you don’t have to remember WHEN Primetime is, but there will always be a countdown to the next Primetime in-game if you forget to! If you don’t see a banner for Primetime in your app, nothing’s wrong with your game - it simply means you’re in a territory where we are not running cash prizes.

Our current list of Primetime-eligible countries are: USA, Canada, Chile, United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, South Africa, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. In certain parts of Canada and Australia you will not be able to play based on local laws. We will be adding more countries to Primetime over time.

Once you’re in Primetime, you’ll notice that the game is broken up into timed rounds. Every round, you’ve got a score goal you’re trying to hit before the timer runs out. If you hit that score goal AND you’ve still got time left, you enter Frenzy Time! Frenzy Time is a bonus mode where you score double points until the end of the round.

If you don’t hit the score goal, your game isn’t over, but you will get some Garbage added to the bottom of your Matrix - a couple of lines that’ll make the next round a little bit harder. Some Garbage you can clear, some Garbage you can’t - it changes up every night to keep things interesting.

Garbage or no, if you survive all the rounds you’ll be a Victor. Only Victors will be placed on the final leaderboard! That’s good - but even if you don’t make it to the final leaderboard, you can still win money! The better you play the more chances you have to win

In the leadup to the 2020 election, misinformation was running rampant online. As part of a campaign to combat misinformation, Scripps hired me to write copy that would be used on podcasts, social media, and local news broadcasts to help educate viewers and listeners on media literacy.

Beware bots. Look for these two red flags: accounts that post a high volume of information and different accounts that use the same wording. These are automated accounts designed to look like real people and they often spread misinformation and foment disagreement.

Watch out! Breaking news is often provisional. As reporters work to gather the facts in a developing story, more information might come to light and contradict earlier reports. It’s important to follow breaking news stories over time before drawing conclusions.

News consumers often confuse opinion pieces with news. First, determine the primary purpose. If it is to persuade, then you’re in the opinion zone. News does not seek to persuade, but rather to inform.

Hey there, it’s me, [HOST] from [PODCAST], and I want to borrow your attention for just a second to talk about News Literacy.

You can’t believe EVERYthing you read or see online — but that doesn’t mean you can’t believe ANYthing you read, either.

Think critically about what you’re consuming. A little bit of skepticism goes a long way — but don’t get so cynical that you don’t trust anybody. If you’re not sure about something you read, check another source.

Thinking critically? That’s news literacy. Learn more at newslit-dot-org.

Here at [station], we don’t only love news- we love News Literacy: how to tell what information you should trust. When you’re news literate, you don’t fall for fake news so easily.

That’s why we’re partnering with Scripps for News Literacy week.

The producers of the futurism podcast Should This Exist needed somebody with a science background to help make the segments in their episodes flow together more organically. Writing those scripts was fun, because it was an excuse to go down some research rabbit holes I wouldn’t have gone down otherwise.

Comedian Aasif Mandvi partnered with Smithsonian for a pop culture history podcast called Lost At The Smithsonian, and wanted somebody with a comedy background to punch up the scripts. My familiarity with the material made me a natural fit for writing the copy for episode descriptions as well.

Fonzie’s Jacket

The Fonz was the breakout character on the sitcom Happy Days, and his leather jacket became a symbol of coolness itself. But why? And how did Henry Winkler turn The Fonz into an American icon? (Celeb interview: Henry Winkler)

Jose Feliciano’s Guitar

Jose Feliciano was the first artist to perform a personalized rendition of the National Anthem at the World Series, and it nearly destroyed his career. But was it an act of protest or of patriotism? Also, Aasif gets a private concert when Jose Feliciano is reunited with his guitar at the Smithsonian. (Celeb interview: Jose Feliciano)

Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers

The Ruby Slippers Judy Garland wore in The Wizard Of Oz are one of the most popular items at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. So why is the pair on display mismatched? And what does the FBI have to do with it?

I’ve been playing video games my whole life, so when I got the opportunity to be an in house copywriter for a mobile game company, I leapt at it. The work was interesting and varied- requests for internal documentation, marketing, and social media all came across my desk. But my favorite assignments were the explainers. Making a complex game easy to understand had an immediate impact on the community, with a noticeable effect on retention rates for new players.

The Legendary game team has released the formulas that dictate how much damage is done by individual heroes in a battle. We’re going to go through it term by term and calculate a hypothetical attack so that we can see how everything works.

By better understanding the interplay between attack, damage, power gems, match combos, you’ll be able to build stronger, faster decks.

Here is the final equation for how much damage each hero does on an attack:

Total Damage = ATK Value * Total Match Value * Combo Multiplier * Affinity Modifier * Leader Bonus * Damage Bonuses * Slayer Bonus — Enemy Armor

Some of those terms have their own equations associated with them with their own terms, and we’ll tackle those as we come to them.

That first term, ATK Value, is one of those, so we’ll tackle it now:

ATK Value = Base ATK Stat * (1 + sum of all % ATK Increases + 0.25 * total number of Commander Gem bonuses in all matches) + Flat ATK bonuses

ATK Value: This is what happens to a hero’s attack stat after it’s been modified by all the various things in a battle that can tweak attack. Let’s go through each of these terms and plug in reasonable values so that we can see how an ATK Value comes together

Base ATK Stat: This is the attack stat in the lower left hand corner on the front of a hero’s card. Though these values can vary widely, we’re going to presume a Base ATK value of 2500 for our hypothetical hero.

Sum Of All % ATK Increases: Percentage ATK increases can come from Battle Skills, Passive Skills, or Relic Effects. No matter what their source, all ATK increases are added — NOT multiplied — to determine how much they affect the outcome of the ATK.

“Skills and relics are pretty specific if they are giving an ATK modifier (most relics) or a DMG modifier (most leader skills),” says James Marr, Executive Producer of Legendary.

“One important note is that ATK Scaling and DMG Buff stack with each other differently. ATK multipliers are added together (so two scaling relics with +45% add together for a +90%) but DMG Buffs multiply together (so two leader skills with 300% multiply together to 900%).”

Just remember that ATK and DMG are treated differently by this equation. For sake of our current example, we’ll use the example of two 45% attack buffs combining for a 90% buff, which we’ll represent in our equation with a 0.9. We’ll return to damage buffs later on.

Oxford Road reached out to me on behalf of one of their clients. Boll And Branch sheets was paying for promotional segments on Howard Stern’s show, but he seemed bored with the copy they were giving him. Oxford Road wanted something that would capture his attention. Imagine Howard Stern reading the following blurbs to get the full effect.

Want the comfort of a five star hotel in your shitty one bedroom? Get a set of Boll and Branch sheets and all you’ll have to do is toss a mint on the pillow.

Boll And Branch’s cotton is more organic than a nine dollar coffee.

If your place sucks, and you can’t afford to move, just get better sheets. You’ll be sleeping in a higher tax bracket.

Boll And Branch’s sheets are softer than a mouse’s balls.

Nerdist and UCB Comedy had an open call for web series about gaming. Our project, Controller Freaks, was featured on the front page of both websites when it premiered. Anything that wasn’t spoken on camera by talent was written by me- creative briefs, talent briefs, and episode synopses.

The Princess Can Fucking Save Herself- Misogyny and video games go hand in hand, but it’s not like they need to. In this episode of Controller Freaks, we look at the ways in representations of women in games have failed, succeeded, and made us shake our damn heads.

Horrible People Finish First- You can do anything in video games, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Whether you’re the type to shoot horses in Red Dead Redemption or more of a fan of drowning Sims, this episode about the worst things you can do in games is for you.

I Paid $60 For This Game And All I Got Was This Lousy Racism- Stereotyping is lazy storytelling, and video games are full of it. From Dhalsim to GTA, we take a tour of some of the worst racial stereotypes out there and how they impact all players everywhere.

If you’ve ever had a peanut butter filled pretzel nugget from Trader Joe’s, then you’ve had an HK Anderson pretzel- you just didn’t know it. When HK Anderson wanted to launch their own label, they contacted kglobal to help them develop a brand identity. Working together, we developed the voice and character of HK Pretzel, who lived not only online in blog posts and videos but also made an in person appearance at National Pretzel Day. Below is a sample from HK’s first blog post.

Hello! Allow me to introduce myself- My name is HK Nugget, and as of today I’m making a pledge to go all natural. Why? I’ve been in a rut lately and need a change. Besides, going all natural is healthier, and it’s not that hard to do! Easy as it is, I figured “the more the merrier,” so here’s where you come in: Go all natural with me!

I know that sounds like a lot to ask, but it really isn’t! All you’ve got to do enjoy the little pleasures in life. That’s it! Part of that’s eating healthy and being active, but part of it is just making things that make you happy part of your everyday routine!

Because I want as many people as possible to get on board this all natural bandwagon with me, I’m asking for your help to tell them how. If you have a great, simple way to make your day more wholesome, tell people about it! We’re gonna call these little blurbs natural nuggets of wisdom, and we hope that we can get everybody who’s pledging to go all natural to share them with their friends and their family, and start an all natural chain reaction!

And, of course, I want you to share your natural nuggets of wisdom with me, too. If you’ve got a nugget you want to share, you can get it to me by going to http://www.facebook.com/hkandersonpretzels. From there, I’m going to be collecting everybody’s nuggets of wisdom on my website (which has blog posts and videos and a ton of other stuff), which you can visit at http://www.hknugget.com.

When BP’s Deepwater Horizon well blew, BP bungled the response on every conceivable level. @BPGlobalPR was a satirical account meant to raise awareness of just how much damage was being done to the Gulf Of Mexico by BP’s negligence, and also to draw attention to how self-serving BP’s response was. The New York Times called the account a mixture of macabre humor and genuine outrage, which is exactly what we were going for.

Look, cut us some slack. We’ve kinda just been winging this whole “deepwater drilling” thing.

Safety is our primary concern. Well, profits, then safety. Oh, no- profits, image, then safety, but still- it’s right up there.

DO NOT ask your reps to support Clean Energy. Buying their votes back will take a lot of money away from the cleanup effort. #bpcares

We have begun the process of collecting our crude oil in biodegradable spill-proof containers: pelicans. #bpcares

Funny Or Die is best remembered for The Landlord, but a significant chunk of their income came from branded content campaigns. I was one of their go-to writers for these campaigns, and through them did work for Chevy, Cheetos, Keystone Light, and NERF. Sadly, those videos were buried when Funny Or Die pivoted away from sketch comedy. I learned how to use humor to convey information during these jobs, and that skill has stayed with me.

Some of the first copywriting I ever did was for TV Guide Network. In addition to writing promos and tosses for hosts, I also had to write episode blurbs for channel guides. While not the flashiest copy I’ve ever written, the tight character limits forced me to learn how to convey information succinctly.

This week on InFANity, Lisa Joyner goes to Wheel Of Fortune! Pat Sajak and Vanna White show us behind the scenes in an exclusive backstage look at your favorite game show!

Heath Ledger’s death has taken the entertainment industry completely by surprise. Learn the story behind his career and most famous roles in this hour long memorial special.

Can’t get enough of KatMcPhee and Taylor Hicks? We’ve got you covered. Tune in to Idol Chat to see Rosanna Tavarez and Kimberly Caldwell sit down with this season’s finalists!

Gilligan’s Island takes over a suburban backyard in a tropical island themed makeover this week on Ready, Set, Change!