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rowan's portfolio

hymns for holy beasts - personal project

Hymns for Holy Beasts, co-written with Remus Cartan, is my current novel project. After completing a drafted manuscript earlier this year, Remus and I are revising it in hopes of submitting it to a publisher.I've included some excerpts of my writing from the original draft below.

• hymns for holy beasts - blurb & excerpts

griffith games studio
july - october 2025

Continuing my game studio experience as a student, I pursued a narrative design role once again to further my experience in a development setting. I was given the opportunity to choose one particular project to be a part of, and thus worked on A Recurrent Nova, a roguelite hack-and-slash game set in the furthest edges of the universe.

• narrative design & contributions

griffith games studio
march - may 2025

In the first trimester of my second year of university, I participated in a studio session with my peers, fulfilling the position of narrative designer for the first time in a game production context.I worked on two projects, starting on a point-and-click mystery game titled Below the Surface and, after that project's dissolution, I moved to Below Deck, an adventure game where players deliver medicine to a post-apocalyptic flooded world.

• narrative design & contributions

the art of betrayal - published novel

The Art of Betrayal was a personal project I undertook between the ages of 15 to 18 years old. Once I finished, I realised I had something that, with a little bit more work, could be published as a complete novel. After revising and editing, I did exactly that.While I'd like to think I've grown in skill since its completion, The Art of Betrayal remains a keystone in my writing journey.

• the art of betrayal - blurb & excerpts

light years away - short film concept

Light Years Away was a short film concept I developed in my second year of university for my Stories for Global Screen Audiences class.The film follows a young man living in the Sussex countryside who finds a star that has fallen from the sky in a human body and helps them learn how to trust.

• light years away - treatment and screenplay

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a recurrent nova - game demo

A Recurrent Nova is a roguelite hack-and-slash game with interwoven narrative told predominantly through dialogue and environmental storytelling.

Awakening in the far-flung expanses of the universe, Stella finds herself called upon to seek the source of the growing destruction known as The Collapse. Accompanied by an ageless astral being in the form of a celestial sword named Nova, Stella fights through waves of stellar bodies in their death throes—and in the process, Stella discovers why she is among the stars instead of home on Earth, and the reason behind The Collapse’s progression.

technical breakdown & narrative implementation

A Recurrent Nova's narrative implementation revolved around three core elements: two of which would be present within the demo, and one that would assist with bringing the game to life beyond the demo's completion. This trimester, my work mainly involved dialogue and narrative expansion beyond the initial plans that had been laid out by the development team in the previous trimester.In a roguelite setting, narrative implementation mostly involves dialogue storytelling, as well as background environmental storytelling we weren't quite able to capture within our demo. In the wider game, various discussions and internal reflection from Stella's perspective as the player would've conveyed the range of relationships and turmoil taking place within her world.In the demo, however, the majority of narrative was driven by an opening text cutscene introducing the game - which would likely be an animated cutscene in a completed game - and conversations between some of the characters encountered within the demo. I wanted to communicate the beginning of Stella's journey within the opening cutscene and four dialogue sequences, beginning her search for answers in the unfamiliar world she's found herself in.With my first true foray into narrative design, I found myself dually challenged and comfortable with my capabilities. I'm extremely eager to continue developing my skills and continue learning how to stretch my abilities further.

• a recurrent nova - narrative design document
• a recurrent nova - itch.io demo

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below deck - game prototype

Below Deck is an adventure game with interwoven narrative told through character interactions, quests, and environmental storytelling.

In the aftermath of a crumbling civilisation’s death throes, humanity takes refuge in floating settlements dotted across a flooded Earth. As one of the last Captains, you work for the disjointed remnants of a pharmacy collective, delivering medicine for those in need. It’s not an easy job however, as you must contend with planning the best delivery routes based on your meagre resources, avoiding the mutant creatures that lurk beneath the surface, and most importantly - deciding who is lucky enough to receive your deliveries.

technical breakdown & narrative implementation

Below Deck’s narrative implementation following the prototype was planned to be a mix of environmental storytelling in collaboration with artists, and storytelling through dialogue. This trimester, my work mainly involved planning for this implementation for a wider scope.Communicating the wider narrative in a game like Below Deck would involve narrative delivery without direct storytelling, so plentiful worldbuilding alongside the artists of the team took place. The game’s story would be mostly inferred by the player, so small fragments of the universe would peek through at any given time of gameplay.Plans for environmental worldbuilding included emblazoned decals of the company responsible for the flooded earth commonly found on scrap, and survivors building their shelters out of remnants of established buildings. This was to communicate the desperate nature of the society that the player would explore, and hint towards the origins of the apocalypse.Players would be able to gain more insight over this matter through communications with NPCs, mentions of major events and perspectives dotted through mission briefs. Below Deck’s narrative implementation was less straightforward, but a delightfully challenging task to undertake the beginnings of.

• below deck - narrative design document

below the surface - game concept

Below the Surface is a narrative-driven game with core elements of exploration, investigation, and puzzles.

technical breakdown & narrative implementation

While Below the Surface did not reach the completed prototype stage, there were developing plans for narrative implementation within Unity using the Ink plugin created by Inkle Studios. Unfortunately, we never reached the point of implementation using Ink, otherwise efforts would have been dedicated to learning Ink’s syntax, so most of my dialogue work was prototyped in Twine.Twine is a program I’ve used in previous projects, so considering my familiarity I wanted to use it again to prototype dialogue. There was also a chance to import my work from Twine directly into Unity ready for usage in Ink, which would have been a good opportunity had the project team not been disbanded.

game artwork by charlie watts

• below the surface - narrative design document

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the art of betrayal - published novel

A hard drive of scrambled files addressed to university student Matthew Ayres arrives on his doorstep. It’s a call for help, but Matthew can’t help but think he wasn’t the intended recipient of the hard drive until he realises there’s something truly horrifying going on behind the scenes, hidden behind impossible codes, nonsensical corrupted documents, and mass redactions that obscure the grotesque and surreal nature of what hides behind each and every file.Elsewhere, a young photographer remains trapped within a mental health hospital, plagued by the supposed delusions she has about a group of people she held dear, who, after a particular moment in time, simply vanished from existence altogether. All of her hope dissolved months ago, but she still desperately tries to pull back the curtains of reality within her prison.Peoples’ lives are chronicled within this hard drive - the lovely moments, the worst moments - but this hard drive seems to be the only physical evidence that they ever existed. As he digs deeper, his very own mind unfurling before his eyes, Matthew pieces together a timeline revealing the truly terrifying reality of what became of those people.

excerpts

from part xi: 'remnants'

Matthew eyed the eviction notices warily and stepped right onto them with his muddy boots, soaking them, the ink spreading across the papers. There wasn’t a single spot underneath the pair’s feet where you could see the wooden flooring underneath, where extensive amounts of paper and newspaper and sketchbooks laid above. The air had a strange scent to it, a mix of incense, alcohol, and fire, and as it floated out of the previously locked apartment, new, fresh air flooded the rooms.Peeling off the wall, the yellowed wallpaper had fallen halfway down, almost as if it were the leaves of a weeping willow. Where it hadn’t been pinned up by a photograph’s weight or torn away due to annoyance, it simply hung loosely, speaking of a time when it was perfect and smooth on the plastered walls. Some of it was burnt on the edges, but never fully blackened, where a match would have set them ablaze were it not for the person who put the fire back out again.Holes in the roof had formed from water damage. The paint had gone a sickly raven colour in reaction to it, and in places, had simply torn open hopelessly when the water had become too much for it. Dripping a greyish mixture of ash, mould, and water onto the floor, those openings clearly hadn’t been shuttered by the Matthew of days gone.

from part viii: 'abyssal'

Within seconds a first impact was felt as Val’s shoulder plunged into something solid, the shock spreading through his bones like wildfire. As Jyrki tumbled through the raging, swift floodwaters, debris grazing him at every tumble, the world around him was ebony, seemingly endless darkness of muted moans and screams.Neither trying to swim up nor down would lead to the discovery of a surface to this abyss. Light didn’t reach the depths in which the two friends were thrust through, so deep into this emptiness that emotions refused to surface, and neither did thoughts appear any further than their subconscious boundaries.Any impact that was made wasn’t felt until much later. Skin was pierced, bruises were formed and bones were knocked, but the pain withheld itself as the pair floated somewhere similar to purgatory, somewhere between life and death, lost in time. If their minds were fully awake, the pain would be overwhelmingly unbearable, a fierce burn of heat, an unimaginable force.Floating, weaving, twisting in the rift between consciousness and unconsciousness, with no hope of surfacing, the very identities of Jyrki Venäläinen and Valtteri Lahti started to fade away as their ability to hold their breaths any longer became weaker.

• the art of betrayal - purchase on amazon

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hymns for holy beasts - personal project

Caleb Myers, a detective for the Blount County Sheriff's Department, is sent on a reconnaissance mission to gain information on a growing congregation in the Appalachian mountains that worships a man who they claim can predict the future.After meeting the enthralling, hypnotising leader – a man named Elijah El Khoury, known also as The Shepherd – Cal can’t help but be captivated by him. He falls into the embrace of Elijah’s affection in an aim to decode the enigmatic man, but soon finds himself being called Elijah’s Chosen.Worst of all, Cal chooses to believe.

excerpts

from chapter v

His vision, mind, everything, was flooded with light. His lungs stopped intaking oxygen. Flashes of those damned leaves, the same ones he had thought he could die surrounded by, impacted Cal harder than a car would a deer in the middle of the road. He felt himself in those headlights, laid bare before wine-dark herb held in hands born from the devil.There were flickers of something else, but god, it was as if his mind was hunting for that purple within the blurs. He was hungry for it in a way he couldn’t begin to explain, even as the fragments of his rationality tried to tear him back to reality. He needed it. It could be his blood, and keep him alive, more than anything ever would.Distantly, as if through frosted glass, Cal could tell his body was crumbling. Mulberry flooded his view, white-hot brightness, fuelling the same craving as the fields. Unsatisfied, all-consuming behind his eyelids. When had he closed his eyes?All at once, Cal collapsed to his knees upon the altar.In the fallout he blinked, twice, and the purple haze vanished as quickly as it appeared. All he was left with was the sudden sight of himself doubled in two, knelt atop the cushion the Shepherd had led him to as easily as his doom. No pain, just the softness of his pillow, a small mercy in the wake of whatever he’d witnessed.The droplets of blood on the marble were bigger, now. Light reflected from the minuscule puddles, giving them a strangely purple tinge. Squeezing his eyes shut, Cal was sure he was still hallucinating. Cal instead looked out over the commune and found a half-moon sea of kneeling people, perfectly aligned just as they’d been when Elijah commanded them to drink their tea. Had Elijah actually made them see what Cal had seen too?

from chapter xvi

Alone, Cal could finally take in the scale of the hall. Filled with people, it felt suffocating but comforting in its heaviness. Cal paused in the centre of the marble, eyes drawn to the colours of the stained glass roof projected onto the floor. He craned his neck; he’d never had the chance to see the artworks up close and with clear eyes before.What startled Cal was how many of the sectioned windows had people in them—were stained glass windows always so populated? He studied the furthest window on the eastern side of the rose-like design first, noting the two figures stood on what could’ve been a gravel pathway. One was clearly Elijah, even with a featureless face in the glass, wearing his purple tunic. The other could be any new arrival, with their clothes so different to the devotees, facing Elijah in the sun.The next was facing south, a close-up of lips stained in purple on the inner edges. Undoubtedly a display of Elijah, Cal twisted his legs to rotate himself so that he could see the western-facing design.Cal stopped. Eyes locked on the figure depicted in the next window. His heart thudded in his throat.Was that him?Knelt on the marble in front of the altar, this figure was dressed in all white. Their hair was hard to make out in the artstyle, but it was most certainly cut neatly at his ears, curls twisting outwards. Hands outstretched bled delicate streams of ruby from eyes carved into skin.Cal’s legs felt unsteady below him. Surely that wasn’t him, it couldn’t be. The communion hall had been built so long ago, and these windows were certainly made around the same time. His eyes darted to the eastern-facing window, of the new arrival in their light blue t-shirt and cargo pants, feet covered by-Were those his work boots?He’d been wearing those clothes the day he arrived.His gaze moved to the close-up on the southern side, now, staring closer at the details. A small dimple underneath the centre of the person’s bottom lip assigned them to a name. They were his, too, lip ring scar and all. Cal spun almost rabidly to the northern-facing window, barely keeping his heart from leaping out of his mouth. His eyes tried to make out the scene in front of him into something that made sense, but nothing was backed up by sense in this place.

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about rowan

they/them

I'm a writer and narrative designer. Throughout the years, I've written a myriad of long-form and short-form content within the mystery and horror genres. Currently, I'm in the process of attaining my Bachelor of Game Design and Production at Griffith University, majoring in writing & development.

As someone who has been writing through a large majority of my life, I have a passion for creating things that will excite and fascinate people.Some of my favourite games include Remedy Entertainment's Alan Wake II, Death Stranding by Kojima Productions, and the Horizon games. These are games I honestly wish I'd had the honour of working on, and I hope one day I can contribute to creating something just as good.In 2023, after a long effort, I self-published my queer horror novel The Art of Betrayal. I wrote, revised, and constructed most internal material myself, along with creating the graphics required for the book's release.