Hi, I'm Ella, a narrative writer and designer from Canberra, Australia.I've been actively doing creative writing since 2016 and have been doing game design since 2022.Right now I'm working on writing my latest Murder Mystery Party Pack, Rock & Rivalry!I hope you enjoy looking through my portfolio!
Hi, I'm Ella and I love to write. I've been doing creative writing since I was 12 and I enjoy writing stories in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, though I'm more than happy to dabble in other genres. I enjoy writing Own Voices characters, but in particular ones who are on the ace spectrum. Writing characters with experiences close to mine brings me a lot of joy and I hope it brings lots of joy to the people who will read about these characters.
I have been playing games for as long as I can remember, with Putt Putt, Mario Kart and Club Penguin being just some of my childhood favourites.
When I'm not writing or playing games I'm most likely doing one of the following, buying fabric, talking about fabric or making things with fabric. Video games and sewing have both been major parts of my life having been introduced to both of them at a very young age. With the excitement that both of them bring me, I can see will enjoy them for many years to come.
I also enjoy doing art on the side occasionally drawing one of my favourite characters or one of my many OCs.
^ My year 12 formal dress that I made
Education
I'm a Class of 2023 Gradaute at The Academy of Interactive Entertainment where I studied Game Design and Production. Here I've learned valuable information about various Game Design disciplines, including narrative, level, and sound design.
In 2021 I received my Certificate II in Information, Digital Media and Technology from Lake Tuggeranong College.
Operation Interstellar
This game was made in collaboration with the Australian Federal Police and is not publicly available.
Operation Interstellar is a single-player VR detective game where the player is tasked with investigating a murder in a futuristic spaceship. Players will use their intuition, environmental clues and their investigation skills to solve the mystery whilst following AFP protocol.
Players will have to scour the crime scene for clues, uncover important events and use their skills to complete puzzles, whilst also avoiding red herrings throughout. Using the information at hand, players will be able to form a conclusion of what happened at the scene and gain valuable insight on how they performed.
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This game was created as our Second Year Major Production at AIE and development was done over the course of several months.
I was the Narrative Designer on this project. I developed characters, in world lore and wrote close to 1000 total descriptions for the interactables within the scene (100~ interactables x 10 descriptions). I also assisted in designing and iterating on the level, placing the objects in the scene, playtesting the game and creating simple 2D assets.
The Team
Designers:
Ella Jonklaas
Braedyn de Leeuw
Luke McCarronProgrammer:
Benjamin WhartonArtists:
Hazel Ludlow
Joaquin Gundry
Omar Hassan
Daniel Carswell
Shade and Stone
Shade and Stone is a third-person stealth game set in enchanting temple ruins. The player will play as Koshaw, an avian-like person who has special abilities like a magical cape and the ability to turn into their rat companion. In the temple, ruins lurks a hulking rock golem who stands guard over the magical Talisman of Life which you need to retrieve to save your loved one.
I worked on the visual storytelling for this game and helped to create the lore surrounding Koshaw and the other characters. Also assisted in Quality Assurance and helped to design parts of the level. Organized playtesting sessions with the College that I went to, which provided us with valuable information from our target audience. Wrote and organized the dev logs that were published on the Itch page.
Hansel and Gretel & You!
Hansel and Gretel & You! is a short interactive fiction game released on StoryLoom.
You get to play as a sibling to Hansel and Gretel and make choices that will change how the story will play. Either play through the original tale or go down a completely different path and discover new faces. What happens if you didn't use breadcrumbs or if you were nice to The Witch? It's up to you to find out.
This game was a solo project that I have written myself based on the classic fairytale. Some art is also drawn by me.
Rock&Rivalry
To be released February 2024
Rock&Rivalry is a murder mystery game about a fictitious American Rock band, 4 Birds Under. The band is at the end of the 20th anniversary reunion tour and they're celebrating their final performance. However, tensions are rising between the band and their guests but it seems some people have some ways of settling problems that include murder.