I will be at DragonCon for both Dishonored and Jack of Hearts!

“Dragon*Con is the largest multimedia, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!  Held every Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, GA, Dragon*Con boasts close to 40 fan-based tracks, a film festival, Atlanta’s largest parade throughout downtown, an art show, comics and pop art exhibits and displays, nightly concerts and parties, bands and DJs, tons of costume contests, over a hundred dealers and exhibitors, and almost 4000 hours of panels, workshops, and gaming.” -www.DragonCon.com

If you are planning on being there, stop by and say “hi”.

I will be at the following:

Designing Awesome Videogames (panel) Time: Fri, 8/30/13 @ 02:30 pm Location: Grand Salon D – Hilton Description: An all-star lineup of videogame designers, behind Dishonored, Unreal, Saint’s Row, Wasteland, and more! Dishonored: Behind the Scenes (panel) Time: Sat, 8/31/13 @ 07:00 pm Location: Grand Salon D – Hilton Description: Learn the secrets of the dark city of Dunwall from the talented design team at Arkane Studios. Ricardo Bare – JACK OF HEARTS (book reading) Time: Sun, 9/01/13 @ 11:30 am Location: Roswell – Hyatt Writing for Videogames (panel) Time: Mon, 9/02/13 @ 01:00 pm Location: Grand Salon D – Hilton Description: A discussion of the dozens of endings and weeks of branching dialogue needed for this type of writing.

Catching up on a few things. Toward the end of last month I did an interview with Mick Fraser of God is a Geek:

“Now that Jack of Hearts is finally out – something which still feels utterly surreal to me – I’m right in the middle of writing the next book in the series.”
- Ricardo Bare

Thank you, Mick Fraser.

Holy crap, Dishonored won a BAFTA for best game in 2012. I think I can safely say that no one on the team was expecting this. Which is why our office went bananas when we heard the presenter Danny Wallace say “Dishonored” into the microphone (we were watching the live stream). I’m incredibly grateful to be a part of the team at Arkane and to have the opportunity to make the kind of games that Arkane makes.

You can watch the acceptance speech by my excellent teammates here: BAFTA 2012 Best Game

In a few weeks I’ll be attending PAX East, which is a first for me so I’m looking forward to that. While I’m there I’ll be on a panel for ‘Narrative Design’ moderated by the amazing Austin Grossman. Should be fun.

Line editing on Jack of Hearts continues in the wee hours of the morning.

I should have made an official announcement a long time ago, but things got a little hectic last year. There was this little game I was working on at the time called Dishonored, and it made thinking about anything else really difficult. But now the game is finished and out, and if you’re a gamer I hope you get a chance to play it. I’m really proud of it and all the work the team at Arkane did. I work with some really incredible people.

So, what I should have mentioned last year is that my first novel, Jack of Hearts, is going to be published. That’s right. Achievement unlocked at last. This is something I’ve been striving toward for a long time. Something I dreamed of as a kid, looking for Tanelorn with Prince Corum, visiting the Silent Planet, and following the Black company among others. It’s been a long grueling road, put off for years at a time, and I couldn’t have gotten here without the support of my amazing wife, a cloud of exceptionally talented and inspiring friends (some of them fellow game developers at Arkane Studios), and extended family. You know who you are and you rock.

Jack of Hearts is coming out in the spring of 2013 and will be published by the wonderful people at Belle Bridge Books. Click here to read more about the book.

I realize that many things which lead to our successes or failures are beyond any one person’s control, and so I feel incredibly blessed and grateful.

One last thing. As you might know if you’ve seen the site before, (or know me) I like to sketch as a I write. So, here’s a quick sketch I did of Jack the other night.