Narrative, mastery, and character bleed in games, with Ricki Heicklen

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)

Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined again by Ricki Heicklen to discuss Metagame 2025, a conference where 250 attendees were divided into Purple and Orange teams competing for territories across campus. Patrick built a complete roguelike RPG in 25 days using LLMs, discovering that providing minimal world-building context transformed generic fantasy outputs into emotionally resonant storytelling. They discuss the power and responsibility of game designers, how games create pedagogical experiences that traditional teaching cannot, and what happens when the line between player identity and character identity starts to blur.

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Full transcript available here:
www.complexsystemspodcast.com/narrative-mastery-character-bleed-in-games-with-ricki-heicklen/

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Sponsor: Mercury
This episode is brought to you by Mercury, the fintech trusted by 200K+ companies — from first milestones to running complex systems. Mercury offers banking that truly understands startups and scales with them. Start today at Mercury.com
Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC.

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Links:

• Metagame: https://www.metagame.games/

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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro

(00:25) Using games to teach trading

(00:57) Game design conference insights

(01:12) Ricki’s personal journey into game design

(02:41) Exploring different game types

(03:35) Challenges in game design

(04:44) Metagame conference overview

(08:23) Escape room design experience

(11:25) Building a rogue-like game

(15:35) Metagame mechanics and challenges

(18:25) Sponsor: Mercury

(19:37) Metagame mechanics and challenges (part 2)

(31:10) Event management and lessons learned

(44:00) Game mechanics and player roles

(45:09) Complex encounters and Plague Town

(48:44) Moral choices and player decisions

(50:59) Game design and narrative impact

(55:36) Character bleed and real-world influence

(01:02:00) Game design challenges and player agency

(01:24:16) Community and player interaction

(01:30:04) Wrap