Projects

Red Steel 2

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Story & Design Consultant, Writer, Gunslinger, UBISOFT, Paris

As the story consultant, lead writer and "gunslinger" on Red Steel 2, Ubisoft's highly anticipated new game for Wii, Greg is responsible for bridging the gap between great gameplay and killer storytelling.  By creating excellent dialogue and shaping the narrative of this 1st person shooter/slasher, Greg ensured that this is one game that will engage your mind as well as your trigger finger.

" Red Steel 2 has one of the most compelling game worlds I’ve visited. ...the story certainly has a badass conclusion... the very classical narrative leaves you wanting more."

   â€?/b>Sean Colleli, Gaming Nexus

MetaCritic score: 82

Check out the official Red Steel 2 site here.


The Modern Day Alchemist

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Contributor / Writer

What's this doing here? Proving Greg's versatility, depth and talent as a writer. Among a small handful of spiritual writers invited to contribute to this collection, Greg's essays on "The Secret Alchemy of Travel," based on his experiences traveling the globe for the past decade, are moving, evocative and insightful.

Excerpts on A Reluctant Pilgrim's Progress


Top Secret iPhone Apps

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Designer, Writer, Producer, Spirit Quest World, Los Angeles

Greg would love to tell you about the series of iPhone products he's working on right now - but then someone would have to kill him.

You can see the ones he can talk about here.


X-Files Game

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Writer, Designer, Director, Fox Interactive, Los Angeles

The X-Files Game, co-written with Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, executive producers of the top 10 TV show �over a million copies sold, many industry awards. As lead designer, writer and director, Greg was the driving creative vision behind bringing the mega-franchise to the tiny screen in a way that maintained the integrity of the brand and appealed to an audience as the show itself.

"I found myself immersed in this game. I mean totally. Carrying on a conversation with Assistant Director Skinner was spooky to the max ...I linked up with agent Dana Scully and it really felt like we were working together"

   â€¢Harry Chittick, ABCNEWS.com

"X marks the spot for the best-ever interactive game using live action video."

   â€?/b>Roy Bassave, Miami Herald

"The X-Files Game is a remarkable product. It takes the concept of interactive cinema to a new level."

   â€?/b>Steve Baxter, CNN 

Rated 8.8/10 on IMDB


The Vortex: Quantum Gate 2


Writer, Designer, Director, Warner/HyperBole, New York

The Vortex transports you into a frightening, compelling interactive world where every choice shapes the story's outcome.

The Vortex grabs your imagination and takes you deeper into the story of Drew Griffin, a young soldier fighting for his life on a distant world. In this VirtualCinema® movie, you experience the story as the main character. Through his eyes and mind, you discover the truth behind the Quantum Gate and your choices will decide the fate of two worlds.

Experience a total mind flick! Escape The Vortex.

"The Vortex has all the components of an Oscar-winning film great-acting, cool scenery, a stirring score, clever storyline, and interesting costumes."

   â€?/b>Multimedia World

"...the engrossing interactive element and wide variety of possible outcomes [make] Vortex a worthy and enjoyable investment of time."

   â€?/b>Daily Variety

"The Vortex sets a new standard for interactive movies...an experience unlike anything else on the market. Grade: A"

   â€?/b>San Francisco Examiner

"The acting here easily outclasses anything else on CD-ROM. Vortex's characters are real enough to make you care about what happens to the people in writer/director Greg Roach's script."

   â€?/b>Electronic Entertainment

"...you'll definitely get drawn into the movie in a powerful and exciting way."

   â€?/b>New Age Journal

"With a compelling story, fine acting, and excellent photorealistic graphics, The Vortex: Quantum Gate II is intriguing and a fascinating harbinger of things to come."

   â€?/b>PC Magazine


Quantum Gate

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Writer, Designer, Director, MediaVision, Seattle

The year is 2057. Earth has only five years to live. In this VirtualCinema® movie you are Drew Griffin. You are transported through an interplanetary device called the Quantum Gate to planet AJ3905, where a rare mineral exists capable of reversing the environmental Armageddon.

Interact with many characters - decide who is telling the truth or risk confronting the wrong enemy. Explore a fascinating world as you hurtle toward the startling conclusion.

"...a science fiction movie better than any since Blade Runner ...a future shock film on par with Aliens"

   â€?/b>Computer Gaming World

"...an engrossing, groundbreaking adventure for the eyes and ears...probably the closest any multimedia title has come to delivering a truly interactive full-length cinematic experience."

   â€?/b>Billboard Magazine

"...one of the most entertaining multimedia discs ever produced."

   â€?/b>New Media Magazine

"...a dynamic and captivating audiovisual experience unlike that of any other CD-ROM title available. It will keep you glued to your seat from start to finish."

   â€?/b>Multimedia World

"Quantum Gate is a quantum leap forward in computer movie making...it is a hell of a good movie, period, with a story that sticks with you long after the final credits roll."

   â€?/b>Computer Gaming World


The Madness of Roland

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Writer, Designer, Director, Compton's New Media, Carlsbad

The World's First Interactive Multimedia Novel Will Forever Change The Way You Look At Books.

Based on the legend of the Paladin Roland, a knight in the service of Charlemagne, the story is told from multiple points of view, which you can move among at will. Each character tells their own, often contradictory, versions of the story. Roland uses text, digital color paintings, animation, Quicktime video, professional "radio theater" narration, hypertextual links and complete original soundtrack to transport you to the world of Charlemagne's France.

"...you can't afford not to get The Madness of Roland...This is an imaginative use of hypertext and QuickTime...Roach's presentation is genuinely fun and is a real live, no-question-about-it, work of art for multimedia."

   â€?/b>Byte Magazine

"...probably the the best electronic book produced so far...innovative and engaging"

   â€?/b>Computer Game Review

"...stunningly beautiful"

   â€?/b>The New York Times Book Review

"The story sways gracefully with beautiful lacy language. The characters are human, complex... "

   â€?/b>Morph's Outpost


HyperBole Magazine

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Writer, Designer, Publisher, HyperBole Studios, Seattle

One of the world's first "e-zines" HyperBole magazine, which was published monthly for more than two years, explored a huge range of interactive entertainment, games comics and serialized stories.

“Greg Roach invented interactive, online, serialized drama.�nbsp;

   â€?/b>Bob Gelman, founder of Cybermedia


The Wrong Side of Town

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Writer, Designer, Director, Editor, Programmer, HyperBole Studios

This unique project pioneered the idea of perspective switching - multiple parallel video streams - years before the invention of DVD. Hailed as the "first interactive narrative film" according to the American Film Institute, The Wrong Side of Town reveals each character's subjective version of the story, completely under the user's control and in real-time.

Best of Show at the 1st Annual QuickTime Festival


Dog, Buddha, Elvis 

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Writer, Director, Atom Films, Seattle

What goes inside the head of a shiftless 20-something who's id, ego and superego appear to him as an always bickering trio: Dog, Buddha and Elvis? A Flash-animation series licensed to Atomfilms. 

“fun and irreverent!�nbsp;

   â€?/span>Discreet’s Eight


T2FX Studio

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Writer, Designer, Producer, Artisan Entertainment, Los Angeles

Suite of Interactive DVD ROM applications based on hit franchise. Released by Artisan as part of the Terminator 2 Xtreme DVD release. 

IRMA DVD Award for “Best DVD ROM�/span>


The Butterfly Effect - Timescape

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Writer, Designer, Producer, New Line Cinema, Los Angeles

A DVD ROM application, created for New Line, that allows viewers to radically “resequence�The Butterly Effect film on DVD �allowing for many alternate ways to view the movie.


Newmero1ogy 

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Writer, Designer, Producer, Airborne Entertainment, Montreal

A wireless client/server app for BREW and J2ME mobile phones based on Nick Newmontsâ€?bestselling book and numerology system.


The Kingdom Within 

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Writer, Designer, Design Consultant, Zentropa Interaction, Copenhagen

A unique, hybrid 3D game+interactive film about a young girl with cancer, and the impact the disease has on her family, designed with Zentropa Interaction and Oscar winner Lars von Trier. The immersive live action portion explores the unspoken toll that a disease like cancer can have on a family, while the RT3D game allows the hero to venture inside his sister's body and help to heal it, while learning about the mechanisms of disease within a metaphorical fantasy setting inspired by the art of Max Ernst.


Honda Virtual 

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Writer, Designer, Director, Editor, Legacy Interactive, RPA, Honda, Los Angeles

Immersive Live action simulation for training Honda salespeople in buyers motivation and optimal interpersonal interaction.

Horizon Interactive Award for “Best Use of Interactive Video.�/span>


Who the Hell is Bobby Roos? 

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Designer, Programmer, Editor, Hummingbird Films, New York

Who The Hell is Bobby Roos DVD - Design and implementation for the highly interactive DVD version of award-winning independent film

"..a killer DVD!"

   â€?/b>Variety


Design Projects


Imagined Places 

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Writer, Designer, Reseacher

Immersive, multi-user historical reconstructions of humanities greatest ancient monuments. This unique concept combines SynThespians, telepresence and 3D reconstructions to give participants the experience of being a “tourist in time.�/span>


RockCopter

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Writer, Designer, HyperBole Studios, Seattle

RockCopter is the world's first 3-D rock n' roll scavenger hunt combat simulator trivia game -- a series of rock videos that have been turned into navigable 3-D environments you explore via helicopter. Best of all, no matter which way you fly, where you go or how you play, the "world" keeps pace with changes in the music. When the guitar solo starts, the sky changes from blue to purple. Birds fly in time with a melody, changing from geese to cranes when you shoot them.

Find the singer or band members trapped somewhere inside the scene. But you and the band are being chased, by record agents who want to force the group into signing a lousy record deal, televangelists concerned with backwards masking, and anti-rock watchdog groups. 

Defend yourself with power chords, hi-hats, and wah-wah pedals, while collecting memorabilia and hunting the elusive superstars of rock history. 


10 State Spree

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Writer, Designer, HyperBole Studios, Seattle

10 State Spree: 10 State Spree is a white-knuckle look at the growing weirdness of post-modern America -- an interactive cross between Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers and Raising Arizona.

As Albert "Green" Baloolie, the anti-hero's hero, you escape from prison accompanied by two fellow convicts -- Justis and Plato -- and your girlfriend, Honeybunch. Your goal? Make it from Florida to Mexico without attracting too much attention. Unfortunately, the police, Latino gangs, Jamaican triads, gun-toting militia members, abortion rights activists, aliens, postal workers, and a representative from the NRA all stand in your way.

Get to Baja, where your father's legacy, the ill-gotten gains of his last heist, lies buried. Can you do it without shooting anyone?? Will you be hailed as a vigilante hero or hunted down like a dog? Whatever you do, stay away from the Krusty Kreem donut shop -- guys like you don't come out of there alive.


Through Their Eyes

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Writer, Designer, HyperBole Studios, Seattle

Through Their Eyes is a family game that allows players to explore a virtual ecosphere, playing the part of the creatures who inhabitant it; hunter and hunted, predator or prey. Through Their Eyes will immerse the player in the environment, allowing them to experience the dynamics of nature from the inside. The player can experience the entire life cycle of an animal, or jump from creature to creature as they experience its intelligence, feeding, playing, mating and strategies for survival.


Shades of the West

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Writer, Designer, HyperBole Studios, Seattle

As Shades of the West opens, you are wrongfully hung by a vengeful posse for a murder you didn't commit. You become a ghost, and must try to avenge your death, clear your name so your adored wife and child can inherit the land that is rightfully theirs, and bring the true criminals and the people who killed you to justice.


Red Note, Blue Note

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Writer, Designer, HyperBole Studios, Seattle

Red Note, Blue Note is an interactive online story of a woman involved with two musicians, each of whom appeals to her in a different way. The rich, deep narrative lets women participate in a story that understands how they feel, while letting them engage in a fantasy relationship with two exciting men, each good for her in a different way. No matter which mate she leans towards, the narrative adjusts to create the proper tension in response to her choices.


The Banyon Tree

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Writer, Designer, AOL

The Banyon Tree: The Banyon Tree is a new kind of soap opera: a web-based, participatory episodic show that combines the entertainment value and addictive appeal of a prime-time TV with the social interaction found online. Players assume the role of any character in the show, seeking goals and interacting, inside a well-produced story environment with dynamic situations, interesting characters, and complete freedom.


Moons of the Frontier

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Writer, Designer, HyperBole Studios, Seattle

Set in a fantastic alternate universe, Moons of the Frontier traces the relationship between two estranged brothers against the backdrop of colonial expansion, court intrigue and warring factions. The tone and style of Moons is an alchemical mixture of Elizabethan Europe, Jules Vernes, and Louis L’Amour. 

The planet Europa is surrounded by four habitable moons. The invention of long-distance air-ships (a cross between a hot-air balloon and a sailing ship) allows access to these moons for the first time, which has set off a fierce contest of colonization between Europa’s reigning super powers: Albion, Hispaniola and Gallicia.  

These powerful countries vie for control of the natural resources, wealth and population of the four satellite planets.  These planets mirror the development and culture of North and South America, Africa and the Far East at the time of the first European contact of Earth’s own past.  The frontier colonies are ripe with mystery, intrigue and potential - drawing the best, and worst, of Europa’s society to these "Moons of the Frontier."


greg <at> storyslinger <dot> com
There was a time when interactive-movie was not a dirty word