Martian Brothel

Martian Brothel is an independent narrative design and interactive writing studio founded in 2018 by Shanon M. Ingles. It provides narrative co-development for game developers and transmedia entertainment companies, working across AAA games, independent productions and interactive streaming projects. The studio operates as a distributed collective, assembling writing and narrative design teams around partner productions.

Its work covers the development of stories, characters and interactive systems from early concepts through production and revision. During pre-production, the studio develops story and game pitches, story bibles, season outlines, character voices and narrative design specifications. It also establishes and manages writers’ rooms, helping partner teams turn initial ideas into a framework for ongoing writing and implementation.

Narrative development and production

During production, Martian Brothel writes interactive scenes, cinematic sequences, RPG dialogue and character barks. Its capabilities include branching dialogue, quest design and procedural narrative design, alongside voice direction and motion capture support. Editorial work encompasses script notes, scene revisions, character voice passes, dialogue punch-ups and branching quest revisions. The studio also offers marketing consultation, copywriting, trailer scripts and product descriptions.

Martian Brothel can supply a complete outsourced narrative department, including staffing and management responsibilities alongside creative development. This model supports projects that need an embedded writing team throughout production as well as those seeking help with a particular story or design challenge.

Selected work

For Marvel’s Midnight Suns, the studio worked with Firaxis Games and 2K on character friendship and RPG systems, contributing more than 40,000 lines of choice-driven dialogue. Its collaboration with Ghost Story Games on Judas began in 2018 and included story development, world lore and principal character voices.

Other work includes side-quest narrative design and writing for God of War: Ragnarök and the original story pitch for Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER. For Silent Hill: Ascension, Martian Brothel served as the principal narrative studio, managing a subcontracted team that produced approximately 20 hours of viewer-directed interactive scripts.