Amanda (Manda) Farough

professional vitae

collated accolades & collected works from nearly 15 years of professional writing across games criticism, narrative design, fiction, nonfiction, and games writing

hey, I'm Manda

I've been working in and around the video game (and tabletop) industry in a variety of capacities since 2009. These days, I'm a writer, narrative designer, producer, and consultant.

published books

nonfiction & fiction

shipped games

in the wild

A collection of the games that I've worked on as a producer, writer, narrative designer, consultant, or any combination of the above! (Also includes not-yet-shipped games in development.)

the portfolio

in the ether

An assortment of writing samples across a variety of genres (and game writing artifacts) to peruse to better get to know me as a writer and narrative designer.This is a password protected page to prevent AI/bot scraping (portviewer | R2d24me2).

an array of understanding

how I work

the podcast

Virtual Economy

The business of games... for the rest of us! Founded in 2020 (yes, during the pandemic) with Mike Futter and still going after four seasons and over 150 episodes.

the consultancy

F-Squared

F-Squared was co-founded (again with Mike Futter) as a vehicle to help both indie and AAA studios with their games, whether that was prepping for a pitch or providing incisive gameplay feedback.

understanding the game industry

business analysis & writing

say hello

contact me

Nothing better than not needing to send an actual email, amirite? Just drop in your information below and I'll receive it swiftly.

much obliged

thanks bunches!

I tend to take 2-3 business days to respond, more if I'm slammed with work! Thank you for your interest and patience!

Digital Playgrounds

Digital Playgrounds is a book series (published by Carnegie Mellon ETC Press) providing parents, caretakers, and educators with accessible insight into digital games as tools for growth, entertainment, and social connection. It addresses the most pressing parental concerns about using games, including violent video games, loot boxes, streaming, age-inappropriate content, and video game addiction. It provides a range of practical tips for parents to understand better the uses and effects of games and how to integrate games into family life.

Edges

Boheme and Poppy are adversaries, locked in a battle of someone else's making. In a world where the rich and powerful pay young assassins to settle grudges and bad business deals, the only winners are those that choose not to play. For Poppy, the only choice is duty. Boheme has other measures in mind for this dance, one that is composed with liberation and freedom. Only one of them will make it off this balcony alive.

a little about me

I'm a veteran writer across multiple disciplines with experience spanning nearly fifteen years, specializing in rich worldbuilding and characters that contain multitudes. I'm also a highly collaborative, compassionate leader with technical, programming, and production skills who can speak across competencies. I adore deep collaboration, kind humans, and exquisite stories.

I’m a Canadian immigrant (originally from British Columbia) currently living outside New York City with my gaggle of children and partners.I’ve been a professional writer since 2009, where I got my start as a blogger on a number of indie media sites that no longer exist (and have long since deleted my work). I worked as a Games Editor at Mic.com before their infamous pivot-to-video in 2017, but I’m best known for my work at GameDaily.biz and SuperParent.com as Editor-in-Chief. My bylines are varied and numerous, but most notably include The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, GamesBeat, Mashable, and PC Gamer.I left games media in late 2020 to conduct gameplay feedback consultations through the company I co-founded with Mike Futter (F-Squared), where we also run the Virtual Economy podcast. I had a brief stint as a director in a self-publishing services company before the good folks at HakJak Studios brought me in as their producer on their first game. Our studio was shuttered in December 2023.

I'm available for contract work as a writer and narrative designer in both video games and tabletop.

Production contracting is on a per-studio, per-game basis. I'm currently working with Strange Scaffold as a lead producer, so my schedule is a bit limited for additional production work. I would be glad to entertain work as a narrative producer for the right studio/project.

Please note that my portfolio is behind a password so that it can't be scraped or used for training AI models. (portviewer | R2d24me2)

the games

A collection of the video and tabletop games that I've worked on in a variety of capacities (with credit only).

shipped

in development

🌻Unannounced Strange Scaffold Game (Lead Producer)
🌻Unannounced game (Lead Narrative Designer & Writer) - Sample Available on Request
🌻Daylite TTRPG System Supplement Book (Writer)
🌻Solo Vampire the Masquerade project (Designer, Writer, and Programmer)

cancelled

🌻Pigeon Simulator, HakJak Studios (Producer)