Games

Producer at Strange Scaffold

I served as the Lead Producer at Strange Scaffold for our 2023 vampire-hunting, world-ending shooter, El Paso, Elsewhere.

• I managed a fully remote team of 12 core collaborators (plus the two contracted teams handling porting and QA) from Brazil to Japan - a 12 hour time difference across the team - to deliver the 50-level, fully voiced game.
• Production on the game started in 2020, and I joined March 2023, providing key documentation, organization, and scheduling to ensure we successfully hit our release date in September of 2023.
• I continue to provide post-launch support, and immediately following our internal postmortem, I was asked to lead the studio's next game, Life Eater.

Rat House Games

Rat House Games is a New York based studio of multidisciplinary queer artists and game designers brought together by humor as a tool for resilience. They aim to tell lighthearted stories through accessible games that empower marginalized communities.

During the 2021 Cohort of EmergeNYC, I met Jason Wang. Jason presented a 5 minute sketch comedy piece called Ranked Choice Dating, styled like a dating sim. It is a darkly satiric look at the 2021 NYC mayoral race, and I loved the black humor. I told them I had made visual novels before and wanted to develop the idea into a full game. They agreed, so we collaborated to create a tiny studio named Rat House Games.

• We brought together a team of 7 - primarily first time game devs - to develop all 10 endings.
• We completed art, sound, programming, and writing in 3 months total.
• The game has been performed as a show in the Brick's ?! Festival (September 2021, NYC), and Tuesday Night Project's Queer All Year show (June 2023, LA).
• We have also been featured by From the Intercom.

Solo Dev

I have been developing games by myself (or on small jam teams) since 2016. Most notably:

• My storybook game Professor Quackerton in: The Locked Birdhouse was featured in Indiepocalypse's 29th Issue.
• The roleplaying game/zine Cryptid Miscommunication was successfully funded on Kickstarter in February 2021 as a part of Zine Quest 3 and was printed at Studio Two Three in RVA.
• Map Your Home is a business card sized micro-rpg that has been taught in a college course on game design.

You can find more of my games and jam work on my itch.io page.

Directing

The Story Reaper

This spooky collection of narratives will take listeners all over the world with the Storyreaper and their apprentice as they listen to and collect the strangers' mysterious accounts. This world is full of untold tales - frightful and profound, fantastical and honest. These stories are waiting. And they must be collected.

I cast and voice directed season one of the all ages fantasy-horror podcast The Story Reaper. The season includes 8 episodes written by 8 different writers, all of marginalized genders, including myself for the final episode Hungry House.

The cast includes 24 actors across 46 different characters, obviously with many of the actors doubling roles.

Episodes can be found on Overcast, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or wherever you collect your podcasts.

Exit 7 by Clare Beth McConnell

Exit 7 is an original coming of age story - a story about broken rules, infatuation with books, delirious laughter, gut-wrenching mistakes, small untruths, and disarming declarations. But, most of all, this is a story about girls.

In winter of 2021, I directed this original play to be performed masked but live in a theater, filmed and then broadcasted to the virtual audience. I met Clare Beth at the O'Neill National Theater Institute, and we've been longtime collaborators since then, and I thank her for trusting me with this piece in these very unique circumstances.

I directed the play completely virtually, never meeting the actors, stage manager, or designers in person during the process. We coordinated over email, drive, and discord to create the piece. It came together with a budget of $400 thanks to the team of student designers at Furman, where Clare Beth was (at the time) a senior. Full credits can be found in the video's description.

Exit 7 photos by Kaitlin Noble.

Writing Samples

My writing can be seen in action in Professor Quackerton in: The Locked Birdhouse, the jam game A Reel Mystery, and The Story Reaper episode 8: Hungry House (coming 2024).

Animated Short

So You're Probably Wondering- is a 3 page action comedy starring a tiny pug super spy.

Dialogue

A 10 page selection of dialogue snippets pulled from my scripts and screenplays. In order: Buyer's Remorse (live action), Sewer Rat (stage), and Closer Than They Seem (animation).

Video Game Barks

Written for a multiplayer FPS with bouncy, memorable characters, a la Overwatch. Please note, the 'Cora Valdez' barks cover suggestive and nsfw topics.

For more writing samples, send me an email.

Voice Acting

I have extensive vocal training - primarily from my musical theatre background - and I have decided to use my powers for evil I voice characters in video games, podcasts, and animation. I am listed in the QueerVox database.

Credits

• Incidental characters in El Paso, Elsewhere
• Incidental characters in The Story Reaper (alongside casting and directing the project)
• Nikomedes Anisop in The Sound of Your Name and Enthusiastic Tagger in Under the Electric Stars, both a part of the Aster Podcasting network
• NDA training scenarios for a prominent LGBTQIA+ organization

Trained with

• Forrest McClendon
• Dory Rebekah Sibley
• Jermaine Rowe
• Dave McRee
• Tommy Mandel
• Theresa Buchheister
• Ryan William Downey
• Rachael Messer
• Sarah Natochenny

Sound Design

I have designed sound in Richmond, VA for many of the local theaters. These plays include:

• The Light* by Loy A. Webb and Dr. Ride's American Beach House by Liza Birkenmeier at Yes, And! Theatrical Co. *Nominated for RTCC's Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design
• How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel at The Conciliation Lab
• Collective Rage by Jen Silverman, Stonewallin' by Kari Barclay, Vincent River by Philip Ridley, and The Pink Unicorn by Elise Forier Edie at Richmond Triangle Players

I am always available for new sound design projects, and welcome inquiries.

About

or: who's this clown?

Hi! I'm Candace. My work is clown and queer; it seeks to challenge and stretch what is expected or known into a kinder, more caring, more attentive, and more inclusive space than the world at large.

It needs to exist so I can.

I make work that imagines a brighter world, that reflects what I see around me, and refracts it to emphasize the absurdities of day to day life of a working class, queer, southerner. I want to make work that makes you laugh and cry at the same time and makes you wonder, is this the way that things actually have to be? Why?

I currently reside on Powhatan land - otherwise known as Richmond, VA, USA - but I work all around the country and the world, both remotely and while traveling. I love to connect with folks from locales I've never been to and hear about the places that they love.

I am available for freelance, part time, or full time directing, producing, designing, VO, and writing work. (Yes, that is a lot of things! I'm a very curious person!) My email is the best way to reach me, and is situated at the top and bottom of this page.

This about page was last updated in January of 2024.