All my life I’ve been a fierce force of imagination, persistence, and hard work: like a dragon hunting for gold. But instead of treasure, I’ve been searching for stories to tell and ways to make an impact.

Born in Belarus, I studied journalism in Bulgaria and worked in marketing in Russia, but storytelling has always been my true passion. I create narratives that allow people to explore fresh perspectives in a safe, immersive way.

As a queer, neurodivergent woman from a patriarchal country, I’m passionate about shedding light on complex topics through my work. Over the years, I’ve designed more than 100 LARP games, written 10+ original tabletop campaigns, and worked as a script supervisor on the short film Mein Name Akim (2024), which tells the story of transgender refugees in Germany.

During my MA in Serial Storytelling at IFS Cologne, I honed my skills across genres, working on solo projects as well as collaborating in Writers' Rooms.

Currently, I’m co-developing a visual novel game with a co-author as a passion project.

Now that I've completed my degree, I’m eager to bring my creativity to TV and gaming, crafting stories in both English and German.

Dragons never stop breathing fire. And neither do I, with an endless flow of ideas and stories I can’t wait to share.

Alena Lysiakova

🎧 Too much sound can ruin your audio game.

Audio designers love layering: music, background ambience, footsteps, breathing, radio static, wind, distant sirens, and emotional underscore. 

And suddenly your “immersive experience” feels like standing inside a broken washing machine. 

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most people don’t play audio games in perfect silence. They’re commuting. Cooking. Walking. Folding laundry. 

Audio storytelling competes with real life. If your game requires 100% concentration at all times just to understand what’s happening, you’re designing against the format.

Cognitive overload is real:
🐲 Constant SFX + dense dialogue = fatigue
🐲 Overlapping voices = confusion
🐲 Permanent music bed = emotional flattening
🐲 No breathing room = listener burnout

Immersion doesn’t come from “more sound.” It comes from intentional sound. Silence matters. Contrast matters. Clarity matters. Design audio like oxygen.

Good audio narrative design respects the listener’s brain, because the worst experience isn’t “hard,” it’s exhausting.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames

Alena Lysiakova 🐉

Narrative designer and screenwriter ▶️ Let's create stories that make an impact

Here’s something most audio writers don’t plan for 👉 players will mishear things. 


Names. Instructions. Locations. Important clues. And no, it’s not because they’re inattentive. It’s because audio competes with real life.

If your entire branching logic collapses because someone misheard “Mara” as “Nara,” that’s not player failure. 👉 That’s architectural fragility.

Designing for mishearing means:
👾 Avoid critical distinctions that rely on similar-sounding names
🐲 Reinforce important information through variation, not repetition
👾 Use context to clarify meaning instead of assuming perfect recall
🐲 Make systems resilient to imperfect listening

In audio, clarity isn’t about simplifying the story. It’s about building redundancy intelligently. The player shouldn’t need studio-level focus to follow your game.

If your structure only works in perfect silence with perfect attention, it’s not built for the real world.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #InteractiveStorytelling

The uncomfortable truth about writing for audio: sometimes experience gets in the way. 🐲 


I coach a lot of writers transitioning into interactive audio, and I keep seeing the same pattern: the more experienced the writer, the harder it can be to adapt.

Not because they’re not talented, but because they’re used to controlling the frame.

In audio, you don’t have visuals to lean on. You don’t have text people can reread. You don’t have cinematic shortcuts.

You have a voice. Timing. Space. Silence. Choice phrasing. Cognitive load.

And if you try to force screenwriting logic or prose logic onto audio without adjusting, the story simply doesn’t breathe. 

💡 Audio is a different architecture. It demands different pacing, different exposition control and different emotional calibration.

That’s why transitioning with a coach helps. Not because you don’t know how to write, but because someone needs to point out the invisible friction early.

You can read all the documents you want. Clarity usually comes when someone listens and says, “This works. This doesn’t. And here’s why, specifically for audio.”

Different medium requires different muscles. And once they click, audio becomes addictive.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #StoryCoaching

Dating used to be awkward dinners and nervous eye contact… now it’s co-op bosses and shared loot drops. 🎮💘

In my latest article, I dig into why playing together is becoming the new dating, and how games are quietly reshaping connection, chemistry, and even heartbreak.

👉 https://lnkd.in/eU6XgMn8

If you’re into storytelling, relationships, or just fascinated by how games intersect with real life feelings, this one might hit a nerve.

#GamingCulture #Storytelling

Open article: Why playing together is the new dating by meer.com

🎧 Your audio game must survive interruptions


People don’t play audio games the way they play visual ones.  They’re walking. Cooking. Commuting. Someone asks them a question. A notification pops up. The subway arrives.

And suddenly your carefully crafted scene is paused for five minutes.

🐲 When they come back, the player shouldn’t feel lost. That’s why good audio narrative design builds re-entry points into the architecture, those small structural cues that help the brain reconnect:

👾 A character briefly restating the immediate goal
👾A reaction that reminds the player what just happened
👾Environmental cues that re-establish the situation
👾A choice that naturally summarizes the stakes

These moments are navigation; because audio games exist in the middle of real life, not inside a perfectly controlled gaming session. 

💡 If your story only works when the listener gives it uninterrupted attention, you’re designing for an ideal player that doesn’t exist. Good audio architecture assumes interruptions and quietly guides the player back in.

#audiogames #narrativedesign #storyarchitecture

In visual games, players always know where they are. There’s a map, a UI, and a quest log. Basically, something grounding them.

In audio there is nothing like that. Which means if you don’t deliberately build structural anchors, your story starts to drift.

Structural anchors are recurring elements that help listeners orient themselves without realizing it.

It could be:
🐲 A specific location you return to
🐲 A character who always reappears between major beats
🐲 A ritual moment (a radio check-in, a diary entry, a nightly call)
🐲 A recurring sound cue that signals transition

These anchors are architecture. Without them, scenes blur. Branches feel random. The player doesn’t feel lost because the plot is confusing; they feel lost because there’s no spatial or emotional reference point. Audio needs repetition with intention.

When players hear that familiar voice, that recurring space, that structural checkpoint, their brain relaxes. Orientation returns. Engagement stabilizes.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames

All screenplays benefit from being visual. 
💡 But for vertical storytelling, it’s not a nice bonus: it’s survival.


In a traditional film or TV script, you can sometimes get away with dialogue carrying the scene. Two characters talking in a room can still work if the emotional stakes are strong enough. In verticals, that scene is dead on arrival.

The viewer is watching on a phone, often half-distracted, scrolling with their thumb, ready to abandon you at any second. If nothing visually happens, the story simply disappears. 👉 Vertical scenes need immediate visual signals.

You don't need long exposition or dialogue. Just one visual action that tells the entire story beat.

🐲 That’s the real discipline vertical storytelling teaches you: if the audience can understand the moment without sound, you’re probably doing it right.
#Screenwriting #VerticalSeries #Storytelling

Choices without context aren’t suspenseful. 💀 


They’re just guesses.

🐲 When a player is asked to make a decision, they need enough information to imagine possible outcomes, not the exact result, but the shape of the risk.

Take this:
“Should he hide or confront the burglar?”
That’s not a meaningful choice. It’s a coin toss.

Now compare it to:
“Hiding is probably the safer choice, but what if he can stop the thief right now? Should he hide or confront the burglar?”

Same options. Completely different experience.

💡 The second version gives the player something to weigh: safety vs. action, fear vs. responsibility, risk now vs. regret later.

Good narrative design isn’t about revealing consequences. It’s about framing decisions so the player can reason emotionally, not randomly.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #GameWriting

I’ll be attending Series Mania Forum on March 24 to 26.


Do you want to talk series and verticals? 🎬  
🐲 Let's meet and talk over coffee in Lille. 

#SeriesMania #VerticalSeries #Networking

Limuni

helping Founders become directors and create the business of their dreams ✨️ 

DM me to book an intro call 🍋

Founder & Business Strategist 🍋 

NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

🚀 Inclusion Diversity Equity & Access Consulting

🚀 Reviewing inclusion plans of STEM programmes

🚀 Focus on creative solutions to inclusion needs 

🚀 Collaborate with IDEA teams to form effective feedback

IDEA Professional

Nobody Studios

Crowd Investor

THE NONBINARY CORNER

Co-Founder & Host

Events Industry

⬛️ I have organised 800+ events in 10 yrs & led 50+ International teams generating over £200k to my clients directly 


⬛️ I have specialised in Festivals operations and worked across the UK and Sicily (IT) ranging between the 3.000 - 60.000 people attendance and coordinated single-handedly teams varying from 2 - 30 people and also coordinated online events with a few hundred in the audience.

⬛️ I have contributed to the smooth run of traffic management operations, artist liaison, stage management, decor project management, events planning and set up, de-rigging and conflict management. 

I have worked for a large variety of Events and Festivals in the UK, here's a sample :

⬛️ Eden Festival, Scotland / June 2017, 2018, 2019, 2024
⬛️ Solfest Festival, Cumbria / August 2018
⬛️ Sketchy Beats Stage, Lindisfarne Festival, Northumberland / August 2018
⬛️ Kelburn Garden Party Festival, Scotland / July 2016,2017,2022,2024
⬛️ Eye Of Storm Events Company, Boomtown Fair, England / August 2017
⬛️Audio Soup 2016,2017
⬛️ Knockengorroch 2017


Some of the roles covered

𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫
𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫
𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫
𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐏𝐎𝐂
𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐆𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧
𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐆𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭
𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫
𝐂𝐨𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦
𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐭 𝐏𝐲𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞
𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫
𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐎𝐥𝐝 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞

Festivals and Events Operations Manager

The Founders' Strategist 🌞 I help you overcome OVERWHELM by building a clear strategy that takes your biz to the next level | Nonbinary Sicilian Founder 🏳️‍🌈

I support scaling Founders in building stable businesses. 🍋 


my Founders have this issue : 

1) they have scaled their business successfully but are working too much 


this makes them overwhelmed by having to lead all biz areas and causes them to either shut down or scale down their biz 

this issue is common because scaling forces a Founder to grow from specialist to director which is what I support with.



when I started my Events Operations career, I had the same exact issues.

today, I have 800 events projects under my belt and a strategic directorial skillset so I can work with my passions without being overwhelmed.



I love teaching Founders the same skillset using these 4 steps : 

AUDIT : to define your point A 

STRATEGY ALIGNMENT : ensuring your biz strategy is aligned with personal needs 

ACCOUNTABILITY AND SUPPORT : you get clear and simple action plans to execute and remove decision making fatigue 

TRAINING: I will train you on strategic thinking so you learn how to be a director to your business and take the best decisions 






Client Case Study 


Karissa Pearlstone : 

- helped her build an Ops department and her first team to sustain £10k -> £40k growth 

- learned to hire, onboard and fire in a ethical and effective way 

- defined workflow process and systems 

- defined ideal clients and staff 

- clear long - term vision and plan to buy her time back 

- clear short - term actions to stabilise the business 

- improved client experience pathway 

- created a bank of SOPs to speed up staff onboarding 


In 1 yr, Karissa has quadrupled her income, built a team , went on 3 holidays, moved to her dream country and reconnected with herself. 



Today Karissa is working 1:1 with me and also joined my Strategy Mastermind where I coach a group of driven Founders. 


If you're a scaling Founder who wants to build stability in their business, DM to book a chat.  🍋

taplio

The Battle

Alena Lysiakova

Lu Castello 🍋

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The Battle

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Lu Castello 🍋

Followers

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Engagements

Likes

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