EarReality

Narrative Designer 

Screenwriter

Paralect

Full writing support for the needs of the company:
- Writing articles and guest posts
- Creating case studies and video scripts
- Writing ads for various online channels
- Interviewing
- Supporting sales, product and marketing activities

Left the company to study full-time for MA Serial Storytelling in Germany

Copywriter

StockBattle

Worked on several web and mobile games aimed at crypto and stock market education. 
- UX writing
- Social media writing
- Blogging

Media Manager

FBS Inc.

- Managing a creative team (6 people) of the traffic department, later - of the FBS Global product, team lead.
- Copywriting for websites, landing pages, offline and online materials of the company in English.
- Creation of creative concepts, UX copywriting
- Editing and proofreading of materials for novice copywriters, training for copywriters

Creative Team Lead / Copywriter 

Heads and Hands

Content marketing and PR for Russian and International markets:
- Strategy planning
- Content marketing (blogging, SMM, ratings, etc.)
- PR
- Online Marketing

Marketing and PR specialist

Reksoft

Marketing Manager

Marketing Assistant

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 🐉 🔜 GAMESCOM

In audio games, players can’t scroll back. 


They can’t “check the log.” They’re usually listening while cooking or commuting, not taking notes like a detective.

So if your story relies on the player remembering a random detail from minute 3 to survive minute 22, good luck. Your plot may be brilliant, but the format will eat it alive.

🐲 Audio narrative design has to support memory.

 Not through exposition dumps, but through systems that anchor recall:
+ Recurring motifs (a phrase, a sound, a location)
+ Audio cues that repeat at key moments
+ Mirrored consequences that call back to earlier actions

💡 These are structural tools, not flavor text. They let players remember without needing a rewind button. Because if your story only works when someone can reread it: you didn’t design for audio. You designed for a book.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #StoryArchitecture

Alena Lysiakova 🐉

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

If your characters agree too often, something is wrong. 🎬

Harmony might be great in real life (depending on who you ask), but on the page it’s story poison. When everyone shares the same opinion, makes the same choice, or nods politely in every scene… there’s nothing to watch. No movement. No friction. No reason for us to lean in.

Stories don’t run on plot twists alone 👉  they run on pressure.

Tiny disagreements. Conflicting priorities. One person wanting something now while the other wants it later. A silent “no” that derails a plan without a single shout.

Characters don’t need to scream at each other to create tension. 💡 They just need to want things that don’t align. Even slightly. That’s enough to make a scene feel alive.

🐲 So if your dialogue reads like everyone attended the same group therapy and agreed to be mature about it, throw in a value clash. A boundary. A secret. A refusal that doesn’t look like one.

#Screenwriting #Storytelling #GameWriting

I just finished reading HOW TO WRITE A VERTICAL SERIES IN 10 DAYS by Isabel Dréan, and honestly, it exceeded every expectation I had. 💜 

I went in hoping for a few insights.

What I got was a full, practical roadmap: tasks, exercises, industry guidance, and a crystal-clear breakdown of how to actually enter the vertical series world. It's easy to read, but more importantly, it's easy to apply. 🐲 The book basically screams, “Start now,” and as a screenwriter, that was exactly the push I needed.

Now I know exactly how to structure my vertical series portfolio and how to approach producers with my concepts. Huge thanks to Isabel for creating such a sharp, actionable guide: it immediately earned a place on my “write with purpose” shelf.

👉 If you're a new creator or screenwriter who wants a real, practical entry point into the vertical series industry, this book is a must. 
https://lnkd.in/eaKhHw2w

#Screenwriting #VerticalSeries #BookReview

Some interactive stories love throwing choices at players like confetti.


A choice here, a choice there: none of them actually do anything, but hey, it feels interactive, right? 

🐲 No.

 That’s writing pretend-agency. It’s a novelty menu. It’s decorating the game with buttons that aren’t hooked to anything. 

Real narrative design is systemic.
👉 Choices should connect to variables that influence:
+ relationships (trust, fear, loyalty)
+ difficulty (risk, scarcity, knowledge)
+ consequences (routes, scenes, endings)
+ pacing (when info drops, when tension spikes)

If your branching doesn’t change the system, it’s not interaction: it’s decoration.

💡 Players don’t remember how many buttons you gave them. They remember how their choice changed the world, the character, or the story’s tone. We’re not designing “options.” We’re designing impact.

#NarrativeDesign #GameWriting #AudioGames

Everyone loves saying “games are the new IP goldmine”, until it’s time to adapt one and suddenly half the story disappears and the other half gets rewritten into something no fan recognizes. 🎮📺


So I wrote about what makes good adaptations work.

How to translate gameplay into story, treat worldbuilding like a character, and keep both longtime fans and newcomers hooked without bending the source material into something unrecognizable.

👉 Game Over for Bad Adaptations 
https://lnkd.in/ejp-QaQF

If you care about storytelling across mediums,  this one’s for you.

#Adaptation #Storytelling #Screenwriting

Open article: Game over for bad adaptations by meer.com

Let’s be honest, most early world-building documents look like Pinterest boards in disguise. 👾 

Pretty aesthetics. Moody adjectives. 

But in audio games, vibes won’t save you. 👉 Rules will.

If the player can’t predict how the world behaves, they can’t make meaningful choices.

And if they can’t make meaningful choices… well, what are we even doing here?

Strong audio world-building isn’t about lore dumps: it’s about systems thinking:

🧩 Consistent logic
 Magic works the same every time.
 Social rules don’t change based on a writer’s mood.
 Danger has clear signals that the player can learn.

🔊 Predictable sensory cues
 A sound has a purpose. A silence has a consequence.
 The player should learn the world’s language without needing a codex.

👤 NPCs follow world rules too
 If everyone except the protagonist behaves like they’re in another genre, your world collapses faster than a badly mixed audio cue.

🗺️ Boundaries that define possibility
 The world needs limits. What can’t happen is just as important as what can.
Because a world with vibes but no rules isn’t a world. It’s a mood board with dialogue.

🐲 Design your world like a system, and the player will believe in it instantly.

#NarrativeDesign #Worldbuilding #AudioGames

Writers love to obsess over genre:
 “Is it a drama? A thriller? A dark comedy?”


👉 Here’s a secret: your tone decides that long before your logline does.


Take this:
 A couple argues in a car during a thunderstorm.
 💔 In a drama, it’s the last fight before they break up.
 😂 In a dark comedy, lightning strikes right as one says, “At least things can’t get worse.”
 🔪 In a thriller, someone’s bleeding in the trunk and the argument’s just a cover.

Same setup. Totally different story: all because of tone.

Tone tells your audience how to feel about what’s happening, even before the plot fully unfolds. It’s the lens through which they interpret every line, every silence.

🐲 So before rewriting your script for the tenth time, don’t change the plot. Change the tone. Sometimes it's even more effective.

#Storytelling #WritingTips

Here’s something I learned writing for audio: if you build your episode like a typical visual game, escalating scene after escalating scene, your listeners will mentally check out by minute 12.


Why? 
👉 Because audio burns brainpower faster than visuals.
There’s no UI, no map, no screen to anchor attention. Just the player, their imagination, and whatever chaos you hand them.

That’s why audio episodes need chains, not ladders:
🔗 Repeat anchor points
 A recurring sound, phrase, or location the player can “grab” onto.

🔗 Linked beats instead of vertical escalation
 Scene → consequence → micro-turn → reorientation → next link
INSTEAD OF
Action → Bigger Action → Biggest Action → listener meltdown.

🔗 Reorientation moments
 Tiny resets that say, “Here’s where you are. Here’s what changed.”

🔗 A rhythm, not a sprint
The emotional pulse matters more than the scale of the event.

🐲 Because if your episode structure only works when players can stare at a screen, it won’t survive in audio. 

💡 Design for the listener’s brain, not the writer’s adrenaline.

#NarrativeDesign #AudioGames #StoryArchitecture

EarReality is hosting a free webinar for anyone curious about interactive audio.

🐲 And yes, I’ll be one of the hosts.

Here’s what we’re diving into: 

✅ The TWIST Engine: A clean, no-nonsense intro to the tool we use to build interactive audio stories (the same one I used to write all my audio games).

✅ Business & Publishing Opportunities: self-publishing, collaborations, monetization: the whole ecosystem and how you can actually earn from your stories.

✅ Live Demo: we’ll start with a 30-minute listening session so you can hear what interactive audio feels like before we break down how it’s made.

If you’ve been meaning to try this format, want to explore it for your professional projects, or you’re just audio-curious, this webinar will save you weeks of trial-and-error.

🗓️ The LinkedIn Event link is right below. Seats are capped at 100, so grab yours before it fills up. And if you want to support the event, a like, share, or repost would make my day. 😎

#EarReality #TWIST #NarrativeDesign #Storytelling #InteractiveAudio

Helping Media Companies, Game Studios & Brands Expand Their IP Through Interactive Storytelling | CEO @ EarReality | TWIST Game Engine | Transmedia Strategy | In-Car, Mobile & Web Experiences

🎤 🎧  Finally, we’re hosting a FREE webinar for authors, narrative designers, and brand marketers who want to understand how interactive audio works and how to create it. 🕹️

What the session covers:

✅ TWIST Engine
A clear introduction to the tool we use to create interactive audio stories.

✅ Business Opportunities
How self-publishing, collaborations, and monetization work on TWIST and TWIST Tales.

✅ Practical Demo
We begin with a 30-minute listening session so you can hear an interactive audio story before learning the production workflow.

If you want to create interactive audio, evaluate the format for professional use, or explore future publishing opportunities, this session gives you the essentials.

This webinar is listed as a LinkedIn Event.
The registration link is directly beneath this post.
Seats are limited to 100 participants, so register early to receive the meeting link.

If you want to support the event, feel free to like, share, or repost 😎 

#EarReality #TWIST #marketing #storytelling #games #gaming #stories #audiobooks #audio #RPGs #writing #books #narrativedesign

Christian Mahnke, Anastasiia Chetverikova and 28 other attendees

View event: EarReality Webinar: The Business of Interactive Audio & TWIST - Part 1

EarReality Webinar: The Business of Interactive Audio & TWIST - Part 1

🐲 Just a quick reminder: this week we’re hosting our interactive audio webinar: a deep dive into TWIST, storytelling tools, and how creators can actually publish and monetize their work in this format.

If you’re curious about interactive audio or want to explore new opportunities as a writer, narrative designer, or creator, join us. 🎧🔥

#NarrativeDesign #InteractiveAudio

⏰ Starting in ONE hour! 🎧🎤


Our webinar on interactive audio storytelling and the business behind it is about to kick off.

If you’ve been curious about how interactive audio works, how creators can actually publish and monetize their stories, or what the TWIST Engine looks like behind the scenes… this is your chance to join live.

 🔗 https://lnkd.in/ek5wHQJ2

See you there: bring your questions and your curiosity. 🎧 🐲 

#InteractiveAudio #Storytelling

Vaughan Broderick

Wiley

Co-Author, Innovation in Action

Helping organisations become future-ready & thrive in constant disruption through field-tested human-centred innovation methods

- Customer insights
- Customer experience design
- Growth strategy
- Service design
- Lean innovation methods
- Workshop design and facilitation
– Human-centred design capability programmes

🔥 Highlighted Testimonials:

"The experience was so positive and impactful for us that we have asked Vaughan back on numerous occasions to assist us with designing services.  His expertise in design thinking coupled with an engaging personal style makes him a valued member of the team that is transforming our organisation." 
- Nick Scott, General Manager, Service Delivery, Brackenridge

"Vaughan facilitated our value proposition workshop as we were at a loss as to how to get started. Vaughan skilfully challenged our thinking through a range of activities and questioning, and we left the workshops feeling a sense of clarity, newfound enthusiasm and collective understanding. We would not hesitate to use Vaughan again in the future.” 
- Sara Luckman, Strategy Manager, NZ Young Farmers

"The group greatly appreciated the interactive nature of the program combined with the opportunity to think and reflect on how the practices and skills developed would benefit the public sector and challenges with which they are grappling. Thanks Vaughan, hopefully we can repeat this next year." 
- Dr. Chris Vas, General Manager Food Innovation Precinct, Western Australia

Founder - Innovation Lab

University of Canterbury

Lecturer - Innovation by Design - July 2023 - Present

- Teaching human-centred design to business masters students.

Guest Coach - Executive MBA March 2023 - Present

- Coaching MBA innovation students

Mentor - Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Mar 2021- Present

- Mentoring student founders to utilise design thinking and lean innovation methods

Impact Lead - Centre for Entrepreneurship - July 2023 - Present

Innovation Lecturer - Executive MBA Coach - Startup Coach

Festival for the Future

Guest innovation workshop facilitator at Aotearoa’s biggest leadership and innovation summit.

Guest Workshop Facilitator

Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand

Authoring training content on Business Models, Value Propositions, Pitching & Storytelling, Strategy and Creative Problem-solving using a design thinking approach

Author - Strategy and Creative Problem-solving

Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury

Helping public sector organisations use design thinking to collaborate, innovate and create more insight driven, human-centric organisations.

+ Design thinking projects
+ Workshop facilitation
+ Design research
+ Prototyping and testing

Design Thinking Coach

Brackenridge Services Ltd

Helping to reimagine, redesign and implement service and system change to meet regulatory requirements, exceed client and stakeholder experiences and outcomes. So far, we have redesigned the assessment and transition process for individual service offerings that have resulted in reduced lead time, improved quality, reduced risk and increased customer experience and outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:
Co-designing service and innovation
Stakeholder engagement and communication
Amplifying the voice of the customer
Change leadership and embedding new ways of working

Change and Innovation Project Manager

Consulting in the social services sector as part of my MBA (and post-graduation), I am leading the digital transformation of Life Storybooks for young people in care. This project requires multi-stakeholder management, the development and maintenance of key relationships across all levels, meeting and surpassing key project deliverables and the development of effective change leadership implementation strategies.

The project necessitated the effective use of design thinking, lean and change leadership methodologies to manage various stages of the project and included the establishment of the additional project supporting elements such as foundation and design principles, organisational structures and development specifications.

Innovation Project Manager

Sabbatical

Taking a year off to travel with my family provided a great opportunity for many amazing experiences together. The most valuable part was how we developed personally and as a family when confronted with challenges and obstacles that required adaptability, problem-solving, teamwork and coping skills.

World Traveler

Broderick Consulting Ltd

Broderick Consulting was in the business of helping clients achieve their financial goals. I founded and grew a successful business serving hundreds of clients throughout New Zealand until a successful sale was executed.

Founder and Adviser 

Innovation coach helping you & your organisation thrive in disruption | Teaching proven practical methods to help people innovate | UC MBA | Follow for posts about startups, innovation & leadership

Innovation shouldn’t feel like pressure without progress.

Yet many leaders I work with are stuck in exactly that space.

They’re expected to move fast—but don’t have time to think.
They’re leading innovation—but unclear whether they’re solving the right problem.
They’ve run strategy sessions and pilots—but can’t make the change stick.

I help leaders and teams slow down where it matters—so they can move faster where it counts.

My work focuses on four key challenges:

Understanding the real problem behind the problem (no more jumping to solutions)
Designing smarter decisions in complexity (move forward with clarity, not chaos)
Aligning teams and stakeholders (so change feels shared, not forced)
Implementing innovation that sticks (not stalls)

I blend psychology, human-centred design, and practical strategy to help people turn insight into action - especially when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious.

As an innovation coach, advisor and educator, I’ve supported 225+ teams across business, government, and education to design smarter decisions and lead real change.

I’m known as The Slow Strategist - not because I move slowly, but because I help leaders pause where it matters most. Before assumptions harden. Before decisions get baked in. Before “solution mode” derails the real work.

I’m the co-author of Innovation in Action: Unlock Curiosity, Creativity and Clarity with the DUCTRI Method, and I write a weekly newsletter read by 10,000+ professionals who want to lead with confidence - not chaos.

Earlier in my career, I founded and scaled a financial services business to 2,000+ clients and $500M in assets. Burnout led to a complete reinvention: I sold the company, travelled through 23 countries with my family, completed an Exec MBA, and retrained in human-centred innovation.

That reset equipped me with the real skills leaders need to thrive in a VUCA world: slowing down to think clearly, making human-centred decisions in ambiguity, and turning insight into action.

If you’re:
	•	Leading innovation on a complex challenge
	•	Building something new from scratch
	•	Or stuck trying to make change stick

…here’s how I can help:

1. Read by 10,000+ smart professionals each week
-> https://vaughanbroderick.com/newsletter/

2. Join 275+ smart innovators on the Innovation in Action book waitlist:
-> https://vaughanbroderick.com/the-ductri-playbook/

3. Workshops | Consulting | Speaking | Innovation Training
-> Let’s have a conversation: DM me

Research Associate

Co-authoring academic research papers on innovation and design thinking.

Vaughan Broderick 🦆🌳

Met David Bland yesterday at Product Aotearoa and really appreciated the learning opportunity and conversations.

David's approach to testing business ideas connects, especially the focus on early discovery, reducing the say/do gap, and using evidence to guide your next move.

The session was a great use of practical tools, case stories and a good dose of humour to make the workshop invaluable.

Left with clearer thinking and many insights I’ll be taking into upcoming projects.

Thanks David - great to connect.

Vaughan Broderick and David Bland at Product Aotearoa Conference

Always fun to help another talented cohort of Summer Startup Founders at UC Centre for Entrepreneurship learn about customer conversations, so they can go deep into the lives of people they're trying to help.

Looking forward to the next session on sense-making and assumptions mapping. 🚀

View company: UC Centre for Entrepreneurship

How do you go about having compassionate conversations?

With RAISIN's of course...
- Rapport
- Active Listening
- Impartial
- Shut up
- In Deep
- Next Steps

Let's face it knowing where to start with interviewing potential customers, users, and stakeholders is both scary and hard. Our resident design-thinking expert Vaughan Broderick helped break this down for our Summer Startup participants this week. 

Reinforcing the importance of getting out and talking to people, but also providing useful tools and frameworks for exploring and understanding their world.

Thanks Vaughan, judging by our feedback, participants found your workshop pretty close to a 10/10.

taplio

The Battle

Alena Lysiakova 🐉 🔜 GAMESCOM

Vaughan Broderick 🦆🌳

Followers

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Performance ScoreAlena Lysiakova 🐉 🔜 GAMESCOM's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreVaughan Broderick 🦆🌳's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Alena Lysiakova 🐉 🔜 GAMESCOM

Vaughan Broderick 🦆🌳

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Alena Lysiakova 🐉 🔜 GAMESCOM's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreVaughan Broderick 🦆🌳's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAlena Lysiakova 🐉 🔜 GAMESCOM's LinkedIn Performance