{"id":4056,"date":"2025-04-02T11:30:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T16:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/english\/?p=4056"},"modified":"2025-07-24T09:19:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T09:19:21","slug":"joe-weaver-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.valpo.edu\/college-of-arts-and-sciences\/joe-weaver-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Weaver \u201923"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing
Field: Game Design<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Valpo alumnus Joe Weaver ’23 values authentic education, believing in \u201cbringing your whole self\u201d inside and outside the classroom. With a background in physical therapy and architectural drafting, he pursued a creative writing degree to become a novelist. However, after meeting Professor Martin Buinicki, Weaver shifted his focus to the gaming industry. Alongside Professor Buinicki, he helped found Valpo\u2019s first role-playing game (RPG) club, Rolling with RPGs, to encourage student involvement in gaming through play, design, or writing. Weaver has also founded his own game publishing company, Advent Chaos LLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weaver\u2019s favorite part of game design is the development process: \u201cIt\u2019s taking your own idea and bringing it to life. \u2026 There\u2019s a lot of fulfillment that comes from writing for other people, too.\u201d For Weaver, the writing process is as much about formation as it is interaction with other creatives and players. When writing, he focuses on immersion and \u201cletting the player truly experience the story.\u201d To achieve this, he understands that the process of refining a narrative is just as important as the initial creation. As a writer, he recognizes that peer review and revisions are essential in crafting the best, most beautiful products. Weaver declares, \u201cIf a pen were a sword, then criticism is the whetstone that sharpens it.\u201d His advice for creators overcoming their protective, precious instincts is to recognize that \u201cif you don\u2019t tell me what you honestly think of my work, someone else will. If it can be fixed, you want somebody to be critical so that it can be the best product that it can be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For aspiring game creators, Weaver suggests attending the forthcoming Center for Games and Interactive Entertainment to be a valuable resource, offering aspiring gaming professionals hands-on experience and rich opportunities to further their expertise. Another illuminating path is attending gaming conventions, as owners and developers attend and are open to discussion, with Weaver describing them as \u201carchives of information.\u201d Finally, Weaver suggests creating an artist portfolio \u2013 digitally for convenience \u2013 showcasing the creator\u2019s biggest strengths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking forward, Weaver\u2019s plans are full of new, creative projects. As a contributing writer for Imagining Games, Weaver has one game planned to be released with them, and a different, independent game currently in development. With two games set to be released next year, Weaver\u2019s schedule is packed with activity and innovation. Long-term, he plans to write a novella, To Feast with Wolves, a Renaissance-period novel which he describes as a \u201cPirates of the Caribbean meets Indiana Jones sort of story, where a pirate chases down the Big Three Christian relics of legend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Weaver continues writing and publishing, he wants future and current artists to remember that: \u201cWords matter. They carry weight and can affect someone you\u2019ll never meet in ways you don\u2019t expect. It\u2019s the very essence of what makes writing an art form, and art requires patience. Making good revisions requires you to exercise that patience. Know that \u2018perfection\u2019 is usually in the eye of the beholder, but remember that something doesn\u2019t have to be perfect to be beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by: Carmen Hernandez \u201926<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally published in the fall 2024 edition of The Lodestar, Valparaiso University\u2019s English department newsletter. Since this article was published, Joe has continued to shine \u2013 his work with Imagining Games was honored as a Judges\u2019 Spotlight Winner at the 2024 ENNIE Awards, one of the tabletop RPG industry\u2019s largest recognitions.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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