Ep 51: The Hero’s Journey

Summary: This week, Paul, Andrew and Saul (with the help of an intro by Dan!) step out of the Ordinary World and set off on a quest to examine The Heros Journey, that much trumpeted storytelling template that originates in the works of Joseph Campbell, famously expounded by Christopher Vogler and employed by the likes of George Lucas. Is the Journey the be-all and end-all of storytelling? How relevant is it to games? Which famous game developer recently expressed his dislike of it? And whats it got to do with shamans and their use of hallucinogenic substances? Find out, as we Cross the Threshhold. A few links to media discussed on the show: Joseph Campbells The Hero With a Thousand Faces (book). Christopher Voglers The Writers Journey (book). Daniel Benmerguis Storyteller (unreleased game), and an interview with him about it. Vladimir Propps Morphology of the Folktale (book), mentioned in the Benmergui interview. You can, as always, contact us through email, Twitter, Facebook or Google+. This episode can be found here (of course!), as well as via the RSS Feed or iTunes (we would love more ratings and reviews!). If there’s somewhere you can’t find us but wish you could, let us know. As always, thanks to Jordan Darcy for the audio work, and thanks to Dan for pre-recording the informative intro! Apologies for the late post - it seems I promised to write this and then completely forgot. For shame.