📜 Today’s Side Quest ❗This week on Side Quests & Save Points, we welcome 🎙️ Sena Bryer - voice actor, writer, director, casting, and showrunner - best known as Wuk Lamat from Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail. We dive into their lifelong connection with Final Fantasy, behind-the-scenes VO stories, and the games that continue to inspire them. Expect chaos, heartfelt laughs, and deep RPG talk, it’s one for the Scions!

✨ In this Episode:🎮 Sena’s journey from Final Fantasy XI to voicing in XIV: Dawntrail🎙️ Vocal Theft Auto — which voices they’d steal for a day
🐉 Favorite Final Fantasy MMO memories & design philosophy📖 English major deep dives: narrative conflict in RPGs
🕹️ RPG Super Party picks & dream game roles
🎨 Sena’s own indie RPG project and pixel art adventure
💬 Critical Role, Baldur’s Gate 3, Tactics Ogre, and more RPG classics

🔗 My Links
🍻 Join 🍻The Tavern Discord🍺: https://discord.gg/73KfecTgEW
🎮 Twitch: https://twitch.tv/chefmonkeygaming
🐦 X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/ChefMonkeyGames
📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefmonkeygaming
🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@chefmonkeygaming
🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chefmonkeygaming
🌤️ BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chefmonkeygaming.bsky.social

🎙️ Follow Side Quests & Save Points Podcast
🐦 X (Twitter): https://x.com/sqsppodcast
🌤️ BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/sqsppodcast.bsky.social

🎙️ Guest Links – Sena Bryer
🐦 BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/senabryer.bsky.social
🎮 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/squidsena

🧵 Threads of Fate
#SideQuestsAndSavePoints
#FFXIV
#WukLamat
#SenaBryer
#VoiceActing
#FinalFantasyDawntrail
#MMORPG
#RPGPodcast#NarrativeDesign#GamingCommunity

📜 Today’s Side Quest ❗
Welcome to 🎙️Side Quests & Save Points💾 – the podcast where ignoring the main quest is half the fun and even the dialogue options go off-script.

This time, I’m back with Annie VanderMeer – narrative designer, writer, and world-builder whose resume runs from Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir to Guild Wars 2, Destiny, Unpacking and beyond.

We dive deep into the wild world of publishers vs. developers, behind-the-scenes chaos of canceled projects, lore drops that never made it into the final cut, and why old-school RPG mechanics still haunt our save files.

🎮 Episode Content Overview
📚 From Castlevania and childhood gaming memories to writing sequels for cult classics
🕹️ The unmade Taxi Driver game and how Hollywood IPs nearly broke the dev cycle
⚔️ Obsidian years: Neverwinter Nights 2, Alpha Protocol, and the canceled Aliens RPG
🐉 Building Guild Wars 2’s “personal story” and making choice matter in an MMO
💀 Lore drops that never saw daylight (Lyra the goddess of illusion lives… maybe)
🚪 Side quests that spiraled into chaos (Monkey Island insults, frog puns, and more)
🎲 What it’s really like working with publishers and IP holders behind the curtain
🌌 Dream RPG settings Annie would love to write for: Fallout and Star Wars

🔗 My Links
🍻 Join 🍻The Tavern Discord🍺: https://discord.gg/73KfecTgEW
🎮 Twitch: https://twitch.tv/chefmonkeygaming
🐦 X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/ChefMonkeyGames
📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefmonkeygaming
🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@chefmonkeygaming
🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chefmonkeygaming
🌤️ BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chefmonkeygaming.bsky.social

🎙️ Follow Side Quests & Save Points Podcast
🐦 X (Twitter): https://x.com/sqsppodcast
🌤️ BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/sqsppodcast.bsky.social
📺 Full Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL59mESx4aCcWhq2l2P4YcYh9KLMfCDv6N

🎙️ Guest Links – Annie VanderMeer
🎧 Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@frienda_podcast🌐 Website: https://www.annievandermeer.com/

🧵 Threads of Fate#SideQuestsAndSavePoints
#GameWriting
#RPGPodcast#NarrativeDesign
#NeverwinterNights2
#GuildWars2
#DestinyGame
#UnpackingGame
#Fallout
#StarWarsGames