Building science fiction worlds with Big Robot founder Jim Rossignol

gamedeveloper.com:

Jim Rossignol is a writer and game developer best known for his work with Big Robot: Sir, You Are Being Hunted, The Signal From Tölva, and The Light Keeps Us Safe. Developed by a small team, the Big Robot games all have a unique science fictional tone to them that strays away from the power fantasies of our biggest franchises and digs deeply into sneaking, strategic encounters, and the despair of wide-open spaces.

I sat down to chat with Rossignol about how he thinks about these worlds that he has had a hand in designing. This interview walks through both big science fiction ideas and the practical realities of making science fiction worlds as collaborative ventures. This interview travels from J.G. Ballard to weird England and a lot of other places in-between.

Game Developer: How do you define science fiction?

Jim Rossignol: I always liked Steven Shaviro’s “ghosts of the future” definition, the idea that science fiction is us being haunted by things that haven’t happened yet, but I think for me it’s more about the craft than that. Generally my interpretation of science fiction comes from reading loads of Ballard in my twenties. There's an amazing collection, which I buy occasionally and give away to people. Actually I have it on my desk at the moment, funnily enough, A User's Guide to the Millennium, which is a collection of his reviews and sort of criticism generally. He talks a lot about his idea that science fiction is the most important literature of the study of the 20th century. And I think whatever science fiction becomes will be the important literature of the 21st century as well. I think there’s a lot to his sort of general thesis of that science fiction is the mythology of modernity, and I think about what that