Lots of people out there dream of working in the world of video games, and these days the paths from "hey I like video games" to "hey I work in the games industry" are more varied and unpredictable than ever.

Take Cohen Edenfield for example. For years he's been prominent on Twitter as @skullmandible, one of those people with a ton of followers not because he's famous for something else, but just because he's really really good at tweeting. You've likely seen his infamous Mr. Peanut tweet somewhere online, either from Cohen directly or one of the thousand different sources that have since ripped it off without credit. His clown joke has been similarly hailed (and stolen).

Cohen wrote jokes like that for a few years, and built up his Twitter following. And now he has a job as the head writer of the upcoming Homestuck video game, and wrestled in PAXAMANIA II at PAX East 2016.

Life is funny sometimes.

I spoke to Cohen at PAX East about his Twitter success, the transition to game writing, and his plans for the future.

GameCrate: For people who don't know you, how do you describe who you are?

Cohen Edenfield: My name is Cohen Edenfield. I'm probably best known right now as Cohen is a Ghost, @skullmandible on Twitter. People like it, some people do...if people don't like it, I block them. Right now I'm also the head writer for Hiveswap, the Homestuck video game. That's going to be coming out pretty soon.

GC: And that's going to be an episodic game?

CE: Yeah, episodic. It's going to be about five chapters, and it's going to be really great! It's gorgeous.

GC: Do you think the game will have a lot of appeal for people who aren't familiar with the source material?

CE: I think so. In the same way that I think a lot of people, for instance...well that might not be the best example, I was going to say Brtual Legend for people who weren't metal fans. But let me think of an example that did better.

GC: Like the Telltale games?

CE: Yes, thank you. For people who didn't read all the Fables comics still liked The Wolf Among Us, people who haven't read all the Game of Thrones books played the Game of Thrones stuff, Walking Dead, same thing with people who haven't read all the comics. I think there's going to be a lot of appeal there. It's a fun, light game. We've got a lot of homages to classic adventure games without their headaches. It's going to be a lot of fun.

There's a lot of writing in the game. There's a lot. If you go looking for it, there's a lot to find. One of the things I find really frustrating in games is you try to combine things or try to use something on something, you just get a standard "I don't want to do that," or "That doesn't work." So there aren't those in this game, there are unique responses to everyting a player might try to do in the game system. So that's taking a while.

The music is gorgeous. We've got James Roach, veteran Homestuck music maker, we've got Toby Fox, Undertale was his big thing recently, also of Homestuck. We've got a lot of incredible artists, almost all of them are vetted Homestuck artists who contributed stuff, either to the comic itself or for Paradox Space, a side-project comic.

skullmandible vive pax east crop.jpg GC: So did your Twitter sucess help you get this job?

CE: 100%. Andrew Hussie e-mailed me and asked me if I'd heard of Hiveswap and if I'd like to work on it. And I later asked him how he found me, and he said "Oh I found you through your Twitter." That was it. He got my e-mail from Ryan North, and that was it. He's a friend who has also done some writing on the game. We've got a couple of other people who are still waiting in the wings who have done some writing contribution, we're not quite ready to announce yet. One of them especially is going to turn some heads, but we've got some heavy-hitters comedically working on this. As much as I'd like to take all the credit, I can't. It's just a great team.

GC: What have you been doing here at PAX East?

CE: I had a writing panel with Liam Miller on Friday that was just an absolute treat. It was about narrative it games, what works and what doesn't, how it's designed, the different types of writing jobs, because there's a lot of different types of games writers. We had someone who was writing stuff for Magic cards, we had board game writers, just a great mix.

Saturday morning we had Scared Yet?, Kris Straub's horror panel, which was just amazing. Talking about what works and what doesn't in horror games, and what we like, and what frightens us and what doesn't. For me it's all about mood and it's all about making the player complicit in what's happening. I think that's also an important thing in games in general, you have to make the player feel like they are in some way agreeing to participate in what's going on, rather than being just a passive participant. Or if your agency is being taken away, that needs to be acknowledged and up front as part of the narrative.

And then this morning PAXAMANIA, where I was brutally betrayed by Alex Navarro. And I will haunt him to Hell and back.



Last night I went to a great romance games writing panel, with my friend Arden, whose game Date or Die's demo just dropped. It is very erotic, do not play if you are at work. It's just fantastic.

I've seen some great games, I've seen some amazing stuff. I bought too much Transistor stuff, because that's one of my favorite games. And there's some really cool stuff coming out of Double Fine, and Thimbleweed looks amazing. I've kind of been dreaming of coming here for like 10 years.

I actually got my start comedy writing at all posting on the Penny Arcade forums, just trying to make jokes and just getting crucified by a very, very discerning audience. It was like Showtime at the Apollo. I later realized that I was fourteen, trying to entertain jaded 22-year-old gamers, not the easiest audience. But that was the first place where I was trying to make people laugh with words on purpose. And I eventually realized I was putting a lot of time into there that I could be...maybe I'll try putting words on Twitter? So there's kind of a direct through-line from posting on a video game forum to my career now.

GC: So is game writing what you want to do? Is that where you see yourself from now on?

CE: I think for a while. I think so, for sure. It's a great medium, there's so much you can do. I feel like anything else would be taking tools out of the box, for what I can put together and try to say. And it's like "What about writing TV?" and that would be taking away getting to work with narrative designers and programmers, "What about writing a comic?" and that would take away...not that those aren't great mediums, but I love working with a lot of people, and everybody's bringing it together and we're making something that's greater than the sum of those parts. I love it.

GC: What are you playing right now?

CE: I just finished SOMA, which was one of the best games I've ever played. I'm about to restart Bloodborne. I played it for a while last October and then got really busy with other stuff, and I want to go back to that world. I never quite clicked with Dark Souls but I feel like with Bloodborne it makes more sense to me, and I'm starting to get a sense of why people love those games so much.

GC: Do you consider yourself more of a console gamer or a PC gamer?

CE: I have never in my life had a functioning PC that was up to date at all, so by necessity I've been a console gamer. I'm thinking about putting a PC together...do you happen to know anyone who could help me with that?

GC: I might be able to help you out.