Sean Vanaman
Quick Facts
Biography
Sean Vanaman (born June 16, 1984 in Cork, Ireland) is an American video game designer, writer, and podcaster. He was the co-project leader and lead writer of The Walking Dead, and Puzzle Agent 2. He also wrote the third episode of Tales of Monkey Island, and was the designer of Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, and the writer of the third episode, Muzzled. He is one of the regular hosts of the Idle Thumbs podcast and is one of the co-founders of Campo Santo.
Career
While studying at University of Southern California, Vanaman interned at Buena Vista Games (later renamed Disney Interactive Studios) in their creative development group. This group put together the initial concept and pitch for Epic Mickey in 2003. After graduation, he worked as an associate creative development producer at Disney Interactive. In 2008, Vanaman took a position at Telltale Games as a writer and game designer. He worked on Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, Tales of Monkey Island, and Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent before becoming project lead on Poker Night at the Inventory and The Walking Dead.
In 18 September 2013, he and Jake Rodkin left Telltale and joined with Olly Moss and Mark of the Ninja lead designer Nels Anderson to found Campo Santo.
Recognition
Tales of Monkey Island, for which Vanaman co-wrote, was nominated for "Best Artistic Design" and won for the award for "Biggest Surprise" at IGN's Best of PC E3 2009 Awards. After release, it won the PC Gamer 2009 "Adventure Game of the Year", was nominated for the IGN "Best Adventure Game of the Year" for PC and Wii, won the Adventure Gamers "Best Adventure of 2009", and was named the "Best Series Revival" by OC Weekly.
Puzzle Agent 2 was nominated at IGN's Best of E3 2011 Awards for "Best iPhone/iPad Game". The Walking Dead also won over 80 "Game of the Year" awards since release.
Portfolio
Year | Title | Role | Genre | Studio | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Co-developer | Publisher | ||||
2009 | Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures | Co-designer Co-writer | Episodic graphic adventure video game | Telltale Games | |
Tales of Monkey Island | Writer Episode designer | ||||
2010 | Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse | Episode design - The City that Dares Not Sleep | Episodic point-and-click video game | ||
Puzzle Agent | Co-writer Puzzle design | Puzzle adventure video game | |||
CSI: Fatal Conspiracy | Additional design | Telltale Games | Ubisoft | ||
Poker Night at the Inventory | Project leader | Poker video game | Telltale Games | ||
2011 | Puzzle Agent 2 | Co-project leader Lead writer | Puzzle adventure video game | ||
2012 | The Walking Dead | Graphic adventure drama video game | |||
2016 | Firewatch | Writer | Mystery adventure video game | Campo Santo | Panic |