I’m Leon Barillaro (they/them)
I’m a storyteller for playful mediums. I’ve done narrative and game design for video games, tabletop role-playing games, and immersive theater. Let’s find the fun together!
About Me
Adventure / Quest Design
I love building experiences that delight players and challenge them to make meaningful choices. My work was featured in Forbes and played at BroadwayCon.
7+ Years of Game Design Experience
I’ve shipped 3 video games, designed 4 immersive shows, worked for over 15 clients and companies, and written on over 50 tabletop RPG products.
Production & Project Management
I’ve led creative team brainstorms, directed immersive theatrical productions, and produced everything from crowdfunding spotlight events to video games.
Prototyping & Iteration
My technical background helps me pick up new tools and start making something playable. Narrative tools like Ren’Py, Twine, and ArcWeave are my specialty.
Blog
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There’s a lot of advice out there for how to be a ttrpg freelancer that companies love to work with. Hell, maybe I’ll write a post about that later. But there is less guidance for how to hold up the other end of that collaboration. As the industry grows, I’m seeing a lot of new
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It’s the year 2025, and everybody is obsessed with this ttrpg called Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Can’t get enough of it. There’s no shortage of games that cite 4e as inspiration for their own mechanics, and many of them came out this year! In this blog post, I want to talk about one 4e
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Or: How it Took Five Years to Make Five Minutes of Gameplay This is a blog post about how I made For Gregg, which you can play for free on itch right now! It takes 5 minutes. It’s probably a shorter read than this blog post! This post heavily discusses the game’s subject matter, so