Iiro Peltonen has long been drawn to visual storytelling – as a child he gravitated toward picture books and comics over novels – and that passion carried him into film, television, and now games. On IMDb, he’s credited as director, writer, and editor on short films including Upovanie (2014), Toinen meistä (2011), and Ravenge (2013).
Iiro has nurtured a lifelong hobby for gaming, and in 2021 after 15 years of working in documentary television he made the mistake of turning another hobby into his profession by teaching himself game development and programming, and getting accepted into his MA in Game Design and Development at Aalto University.
“Cinematic” is a word used to describe visually stunning or or emotionally impactful narrative games. What does that word even mean, and how can we achieve cinematic quality on purpose by looking at the established art of filmmaking.