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maxfolkman.bsky.social
Max Folkman
@maxfolkman.bsky.social
1.3K followers 610 following 89 posts
Writer, Director w/ @nickfolkman.bsky.social • Now: Senior Writer @ Riot Games • Prev: Spider-Man 2, Ratchet & Clank, Miles Morales, MASSIVE CHALICE • voice on @scriptlock.bsky.social • Rep: Rain Management
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Reposted by Max Folkman
lmichet.bsky.social
Learned that I am being laid off from Heart Machine, and will be leaving the studio later this month.

Do you need a contractor? I've got a track record of leading scope-friendly script revisions late in dev. I have also done a lot of consulting on new IPs and pitches/demos. Feel free to DM me!
October 7, 2025 at 9:40 PM
maxfolkman.bsky.social
FREAKON TOMORROW, FREAKS! Come see our talk that we’ll NEVER speak of AGAIN! Don’t even ask!!!
October 5, 2025 at 8:05 AM
maxfolkman.bsky.social
A puppet holds a megaphone and announces “attention, freaks. It’s me.”
September 23, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Reposted by Max Folkman
bencollins.bsky.social
From Wired a few weeks ago. A lot of the people who I was told for years were the adults in the room are being asked how they want to be remembered, and that answer is very clearly "cowards."

www.wired.com/story/uncann...
September 18, 2025 at 3:01 AM
maxfolkman.bsky.social
RIP sweet prince. May you sploot forever more in the giant cardboard box in the sky 🫡
metrokitty.bsky.social Cathy Leamy @metrokitty.bsky.social · Sep 6
Aw man, no, RIP Maru the cat. That little man brought so much joy to my life for years and years. ❤️ en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maru_(c...
Maru (cat) - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
September 6, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
rsbenedict.bsky.social
Writers should internalize Lao Tzu's lesson about how the emptiness at the center of a wheel is what makes it useful, and how a pot is valuable because of where the clay *isn't*. Corporate geek culture has warped us into thinking that negative spaces are flaws that need to be fixed.
oldmanweldon.bsky.social Will Weldon @oldmanweldon.bsky.social · Aug 7
Can't stress this enough: nobody fucking cares what he was up to
Warner Bros. has said The Hunt for Gollum is in fact the first of two new Lord of the Rings feature films from Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens based on J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, as the company aims to make more of the franchise. With The Hunt for Gollum, we’ll get to see what Gollum was up to in the years between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
August 8, 2025 at 2:32 AM
Reposted by Max Folkman
megannicolett.bsky.social
working on something a little different than usual! looking to speak with women of all ages and backgrounds about their life experiences. short questionnaire here, shares very welcome docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Questionnaire
docs.google.com
August 9, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
kalebhorton.bsky.social
Need to cheer myself up so here's the best Twitter post ever. It spawned one billion bad ripoffs but it's a beautiful magic trick. You don't just read it in his voice: he said it now. This quote is real.
January 23, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
hulkhoquinn.bsky.social
Needed this reminder today.
Fox Mulder from X-Files saying “Hey, you got to stay alive if you want to stick it to the government” “If you die, you let them off the hook.”
July 3, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
lbyock.bsky.social
Oh no what if they turn this insanely popular young progressive into a national figure, anything but that
ericmgarcia.bsky.social Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · Jun 25
Via Maggie Haberman: "Allies of President Trump are already gearing up to turn Mamdani into a national figure to attack and tether to other Democrats ahead of the midterms."
www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...
Live Updates: Mamdani Holds Lead Over Cuomo in Democratic Primary for N.Y.C. Mayor
www.nytimes.com
June 25, 2025 at 2:45 AM
maxfolkman.bsky.social
Aaaahhhhhhhhhhh
Spidey clutching his head saying OMG
June 25, 2025 at 3:22 AM
Reposted by Max Folkman
ditzkoff.bsky.social
I’m late to this interview with Tony Gilroy but I think his answer, about why most art is progressive, hits the nail on the head. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/o...
Gilroy: You could say: Why has Hollywood for the last 100 years been progressive or been liberal? I think it’s much larger. I’ll go further and say: Why does almost all literature, why does almost all art that involves humans trend progressive? Let’s stick with Hollywood. Making a living as an actor or as a writer or a director — without the higher degree of empathy that you have, the more aware you are of behavior and all kinds of behavior, the better you’re going to be at your job. We feed our families by being in an empathy business. It’s just baked in. You’re trying to pretend to be other people. The whole job is to pretend to be other, and what is it like to look from this? People may be less successful over time at portraying Nazis as humans, and that may be good writing or bad writing, and there may be people that have an ax to grind. But in general, empathy is how I feed my family. And the more finely tuned that is, the better I am at my job. That is what actors do: I’m going on Broadway, I’m playing a villain for six months. I got to live in that. I’m playing the slave, I’m playing the fisherman, I’m playing the nurse, I’m the murderer — you have to get in there. You have to live lives through other people. I think that the simple act of that transformation and that process automatically gives you what I would describe as a more generous and progressive point of view. It just has to. And I don’t see how you can buy, if you’re going to reissue the Hardy Boys or try to twist a knot and say that Melville or the Coen brothers made a piece of right-wing art because you see something in there — I think it really misses the larger point of the struggle that that movement is going to be up against. Does that make any sense to you?
June 7, 2025 at 1:26 AM
maxfolkman.bsky.social
How dare Nintendo put in a great lil slow jam for when you set up the Switch 2, and yet still deny us eShop music
June 5, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
scriptlock.bsky.social
Hello hello! We're back with @blendogames.bsky.social & @lmichet.bsky.social this week to talk earnestness in storytelling, working w/ external writers, when to overexplain things, deranged subreddits, and in this clip, making a comedic immersive sim! scriptlock.simplecast.com/episodes/bre...
May 27, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
glennyrodge.bsky.social
I saw the Curious Case of Benjamin Button again last night. Never gets old.
May 15, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
criminalsimpsons.com
May 8, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
joshgondelman.bsky.social
I can't believe we have a Pope from Illinois. People from Chicago usually hate the Cardinals.
May 8, 2025 at 5:51 PM
maxfolkman.bsky.social
The Three States of Employment:
- Laid Off
- Waiting to be Laid Off
- Executive
May 1, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
oneofmoo.bsky.social
It's rare that I see an entry-level writing job in games so I wanted to share that Media Molecule is hiring a writer.

www.brightnetwork.co.uk/graduate-job...

On site in Guildford.
Media Molecule - Writer 2025
Apply today for the Writer 2025 with Media Molecule. And find the best graduate job opportunities on Bright Network.
www.brightnetwork.co.uk
April 25, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
stirpicus.bsky.social
It’s true! We’re looking to add a new writer to the team. (Onsite here in Finland only.)
April 17, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
scriptlock.bsky.social
ICYMI we put out a new GDC Grab Bag episode this week! You can listen to amazing guests like @vincentperea.bsky.social talk about simplification, and how a great entree can be just as memorable as a nine-course meal.

scriptlock.simplecast.com/episodes/the...
April 9, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
garius.bsky.social
I've actually used/quoted a line from this on multiple occasions:

"We could take the appalling risk of just recklessly mentioning things that people won't have heard of and see if they survive the experience. They probably will."
mmaarrow.bsky.social Gemma Arrowsmith @mmaarrow.bsky.social · Apr 7
Haha! Love this letter from Douglas Adams to his US editor about not Americanising the text of Hitchhiker's Guide. 🐋🌸
Date: Monday, January 13, 1992, 5:26 pm To: Byron Preiss Dear Byron, Thanks for the script of the novel. I don't know what happened to the first one. It may have been a victim of the office move (see above). I'll respond as quickly and briefly as possible. One general point. A thing I have had said to me over and over again whenever I've done public appearances and readings and so on in the States is this: Please don't let anyone Americanise it! We like it the way it is! There are some changes in the script that simply don't make sense. Arthur Dent is English, the setting is England, and has been in every single manifestation of HHGG ever. The 'Horse and Groom' pub that Arthur and Ford go to is an English pub, the 'pounds' they pay with are English (but make it twenty pounds rather than five- inflation) So why suddenly 'Newark' instead of 'Rickmansworth'? And 'Bloomingdales' instead of 'Marks & Spencer'? The fact that Rickmansworth is not within the continental United States doesn't mean that it doesn't exist! American audiences do not need to feel disturbed by the notion that places do exist outside the US or that people might suddenly refer to them in works of fiction. You wouldn't, presumably, replace Ursa Minor Beta with 'Des Moines'. There is no Bloomingdales in England, and Bloomingdales is not a generic term for large department stores. If you feel that referring to "Marks & Spencer' might seriously freak out Americans because they haven't heard of it (or because Marks and Spencer owns Brooks Brothers) we could either put warning stickers on the cover ("The text of this book contains references to places and institutions outside the continental United States and may cause offence to people who haven't heard of them") or you could, I suppose, put 'Harrods', which most people will have heard of. Or we could even take the appalling risk of just recklessly mentioning things that people won't have heard of and see if they survive the experience. They probably will - when people are born they haven't heard of anything or anywhere, but seem to get through the first few years of their lives without ill-effects.
April 7, 2025 at 3:47 PM
maxfolkman.bsky.social
🚨New episode!🚨 Got to talk with a bunch of folks and ask hard-hitting questions like “who’s your favorite person you’ve ever worked with?”
scriptlock.bsky.social Script Lock @scriptlock.bsky.social · Apr 7
We return with another GDC Grab Bag episode full of wonderful guests, including @thewritegame.bsky.social! In this clip she talks about the issues teams can run into when they get stuck on process.

scriptlock.simplecast.com/episodes/the...
April 7, 2025 at 8:53 PM
maxfolkman.bsky.social
In honor of Val Kilmer, I recommend everyone watch the commentary for Kiss Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, where he spends the entire time name dropping celebrities for a contest on his website
April 2, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Max Folkman
josephgalbo.bsky.social
When I hear people describe themselves as content creators.
An older Orson Welles sitting down for an interview, but with a meme quote that says: Content, content, content! A taco possesses content. A ship's manifest. An owner's manual for the operation of a microwave. Was Botticelli a content creator? Did Joyce wreck himself in chasing English to its limits "for the vine"? My God, man; have a little self respect.
March 10, 2025 at 1:13 PM