Lorenzo Castelli
Cinematic Director | Narrative Designer
Storytelling has been the center of my professional life, first through writing and directing for Italian national broadcasting, and now through interactive systems.I am a Cinematic Director and Narrative Designer who chose videogames as a medium because they demand authorship, structure, and responsibility. In games, narrative and gameplay must align to preserve intent.I bring a cross-disciplinary understanding of writing and direction, shaping narrative structures, real-time cinematics, dialogue, and pacing with a strong production mindset. What I bring is not just execution, but clarity: knowing what a scene is for, and how to make it work inside a system.
Works
Steel Seed
Developer: Storm in a TeacupRole: Narrative Designer / Cinematic DirectorSteel Seed is a narrative-driven stealth action game set in a dark sci-fi world, where precise gameplay, environmental storytelling, and emotionally grounded cinematics merge to explore identity, control, and survival in a decaying artificial ecosystem.For Steel Seed, I worked across both narrative design and cinematic direction, reshaping the narrative structure to improve emotional pacing and clarity while leading the full real-time cinematic pipeline. My focus was on aligning story, camera language, and gameplay beats into a cohesive emotional experience, ensuring that narrative delivery evolved in clarity, impactfulness, and production-readyness throughout development.
SOL Shogunate
Announcement Trailer
Developer: Storm in a Teacup - for Chaos ManufacturingRole: Cinematic DirectorSOL: Shogunate is a sci‑fi action RPG set in a stylized feudal future, blending samurai aesthetics with advanced technology, intense melee combat, and a strong cinematic identity.For SOL: Shogunate, I directed approximately 70% of the announcement trailer, overseeing the full cinematic pipeline from previs to shot design, and producing multiple edit mockups. The trailer premiered at the PC Gaming Show and surpassed 4 million views in its first week, reaching over 10 million views in its first month. It gained wide international visibility and helped push the project into the top 1,000 most wishlisted games on Steam.
The Light Cucù
Developer: Narrative GamesRole: Game Director & Narrative DesignerThe Light Cucù is a dark, dreamlike short narrative game that follows Aurelia as she searches for her grandmother within a surreal reimagining of the Sassi of Matera.The Light Cucù was developed for the Matera Hack for Play game jam in 48h, where it was awarded second place by the Lucana Film Commission, with special praise for its narrative development and character writing.
Mind Scraper
Developer: Scraper GamesRole: Narrative Designer & ProducerMind Scraper is a story-driven graphic adventure that plunges players into collapsing minds at the edge of death. As Robert, you explore fractured memories shaped by guilt, regret, and unspoken choices, uncovering why certain decisions were made and what still lingers beneath the surface.As Narrative Designer, I contributed to the overall narrative structure and wrote part of the in-game dialogues, with a focus on emotional clarity and on using player empathy as an active narrative design tool.As Producer, I helped define the demo scope and milestone planning.The project was awarded a Lazio Region grant for videogame development through the Zagarolo Game House program and was developed by a team that fluctuated between three and ten people across different production phases.
