Podcast series
Horror, Supernatural
Webby Award winner for Best Branded Podcast
Webby Award nominated for Best Limited Series
As part of my role at Supermassive Games, I wrote Episode Four of the podcast series 'The Sounds of Nightmares', based on the 'Little Nightmares' games universe. The series received both critical and public acclaim, winning a Webby Award for Best Branded Podcast and a nomination for Best Limited Series. As of November 2023, it has been listened to over one million times, and has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
FMV adventure game (cancelled). Prototype.
Sci-fi, Historical, Drama, Political
My play 'Tales from Star City' went through a process of being developed into a independent video game, in collaboration with BAFTA winning games designer, Imre Jele. Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic would ultimately lead to the cancellation of the project, we did manage to build a text only chapter of the game, which you can play below. It is taken from around a third of the way through the planned narrative, when the heroine - Polina - meets Laika the dog, and is forced to watch her canine companion go through a series of gruelling tests.
Interactive fiction with branching narratives
I regularly wrote story prompts for authors on the social storytelling platform, Dorian, as well as writing some full episodes. All are interactive fiction, with branching narratives, and are available by downloading Dorian onto a smartphone. Just search for Dan Dawes in the main menu. Stories include:
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Secret Santa - comedy, festive
The Cat Burglar - crime, mystery, comedy
Festive Future (prompt) - comedy, historical, sci-fi, festive
Fright School - mystery, paranormal, teen drama
Sexy Alien Face (prompt) - comedy, sci-fi, paranormal
Sci-fi, Historical, Drama, Political
In this scene, Polina - a young radio technician and immigrant to the USSR - has just begun work at Star City, the home of the Soviet space programme. Whilst struggling on a shift, she is confronted by an insidious looking man named Volkov, and is beckoned into his dark, spider's web of an office. He is searching through files at the start of the scene.
VOLKOV: Semyenova... Semyenova. Semyenova.
POLINA: Yes Sir I....
VOLKOV: Semyenova. Semyenova.
POLINA: Sir...
VOLKOV: Sir?
POLINA: Sorry. Comrade? Erm
VOLKOV: What would you prefer to call me, Miss Semyenova?
POLINA: I. I don’t know, Sir.
VOLKOV: There you are again with the 'Sirs'.
POLINA: Sorry.
VOLKOV: For hundreds of years the workers of this country and of the world have fought and died for the right to have self-governance. To have equality. The Levellers of the English civil war, the French revolutionaries, the Republicans against Franco in Spain, not to mention our own motherland and you come in here with your 'Sirs'?
POLINA: I’m sorry. I’m sorry Comrade.
VOLKOV: Volkov. You can call me Volkov. That’s my name and you can use it. So there you are.
POLINA: Thank you, Volkov.
VOLKOV: Comradeship is earned.
He searches through the files again.
Ah yes. Your file. Here we are. Yes. Junior Engineer-Lieutenant P. Semyenova.
POLINA: Yes, Volkov.
VOLKOV: Polina isn’t it?
POLINA: Yes.
VOLKOV: I assume I may call you Polly.
POLINA: Of course.
VOLKOV: Well I won’t. I won’t do that. Polina, this isn’t the place for nicknames. This is the military.
POLINA: Ok. Yes. That’s... Of course.
VOLKOV: Do many call you Polly?
POLINA: My friends do.
VOLKOV: Oh. You have friends here already? That’s good.
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POLINA: Well. Not so much. Not yet. I meant from home.
VOLKOV: This is not your home?
POLINA: Yes. Of course. But I mean where I came from.
VOLKOV: Of course. And where do you come from, Polina?
POLINA: Moscow.
VOLKOV: Moscow?
POLINA: Yes.
VOLKOV: Well that’s what your file says too. But I asked you where you came from Polina... I asked where you came from.
POLINA: I moved around a great deal. The war and the fighting after that.
VOLKOV: Ah. A nomad?
POLINA: I suppose so.
VOLKOV: Middle name?
POLINA: Sorry?
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VOLKOV: Middle name?
POLINA: Sasha. Polina Sasha Semyenova.
VOLKOV: (laughing) Sasha. I thought so. Polina, my middle name is Ivanovitch. After my Father. Viktor Ivanovitch Volkov. As is the custom here in Russia.
POLINA: Oh.
VOLKOV: Why do you lie about your past?
POLINA: (beaten) I... I don’t know.
VOLKOV: You’ve obviously learned a great deal about your adopted country and yet you hadn’t bothered with a simple thing like that.
POLINA: Do I need to be Russian to work here?
VOLKOV: You need to be Socialist. That’s all. (jesting) I’d even accept a Yankee rocket scientist, riding in on a star-spangled fried chicken - if he could quote Marx.
Polina, relieved, laughs a little.
VOLKOV: There are no borders in Socialism. You should know that.
POLINA: (passionately) I do know that. I love Socialism. It’s why I’m here. I’m here not because Communism was forced upon me, but because I chose it. I believed in it. Wholeheartedly and passionately. I’ve even fought for it. And seen people die for it.
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VOLKOV: (attempting to placate) I understand, Miss Semyenova.
POLINA: And this. The chance to work on this. At the very forefront of scientific thought. No – more than that. Of cosmist philosophy. Of the future of humanity. I want to be part of this. Please.
VOLKOV: There’s no need to be afraid of your past, Miss Semyenova. The USSR is one family. And this is your home now.
POLINA: Thank you, yes.
VOLKOV: There is no other home. There is no other life. Only here. If you wish to remain here you need to understand that.
POLINA: Yes, Volkov.
VOLKOV: Your initiation has been too slow, Polina.
POLINA: I’m sorry, Volkov.
VOLKOV: Embrace it! And it will embrace you. You are part of a machine Polina. A brand new machine. A machine that will manufacture itself. A living, breathing entity of perfect symbiosis taking its energy from nothing other than the sun in the sky. There is no head. There is no body. There is just a mass of cogs working and moving together.
POLINA: Yes, Volkov.
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VOLKOV: You are one of the cogs in that machine, Polina. And you must turn when you are expected to turn, and click into gear when you are expected to click into gear. You are the machine and you must keep up.
POLINA: Yes, Volkov.
VOLKOV: The machine is everything Miss Semyenova. You are a Junior Engineer-Lieutenant. Cogs can break very easily.
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Pause. Polina shifts a little.
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POLINA: Yes, Volkov.
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Pause
VOLKOV: Well that’s good then. I’m sure I’ll see you soon, Polina. Keep up the good work.
Supernatural Horror, Psychological Horror
The Signalman - a night watchman on the London Underground - is being haunted by visions and apparitions that he cannot explain. He confides in a mysterious young man who has missed the last train home, and has found himself embroiled in The Signalman's disturbed narrative.
The Signalman is a modern day adaptation of the short story by Charles Dickens, of the same name.
SCENE FIFTEEN: STATION PLATFORM - FLASHBACK
Blackout with the burst of the train’s whistle. The metallic wind begins to make itself known. THE SIGNALMAN is picked out by a small pool of light, on a platform. Other pools of light are visible behind him, like lampposts lighting a dark street. He is motionless.
SIGNALMAN V/O: I can’t remember exactly what I was doing. I wasn’t in the office. I was patrolling one of the platforms, I think.
The radio on THE SIGNALMAN crackles and spits out the same indecipherable voices as before.
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YOUNG MAN V/O: You think?
SIGNALMAN V/O: The memory is... fuzzy. It was dark. It’s always dark, but it seemed especially so that night... colder too...
Pause
I made the mistake of thinking for a moment. Really thinking. And you realise. I realised. Down here. Doesn’t it feel suffocating? Like you’re drowning?
THE SIGNALMAN looks up. Instead of the platform’s curved ceiling, there is endless, heavy darkness. The metallic wind and the crackles from the radio accompany him.
YOUNG MAN V/O: Drowning?
SIGNALMAN V/O: Or that you’re being... crushed. All that pressure, you know? Surrounding you. And that, at any moment, there could be a crack and everything just pours in. All of the city. All that mud. Drowning in it.
Pause. The radio ceases its static, but the metallic wind continues. THE SIGNALMAN speaks slowly and deliberately, as though trying to figure out why he’s being haunted.
I thought of all those people above us. Pushing us down. Millions of tonnes of bone. A billion corpses. The past, the present, the future. A city built on blood. Always built on blood. And those towers. They’re tombstones. Brick, concrete, steel. Knives of glass rooted in all that blood... Do you not think about how they’re reaching as high as they can? It’s like they’re running from their own reflection. Disgusted by themselves... But we’re still down here. In its veins, ya know? Drowning. Have you never felt that?
The pools of light behind THE SIGNALMAN begin to turn off one by one, and are accompanied each time by the sound of giant circuit breakers being switched off, leaving deep, thunderous echoes.
Comedy, Jukebox Musical, Farce, Puppetry
In this scene, Janet - a new 'inmate' at Sleepy Brook Care Home for the Elderly - is being wheeled in by Faye, one of the owners of the home. Already present is Elsie, the longest serving 'inmate'.
FAYE: Will you just take that coat off?!
JANET: No.
FAYE: What’s the point in keeping it?
JANET: If I take it off, I’ll never see it again. I know what these places are like. Keep you cooped up like a bloody chicken ready for slaughter.
FAYE: For goodness sake.
JANET: Pluck off our feathers first eh? Yes that’s the way to do it. Humiliate them. Dehumanize them. I’ve read all about your types.
FAYE: Well you’ll get used to it.
JANET: I don’t want to be here.
FAYE: Yes you’ve made that abundantly clear.
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JANET: I have all my faculties, I’m perfectly sound of mind, and perfectly mobile when I want to be too. I’m not one of the disheveled, smelly, dribbling idiots you get in places like these.
Janet notices Elsie for the first time. Pause.
ELSIE: (waving slightly awkwardly) Hello there.
Janet immediately breaks eye contact. Pause.
FAYE: Aren’t you going to say hello back then Janet? Eh?
Janet says a lot by saying nothing.
There’s no good sulking Janet. You’re here whether you like it or not. It’s the way of the world. We’re born, we live, we have kids... the kids put you in a care home. And there’s no better home than this Janet. Isn’t that right Elsie?
ELSIE: (after a moment) Oh yes.
FAYE: ‘Oh yes’ - see? Now why don’t you two have a nice little chat. Best to bond now and get it out of the way. You’ll have to get used to each other. After all, you are going to be roommates.
JANET: Roommates?!
FAYE: Yes didn’t you hear Janet? Maybe your faculties aren’t so good after all.
JANET: My son told me it would be a private room.
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FAYE: Well… he lied.
JANET: And my son told me you were a very polite young lady!
FAYE: Well your son told me that you were a bothersome, lazy, cantankerous old bat who does nothing but complain!
Pause
JANET: I object to ‘lazy’.