UR alum develops her own game

Kait Walsh, ’13, isn’t a professional game developer. The closest skill on her resume is her passion for video games. But she is building her own game. Each step, she says, is a lesson in design, and she’s already an expert at storytelling.

By day, Walsh is a director of production services at AT WILL MEDIA, a Brooklyn-based film, television, and podcast studio. She develops ideas, creates production schedules, and assembles creative teams through partnerships with major streaming services like FX Networks, Audible, and AppleTV+. She also is executive producer and founder of Filia Media, her own production company, which is geared toward amplifying female creators.

“A lot of [my work] is dreaming up what the next big Game of Thrones-type program is and then finding the right people who share that creative sensibility,” Walsh says.

But Walsh, an interdisciplinary studies major, wanted to apply her background in subversive storytelling to her favorite pastime. After hours, she develops Beneath the Prism Sky, a narrative exploration game based on “emotional resonance, inner archetypes, and the many-layered self.” Rather than check off tasks, players are guided by a story that adapts to their choices and pace on a journey of self-discovery.

At its core, the game is Walsh’s twofold attempt at being a changemaker. The visually stimulating and meditative quality was inspired by neurodivergent friends and family who consume games differently than she does. But Walsh also needed a new way to invigorate her creativity — a test she hopes will inspire her peers facing burnout.

“There’s a bigger world out there where you can make change and you can do new things, and you can do something more creatively or emotionally satiating,” she says. “With the right time, effort, value, and a little bit of introspection for a minute, I feel like there’s a lot to do.”