Charlie DeFranco

Charlie DeFranco (born 10 August 1996 in Melody Cove, California) is a founding member of the American video game company Wonderland Games. He is the liaison between Wonderland Games and publishing companies, constantly doing things in the background, but rarely taking a part in the community. Due to this lack of appearance in the gaming community, most Wonderland Games fans don't realize he's a part of the team. The game Dragon's Pulse was DeFranco's concept, just as Alice Through the Portal and Krystal Castle were the concepts of Allison Jett and Michael Miller respectively.

Career
In May 2017, Charlie worked with his close friends, Allison Jett and Michael Miller, to make their first video game, Alice Through the Portal, based in part on the Alice in Wonderland story by Lewis Carroll, but with a new protagonist also named Alice. The concept was created from Allison's fascination with the classic work, and from there, the story took off. Soon after, the trio began working on Charlie's game concept, Dragon's Pulse, which originated from Charlie's interest in mythology and legends of knights slaying dragons. Afterwards, the group began working on Michael's concept, Krystal Castle. Charlie served as the story writer and script writer for all parts and characters of the games, which at times would overlap with Michael's job as programmer. The agreement they made was that Charlie would get jurisdiction over all story-related scripts and codes and Michael would accommodate him.

Important Views
Charlie always felt that video games should tell a story, much like a book or a movie. At the same time, he felt that the story should be dynamic; it should be able to change on the whim of the player, not stick to the ideas of the writers. Given the difficulty write out all the different scripts that can evolve from a purely dynamic system, however, Charlie made it a point to reconcile the two systems and make it so his stories would run on a Fixed-Flux story system, where "Fixed" points of the story would always have to happen, but the "Flux" points could freely be completed as intended, completed in a different way, or skipped.

Additionally, Charlie felt games should convey a message to the player and any onlookers who are viewing the play-through. "Video games are an art form. All art should convey a message or emotion. Plain and simple."

Personal Life
Born 10 August 1996 in Melody Cove, California, Charlie DeFranco was the second of four children of Jasmine and Vince DeFranco.

Leadership Role
On 23 June 2018, the founding members of Wonderland Games began to hire interns to work on their latest project, Data Code Online. Charlie's team consisted of four (7) other members, one (1) worked on the flavor texts, two (2) worked on designing the NPCs personal histories, and one who worked on Pandora's history, all of which was done cooperatively with Charlie who had his own ideas, but wanted to see outside perspectives and thoughts so that the world could truly feel vibrant and come alive in a diversity of richness and culture.