At MIGS25 in Montréal, I caught up with Natalia Yanchak, keyboardist and vocalist for legendary Montréal indie rockers The Dears. But this time, she wasn’t just talking music — she was here representing her other creative passion: video games.

Yanchak has spent the last few years as Operations Director at GooseBite Games, a small but mighty Montreal studio known for its survival crafting project The Signal and her own studio Ting Dun Productions working on a mysterious new narrative game. “It turns out running a band and running a studio aren’t that different,” she laughs. “You’ve got HR, deadlines, budgets, and a lot of creative chaos to manage.”

Between rehearsals, touring and album release cycles, Yanchak has been carving out space in the gaming world, bringing her storytelling instincts from music to game design. Her first title from Ting Dun, Riley and Rochelle, tells the story of two musicians falling in love across decades, inspired by a wild “what if?” moment from the 1998 Oscars (think what if Elliott Smith had a meet cute with Celine Dion).

Now, she’s deep into her next project, a narrative detective puzzle game that mixes visual novel storytelling, mystery-solving, and — naturally — music. “I want to make games that tell human stories,” she says. “Ones that feel weirdly unbelievable because, honestly, real life for artists already is.”

Of course, Yanchak’s still a gamer at heart. She admits she’s “a console gamer through and through,”. Her current rotation includes Ghost of Yōtei and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, she also adored Blue Prince, a puzzle-heavy game that scratched both her design and storytelling itch.

She even joked about picking up a Steam Deck to get in more gaming during long tour van rides. “You can’t code in the van,” she says, “but you can definitely play something brilliant.”

With The Dears’ ninth studio album just dropped and new tour dates rolling out (including a stop in my home town of Ottawa), Yanchak is living proof that creativity doesn’t have to pick sides. Whether she’s crafting music that hits you in the heart or a game that makes you think, it’s all the same mission — connect, challenge, and inspire.

🎧 Check out the full interview with Natalia Yanchak from MIGS25 on for a deeper dive into her dual life in music and games — and why the best stories sometimes start with a controller in one hand and a keyboard in the other.