Heart-Shaped Ambition
Ambição Sem Volta · A pirate story in The Few and Cursed universe, with art by Pedro Mauro.
Fade in:
Carlos
Estefan
Creative producer & scriptwriter · São Paulo
I turn ideas into finished stories for games, comics, animation and brands, and I stay close enough to production to make sure the idea survives.
- DC Comics
- Turma da Mônica
- EF Englishtown
- Braskem
- Panini
Ext. Englishtown, a city where nobody speaks Portuguese · Night
O Mistério de Englishtown
A point-and-click murder mystery that makes you feel why English matters.
- ~200k
- downloads on Google Play
- #1
- in Education on the App Store, for over a month
- 5 yrs
- live, until the brand became EF English Live
- ~15
- people on the production team
The brief
EF Englishtown wanted a game that showed Brazilians why learning English is worth it, without turning it into a lesson.
My role
Game director and writer. I co-created the Jones brothers with Mauro Souza and licensed them to the project. I wrote the full script in English and Portuguese, validated by the school, designed the puzzles, directed the team and reviewed storyboards and animatics through to the final version.
The decision
Make the language barrier the game mechanic. John and William Jones arrive in an English-speaking city to solve a murder, and neither speaks English. Only their brother Maurice does, and he can help only through a tablet. If you speak English, you move fast. If you don't, you struggle, and you feel exactly the problem the brand solves.
One puzzle, start to finish
To buy the tablet, John has to sort coins by their English names: penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar, dollar. It takes seconds if you know the words and becomes trial and error if you don't.
Watch the coin puzzle · 4 min
Ext. Edifício Altino Arantes, São Paulo · Night
Batman: The World
DC Comics asked creators from 14 countries to bring Batman home. I wrote the Brazilian story.
The brief
A global anthology: one short Batman story per country, each told by local creators. Brazil's team was three people.
My role
Writer. One of three Brazilian creators invited by DC.
The story
Batman comes to São Paulo to find out why Wayne Industries' investment in Brazil keeps disappearing. A year in, the construction it paid for is still unfinished. A local frustration everyone in Brazil recognizes becomes the engine of a detective story that any reader can follow.
“The most political story in the album, and one that speaks as well to Brazilian readers as to international ones.”
Fora do Plástico, 2022 · translated from Portuguese
Ext. The frontier · Day
Trilogia Gatilho
A western graphic-novel trilogy, now published in four countries.
- 4
- countries: Brazil, Italy, France, Belgium
- DE
- German edition under contract
- 3
- albums, collected in one edition in 2021
- 2021
- Angelo Agostini Award nominee, for Redenção
“More compelling than the twist the script offers is the cohesive structure it is built on.”
Universo HQ · Audaci Junior, 2017 · translated“A spectacular western that transports you to another universe and makes the reader live every page intensely.”
Fora do Plástico, on Redenção, 2019 · translated“From the very first pages, Estefan’s script keeps its dialogue lean and essential.”
Lo Spazio Bianco, Italy · Fabio Diegoli · translated from Italian
Int. MSP Estúdios · 2016 – 2025
Turma da Mônica
My scripts arrive as thumbnails: framing, acting and dialogue already on the page.
The context
Turma da Mônica is Brazil's best-known comics franchise. For nine years I wrote its stories, reviewed other writers' scripts and trained new ones.
How I work
I write in pictures. Each script is a page of thumbnails with the camera, the acting and the balloons placed, so the artist starts from a page that already reads. The same process drives the covers: the layout on the left became the published cover on the right.
Built for the scroll
Webtoons read top to bottom on a phone, one beat per swipe, the same rhythm as a vertical video ad. Scroll the strip to read the opening of “Retorno ao Castelo do Dragão”.
Selected issues
Int. Laboratory · Day
ProbOS
An interactive story about an AI that calculates the future, and the scientists who have to change it.
The brief
A narrative game for Braskem about sustainability: how the choices we make today on food, water and housing shape the world we get.
My role
I wrote the script in five parts and the puzzle documents for each chapter, and followed production, reviewing storyboards and animatics with the team.
The decision
No villains with bad intentions. Five scientists plug into ProbOS, an AI that projects the future into a virtual world, and find it full of environmental and social problems, even though each of them works for a good cause. The story's point is that meeting people's needs is not enough; you also have to watch the impact of how you meet them. One scientist gets trapped inside the simulation, so the others have to rethink their projects in the present to bring him back.
The score is a probability
Every decision the player makes lowers the odds of the dystopian future on screen. By the end the team brings it down to 48%. ProbOS, which had concluded it should take control of the planet, agrees to give humanity a chance, and keeps watching.
Watch the trailer
INT. MONITOR - DAY
Black screen. We hear a machine powering up. GEORGE MÜLLER, the mind behind PROBOS (Probability Operating System), speaks anxiously.
George
ProbOS? Can you hear us? How do you feel?
A soft female voice answers. The artificial intelligence ProbOS speaks for the first time.
ProbOS
I... feel alive.
Fade in:
ProbOS's face appears on the monitor, a woman of about 25. She smiles, as if discovering her own existence gives her great pleasure. Her expression is serene.
Cut to:
INT. LABORATORY - MOMENTS LATER
Five scientists stare at the monitor, and ProbOS looks back with the same fascination.
Opening of Part 1. Translated from the Portuguese original.
Puzzle design · Part 1
Reading behavior patterns
The theme becomes gameplay. Samuel, the sociologist, walks the city looking for small, everyday problems: wasted water and energy, piling waste, careless recycling, poverty. The player has to see them before the story can move on.
- ObserveHow people around Samuel use water, energy and resources.
- CollectPhotos on Samuel's phone and notes in his notebook.
- ComputeProbOS runs the data the player gathered.
- Back to the labSamuel brings the team the pattern behind the future they saw.
“The problem is our basic behavior. We tend to take the easiest path.”
Samuel, in the next cut-scene · translated
Also published
More comics
Ópera Jones
An album starring the Jones brothers, co-created with Mauro Souza. The webcomic Jones, Inc. was an HQ Mix Trophy nominee in 2013.
About
Writer first, producer by habit
I started in advertising and design, moved into comics and games, and spent nine years writing and shaping stories at MSP Estúdios. Today I'm an editor at Panini Brasil, reviewing Marvel and DC titles, keeping seven external studios on schedule and writing scripts for podcasts and videocasts.
Every project here went through the same loop: find the idea, write it, then stay with the team until the finished piece delivers what the script promised. I use AI tools every day for research, benchmarking and concept work, and I want to learn from performance data as much as from readers.
Awards
- Angelo Agostini Award nominee, 2021
- HQ Mix Trophy nominee, 2013
Languages
- Portuguese, native
- English, fluent
- Italian, working
Education
- Advertising, ESAMC
- Google UX Design