Narrative Design
What’s trully amazing in video games, is how a single detail can transform an average work into a masterpiece.
How amazed were you when you noticed that little Sarah was moving around with the camera in the car of the first chapter of The Last of Us?
How funny did you find that unequipping your software in NieR Automata would give you a game over?
I was delighted.
And in my future work, I wish to be able to bring this kind of immersion to any player willing to play these games. Talked about here:
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Cold Trust
PC - Single player - NarrativeFinal project of 2nd year :
- 3 Game Designers / 3 Game Artists / 1 Ergonomist / 2 Programmers / 1 Manager / 1 Sound Designer
- 4,5 months
- 15min Vertical Slice of a complete game (Here AA)
Cold Trust was my last project at Enjmin.
It required writing, game design, presentation skills, and preparatory work for every specialty.
The Story
Trust me, it makes more sense with the beatchart.
The initial plot of Cold Trust is : 4 scientists are making researches in a polar station.
One day, one of them is found murdered. But each of them are persuaded to be innocent.
Taking that base, I crafted a multi-path game were the player gets to learn about quantum physics,
genetics in humans and animals, cloning and human relationships at the verge of extinction.
(Clicking on this image will take you to another website)
Everything can be seen and understood thanks to the beatchart of the game.
The Characters
As Cold Trust is a game revolving around suspicion, doubt and science, the characters had to present characteristics that could answer one another.
The chara artist suggested to use Jung archetypes, that I mixed with DnD character sheets.
To help the team understand their personnalities, I wrote short novels about the events of the station.
You can read them on the Desktop.
Dialogues
To serve this narrative, I had to write dialogues between the 3 characters present in the vertical slice of the game.
You can check one of them in this video :
The programing team adapted a plug-in in Unreal to let me integrate the dialogues myself.
I tested them on Twine
Then did the integration directly in engine.
I still have some work to do on dialogues, but consider this game as a push start.
Then, we had to record them, so I made an Excel sheet for our sound designer to be able to
direct the comedians and check on what’s left to be made.
You can check the game on Itch.io
Walkthrough of the game
More on Cold Trust here :
https://charlotteinfos.wixsite.com/shouil/cold-trust
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Date Night
VR - Single player - Wheelchair-StealthFinal project of 1st year :
- 1 Game Designer / 1 Game Artist / 1 Ergonomist / 2 Programmers
- 3 months
- Complete game that can be finished in 15 min
I wanted to make a game about an old person escaping their retirement home to go on a date.
So a big part of the narrative aspect was to motivate the players to go outside, thanks to
a bunch of amazing people to date!
I made primary researches for 3 characters, that the game artist translated into 3 profiles.
Pick your favorite!
I made character sheets on Miro to communicate with the team on what the dating options would be like.
I also made a bunch of asset lists, and used them to create environmental narration.
(Yes, you can pop the balloons)
Trailer of the game
More on Date Night here :
https://charlotteinfos.wixsite.com/shouil/date-night
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Miscellaneous
As part of my studies at Enjmin, I wrote a small memoire about the use of Chekhov’s Gun in Video Games.
I was limited to 14 pages, so its a bit lacking in some aspects.
I highly enjoyed making researches and writing it.
(Clicking on this image will take you to another website)