Narrative Design for Video Games
Game Narrative Reel
Improvement Process
A video going though the steps I took to get feedback on and improve an Unreal Engine ‘haunted house’ project. I wanted to focus on environmental storytelling during this project. Polishing it taught me about the set dressing, sound design, player controls, and atmosphere needed to tell a nonverbal story in a game.
Snapshot from a Current Project: Unrealtor
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I started by working with the creative director and design team to identify references, take notes, and ideate on a story that would fit this game’s style and mechanics.
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I moved on to creating a more detailed outline of the game’s story and progression, as well as documents for other parts of the team, like character sheets, pitches, set dressing/environmental storytelling notes, and a narrative production timeline.
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Based on documentation of characters and plot, the game macro, and discussion with other teams, I created a script for voiceover that communicates both story and gameplay hints.
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I’m using Yarnspinner and C# scripts in Unity to implement current voiceover iterations into the game build. Dialogue triggers based on player location, player view (using raycasting), and in-game time. Dialogue is a combination of voiceover and automatically progressing captions.
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Based on developments in the game design and feedback from playtesting, I’m continuing to tweak documentation, create new drafts of the script, and implement new voiceover and environmental storytelling.
Games
