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KIM CYSIQUE
Game Narrative Designer
Type
Story-Driven game
Date
2022
Role
Tech Narrative Designer
Engine
Unity
Platform
PC
Team
Solo
Duration
3 months
Universe
Victorian
Vampire Taxi
Entirely a solo project, with no use of external graphic resources.
An adventure game mixed with a racing game in gothic victoria era.
Play as a young vampire cab driver on his first night on the job, making his way a cross the country solving the obstacles in his path before daybreak.
Intention : Solve puzzles (point-and-click style) and explore multiple narrative paths (book in which you are the hero) in a noir thriller atmosphere.
Role : Tech Narrative Designer
Main tasks :
- Writing a pitch document
- Creation of branching dialogues and lore content
- Writing quest design document
- Creations of character sheets, worldbuilding
- Unity engine integration (use of plugins, C#, sounds, feedback)
- Creation of project visuals in Photoshop
MY WORK
Dialogue integration
&
Multiple choices
I used Inkle software to integrate the dialogues into Taxi Vampire.
By using the Inky language, I was able to quickly test whether my dialog trees were functional, and responded well to each other. I could simply divide up each section of dialog.
Importing the dialogs as json files facilitated integration, as did the existence of a dedicated Unity plugin.
I was able to integrate it easily with my backup system, also in json.
Narrative Design
The narrative part consists of the plot, character sheets and universe. Being set in a Victorian universe mixed with fantastic creatures, this part required a lot of research (fiction and non-fiction).
To write the documentation for my project, I used a Confluence wiki so that it could be accessed at any time and interconnected between each document, as well as Miro to create mainly diagrams and moodboards.
Point and click
Game Design
The prototype focuses on point-and-click gameplay. The player is guided mainly by changing the mouse cursor as they explore the environment.
Riddles frame the player's progress and enable him or her to finish the demo. This enabled me to come up with several ideas for quests that would link the puzzles to the narrative, as well as focusing my development on the UX, playing on the contribution of the narrative through dialogues and the environment.
Conclusion
In the course of this project, I learned how to manage a major project on my own.
Define my scope of work :
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Prioritize the features to be implemented in my prototype.
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Work regularly over several months.
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Rigorous use of git to track bugs and modifications
I was able to combine several software packages (inkle, miro, conflu, unity) and make more advanced use of them.
I also had to make do with my C# skills and find alternatives to make my Unity prototype functional (blocking riddle, predefined completion order, backup system, multiple choices).
I was also confronted with the difficulties of finalizing and producing a more complete project from A to Z (doc, code, visuals, sound, dialogues).
