Realms
Genre: Fantasy / FPS / Arena Shooter
Team Size: 22 members
Development Time: 1 Year
Tools: Unity - Content implementation
Visual Studio - Content Implementation
Audacity - Record voice lines
Google Drive - Document Management
Responsibilities
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Write content including story, lore, dialogue and journal entries
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Record and implement voice lines with the dialogue system
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Design gameplay components, player abilities and work on levels
Game Pages:
In-Game Narrative
Initial Problem
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Players were having trouble navigating the world and understanding the controls along with not fully grasping the lore of the game
Solution
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We provide different components and features to immerse players and guide them with a journal, cutscenes and spoken dialogue
Writing Contributions
Journal Entries
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Passages of information that reside in the game's compendium going over enemies, controls, objects of interest, characters, lore and much more
Dialogue
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The main character's mentor serves as a guide to the player to show them how to play and give insight to the world around you
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The intro and ending cutscenes have narration to set the premise and conclude the story respectively
Gameplay Features
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I assisted the team in designing non-narrative gameplay features including gameplay, level design, combat encounters, and helping revamp entire gameplay systems
Journal Entries In Game
Cutscene and Gameplay Dialogue
Game Documentation
Initial Problem
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In the earliest stage of production, scope creep and an insanely big project scope became rampant, eventually overwhelming the team and plumping the workload
Solution
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We scrapped many ideas, held weekly meetings, and I as team lead managed all design documents.
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This allowed me to coordinate with the code and art teams to ensure easily digestible information, establish faster builds, and tackle player issues that came up during playtesting
Narrative Design Spreadsheets
Narrative Design Documents
Dialogue System
Initial Problem
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An earlier version of the story had the main character venture by herself with no one, leading players to have little motivation apart from completing objectives
Solution
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We changed the story to have her mentor be present and talking to the player and the dialogue system was created.
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These speeches would provide players hints on gameplay, progress the story, and build the world's lore as you go
Dialogue Block Diagram
Components
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Dialogue Trigger: The game object in the level that will activate
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Trigger Area: The collision box that the player will interact with to activate the object
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Dialogue Block Script: The script that allows me to alter subtitles, audio files, character portraits, timers and the number of blocks that carry these variables
How it Works
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Place a dialogue block in the level and create a collision box that will activate it once the players walks into it
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Look for the proper conversation and attach the appropriate audio file
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Set the subtitles and character portraits for the speakers
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Set timers to sync dialogue to match the audio