Engine: Godot
Lead Role: Narrative Designer
Other Roles: Producer, Writer, Artist
Synopsis:
Trek through a magical and twisted world in this you-are-what-you-wear turn-based rogue lite! Grow your skills and uncover the secrets of the gods all growing closer to your party members. In the end, you must decide which is more important: victory, or the people who can get you there?
Narrative Hook
This game explores gods, and how their legends translate to real-world difficulties and traumas. As the party grows stronger on the battlefield, they can either confront their trauma or succumb to it.
Working with the rogue-lite system, I utilized "Trauma Items" and "Affinity Items" to catalyze character development.
Trauma Items
Perfectly made for a character's stats, but wear on their mental health. The longer a character spends with these items, the more of a hold their trauma has over them.
Affinity Items
Difficult to master for a player, and do not come easily to characters. However, over time, characters gain competence with these items while learning to confront what has hurt them.
These levels affect character dialogue, interpersonal relationships, and play style. Through this, the game asks the question: Do you care more about these characters, or what they can do for you?
Dialogue
Character Intro: Cyrus, found in the darkness
Cyrus: Oh gods I am saved!
Cyrus: Hello, hello, I’m sure you are all quite pleased to see me
Cyrus: I am really not sure what is going on here but you all must have some answers, am I right?
Silvest: No
Cyrus. Oh, ah. I see. Well.
Cyrus: Then I suppose I’ll be joining you then! You all are..?
Farria: Not quite sure. Sorry.
Cyrus: Ah, same as me then! Lovely lovely!
Cyrus: Oh, and I see you have weapons. Ouch, haha… quite sharp.
Silvest: How… how have you survived this long?
Cyrus: I have these little fire sticks! Bright little things.
Knil: You defeated the monsters with… those?
Cyrus: Well have you ever been burned by blessed fire? Doesn’t do much to start but… heh, give it a minute.
Farria: Sounds useful. And… needlessly dangerous.
Cyrus: Thank you!
Silvest: Right, well, let’s get going.
Cyrus: You mean I’m in? Ahem, I mean yes, of course I’m in!
Cyrus, drawn by art team
Character Barks
Characters have different barks based on their current Trauma or Affinity Level, reflecting their developing mindsets.
Farria Barks: Getting damaged by a critical attack
Affinity 2
"I might need some help!"
Affinity 1
"Ouch!"
Regular
"It's OK. I'm fine."
Trauma 1
"I can take it."
Trauma 2
"I deserve this"
Farria, drawn by art team
At the beginning of the game, Farria is struggling to cope with her sexual trauma, which causes her to devalue herself and push others away.
Technical Implementation
Dialogic
First I set up the different scenes in Godot with proper spacing for character and dialogue spaces
Then I assigned each character and character portrait to the correct space in it's timeline
Then utilizing a parent abstract class, I called the each individual timeline to play each appropriate cut-scene at the right time.
This system allowed me to create new scene settings and timelines and continue changing them without having to change the implemented file, minimizing programming conflicts.
Lore Bible
This is my working Lore Bible for the game, including areas, customs, characters, beliefs, and relationships.
In addition, I created a Facts and Questions document for game writers, artists, and programmers to refer to for quick answers.