The Hunt Branching Questline: 'Abandoned Mining Colony'
- Genre: Sci-Fi RPG First Person Shooter
- Type: Branching Questline
- Duration: 2 weeks
- Tools: Arcweave, Excel, PPT, Miro
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Role: Narrative Designer- Quest branching dialogue writing, design and implementation
- Character design
- Location and building design
- World building (+ game cartography)
- Voiceover Documentation
Goal
- Design and write a narrative-focused project.
- Improve interactive narrative design and writing skills, processes, and format within a realistic studio production context.
- Understanding of collaborative processes between game writing, narrative design, and other disciplines.
- Soft skills like productive disagreement, conflict resolution, and stand out in a large team setting.
- Iterative skills like feedback gathering, analysis, and application.
Overview
Linear & Branching Dialogue
Designed Quest Branching Dialogue
I designed branching dialogue threads that integrated variables and choices smoothly into gameplay. I did so by creating:
- Role-play Choice Hub: Allows the player to pursue their style of gameplay through polar opposite choice options.
- Tutorial Quest – As this quest is still part of the tutorial, there are no quest acceptance hubs.
I also created thematic choices to increase player immersion:
- Urgent Stakes: Guaranteed clarity on the narrative urgency for the Upgrading Weapons, Healing the Player, and Battle gameplay.
- Respected Player Character: Designed quest dialogue purposefully to ensure that the player’s choice feels impactful.
- Tied to Gameplay – Ensured dialogue was tight, informative, and quickly led to gameplay.
Lastly, I made a prototype with the following goals:
- Optimize Player Tap/Clicks: Through a clickable prototype, the script can be play-tested to improve player experience.
- Live Design Space – Arcweave allows for comments and notation, allowing for cross-team collaboration.
Linear Dialog
I included the following linear dialogue design considerations when designing my linear dialogue:
- Gameplay Needs – As part of the tutorial section, this interaction was designed to raise tension and encourage player investment into the narrative, while also introducing key characters.
- Quest Reminders – Remind the player of the quest and narrative expectations.
I also wanted to ensure:
- Clear Goals – Considering that this questline was intended to be introductory, the quests were simple and concise.
Character Design & Barks
I crafted a player character with motivations that conflict throughout the story, leading to dynamic choices that shape their growth. I purposefully designed the player character to be controversial within the world, ensuring that the player’s choice of either clashing or aligning with NPCs felt resolute. By designing the player character and multiple NPCs, I ensured I had to:
- Write character bios and barks that aligned with weapon attacks, Jungian archetypes, and character alignment.
- Design character weapons that provide multiple references for both weapon design and attacks for the combat designers and artists.
Player Character: Bakari Hassani
Bakari is the player character.
I wanted Bakari to represent a trope similar to the “space cowboy”. I love the idea of a bounty hunter that takes to the stars for no other reason than “why not”. Though Bakari didn’t have much of a choice to escape from his home planet, he surely didn’t have to go the route of a bounty hunter—the galaxy is full of many possibilities, after all.
Bakari is light-hearted and curious. He doesn’t shy away from learning more about the galaxy he lives in—but he does so in such a lazy and roundabout way, many would think he didn’t care about much of anything at all.
After joining the bounty hunters, he quickly formed a bond with his team leader, Ruhi, whom he regards as an older sister, and with Zoan, who fills the void left by his beloved childhood puppy. Together, they are one big, happy family.
Ally NPC: Ruhi Chanda
Ruhi is one of the companions who can help Bakari.
Ruhi is no-nonsense. She gets assigned a job, and she makes sure that job gets done. She has bills to pay, after all.
She loves tech and pushing the boundaries of humanity’s knowledge—but not through science. Instead, Ruhi likes to blow things up.
Her cybernetic arms allow her to quickly shift in and out of combat mode, and she loves to be on the frontline. With the help of Bakari and Zoan, Ruhi can finally escape the boredom that’s been haunting her ever since she left her homeworld.
Ally NPC: Zoan
Zoan is an evolved scyphozoan that was found shortly after humanity departed from Earth to explore the stars. The scyphozoan had lain in wait for however long they could, attempting to avoid human contact at all costs to evade that eventual “there were aliens on Earth this entire time?!” conversation.
However, unbeknownst to the scyphozoan, most of humanity stayed behind, while only a select few actually got on rockets to push the boundaries of humanity.
So, unfortunately, the conversation had occurred anyway. Luckily, though, the scyphozoan showed such fantastic biological similarities to humans. Both races quickly discovered that symbiotic linking was not only possible but also served to evolve each other beyond what was previously thought possible.
That was many, many centuries ago, though. Nowadays, many scyphozoan like Zoan join any exciting new adventure to document and learn as much as they can about the universe they inhabit.
Enemy NPC: Augur
Augur is an awakened, unidentified being. He has come to Gliese 667 Cd in search of a relic that can reawaken his people and return their dominance over the Milky Way.
For many, many millennia, Augur was asleep, like the rest of his kind. Prior to his hibernation, he was nothing special—a lowly warrior amongst the hundreds of thousands. Why he had been awakened first, he had no idea. However, Augur understood that this opportunity must’ve been given to him for a reason, and that he must make the most of it.
He will save his people, and in return, they will worship him.
Storyboarding & Trailer Script Writing
Storyboarding
Storyboard Overview
I wrote a storyboard script to describe the opening sequence of the game and also designed a preliminary storyboard for collaboration with potential art and marketing teams for internal approvals:
- Designed shots with worldbuilding in mind by creating a sequence that can serve as both a trailer for the game and the introductory cinematic before the tutorial.
- Specified location, camera view, and action for reference by the art team.
- Considered any potential narrations done by NPCs or main characters when designing specific storyboard beats.
- Drafted a storyboard prototype with simple assets and simplistic design to maintain quick and efficient communication between different internal teams.
Voice Over Documentation
I created 4 voice-over documents for 1 player character, 2 NPC quest characters, and 1 enemy leader to provide thorough and detailed information for voice actors and to also ensure more refined voice recording sessions.
Each document includes:
- Character design images, character backstories, personality notes, motivations, and vocal directions for each character.
- All lines of dialogue for each character, along with scene details, dialogue context, and quest summaries, are provided to give situational and mood context for the voice actor.
Additionally, a Voice-Over Actor Casting Document was designed to specifically assist with casting direction for individual characters based on culture, age, and gender expectations.
Worldbuilding
Gliese 667 Cd’s Mercenary Base was intentionally designed as the starting area for players.
As such, the Mercenary Base was designed with the following design goals:
- Highlight key buildings of the Mercenary Base with item placements that resemble the building’s purpose to the player, as well as a connected list of gameplay purposes for the building itself.
- Included notes on points of interest, reference images, and thematic elements for collaboration with the art and level design team.
- Included a reference key with notable NPCs, gameplay mechanics, and a brief backstory for each location.
Fleshed Out The Exterior Locations for The Mercenary Base
The overall building document was created to ensure effective communication between the narrative, art, and design teams. The goals for this document are as follows:
- Provide reference images that include notes and any additional relevant information to ensure design clarity between teams, while also providing clear and concise visuals to inspire their work.
- Clearly indicate whether the building document was for the interior or exterior of a building, as well as its name and location number, for the team to reference the town map with ease.
- Included notes on the important building details, gameplay usage, NPCs, and brief descriptions of NPCs relating to the building for quick reference during the level design process.
Fleshed Out Interior Locations for The Mercenary Base
Each building interior was designed to clearly communicate its purpose to the player, while also exemplifying the world lore and how each building fits into the town of the Mercenary Base.
For The Armory, special emphasis was placed on the heavy artillery being stored behind specialized walls, with stray armor and weapons lying on racks nearby. Additionally, there is a weapon and armor upgrade module.
Each building interior was designed to clearly communicate its purpose to the player, while also exemplifying the world lore and how each building fits into the town of the Mercenary Base.
For the Xenotech lab, the player’s attention should be drawn to the many holograms displaying unique alien lifeforms. Also, in the middle of the room is a laboratory research table for the player to study new things they discover.
Each building interior was designed to clearly communicate its purpose to the player, while also exemplifying the world lore and how each building fits into the town of the Mercenary Base.
The Canteen is the resting point for the companions of the game. Here, the player can acquire missions, change their party setup, and adjust any settings they need within the base.
Each building interior was designed to clearly communicate its purpose to the player, while also exemplifying the world lore and how each building fits into the town of the Mercenary Base.
The Base Landing Point is the point of entry for any aircraft. Players can upgrade and modify any changes made to their aircraft or snowmobiles.
Designed Gliese 667 Cd's Cartography
I designed a world map to exemplify the following design goals:
- Emphasize the different factions at play within The Hunt.
- Created locations centered on the natural progression of resource needs for gameplay, like forests, mountains, oceans, and caves.
- Divided the key quest locations across the map to encourage exploration, player progression, companion additions, and embark on different narrative arcs as they progress through the story.
- Created a location key to indicate location names, points of interest, and highlight the different factions present within the world.
Genre and Content Research
I conducted high-level research documentation to assist with determining the game’s popularity and help the marketing team do preliminary research with the target audience. To do so, I combined movies, shows, and comics that have narrative similarity. The document includes:
- A list of movies, TV shows, and games, including the official synopses of the titles, and links to their trailers.
- Wrote notes on what critical elements to draw inspiration from to prove audiences enjoy similar ideas that vary in media style.
Created lore summaries for both in-game and promotional use.