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Excalibots (2019)
Game Director ● Narrative Designer
Group Project (15 members)
Summary
Excalibots is an action-adventure game about a sword-obsessed knight on a quest to collect loot who inadvertently saves the kingdom on the way. The player traverses the Kingdom of Fantabot as they meet NPCs, fight goblins, and collect shiny new swords. Most of my work on this project involved dialogue writing as well as UI design and implementation. I was also communicated with my teammates to ensure the game's different elements combined into a cohesive whole with a coherent narrative.
Challenge — Brief but Memorable
One of the primary narrative design challenges I focused on with this project was the need to convey NPC personalities efficiently. The player could only interact with the NPC in short bursts, and our level design restricted the number of interactions that could occur in the game overall. To ensure that NPCs still remained a colorful part of the world, I created character sheets that would allow me to easily reference what the point of each NPC was. I also wrote down small arcs for each NPC, even minor ones, so that the player would feel a sense of progress with each new interaction.
Challenge — End Directing
When I became Game Director on this project, it was already a year in development. The game had no narrative at this point, all text was almost purely functional, but the assets and level design had mostly been set in. Coming in, I had to construct a narrative out of these existing pieces. Tackling this involved extensive communication with my teammates, reading as much documentation as possible. Knowing the creator's intent behind each existing piece of content let me take effective stock of my toolbox.
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