Shadow's Grove
Roles: Creative Director, Narrative Designer​​
Team Size: 27 members (academic)
Time Spent: 1 year
Program: Unreal Engine
Results: Drove creative direction, wrote design bible, scripted and implemented 41 dialogue lines, directed 3 cutscenes, implemented 2 cinemetics, designed 3 narrative systems, met with all departments to maintain cohesion
My Process
I. Establishing Narrative Direction
I joined Team Fenris at a point where the core plot had been outlined, but it lacked clear meaning, detail, and design integration. As such...
I set my initial goals as:
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Explicitly defining central narrative themes.
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Building a world and establishing characters that holistically reflect and create conflict with the themes.
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​Designing systems that create sustained intrigue about the story and world for players to engage with.
Building a world from a theme
I settled on the core theme of learning to move on from grief, building on the initial pitch: a young girl, Astrid, enters the afterlife to try to revive her wolf, Eri.
I then began to reflect this theme holistically throughout my other creative direction choices, such as in environmental storytelling and character relationships. Some examples include:
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Rooting the environment and conflict within the space between life and death, focusing on the conflicting emotions that arise.
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Writing a lively dynamic between Astrid and Eri, creating the basis for several animation choices, to ensure the player feels the strength of the pair's bond and understands the weight of letting go.
Early Documentation
II. Putting Narrative into Gameplay
To translate story into gameplay, I designed a combination of 3 dialogue systems, 4 location-based user interface popups, a scripted ludonarrative combat encounter, and many environmental storytelling choices, which made up for our limited scope for cutscenes.
DIALOGUE SYSTEMS
Goddess Dialogue
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First, I created points where 2 different divine beings can speak to the player, providing tutorialization with underlying motives
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I designed Hel, the goddess of the underworld, to bestow helpful new abilities upon the player that help them through the afterlife whenever speaking
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Conversely, I designed the Great One, the antagonist, to bestow harmful abilities upon the player when speaking, pushing them to kill spirits & cling to the dead
Chained Swords
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Next, I created the Chained Swords: swords housing spirits in similar situations to Astrid, who speak to you upon being approached
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My goal was to push the player to think and reflect through being exposed to unique perspectives and guidance from the spirits
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I also used these to assist with guidance and environmental storytelling, integrating unique camera angles to accompany dialogue
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I divided them into two types: purified and corrupted, in order to integrate both helpful and troubled lines
Howling Points
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Finally, I created points where players may howl while in wolf form to speak to guardian spirit and therefore unlock the entrance to the Great One's tomb
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​I wrote each spirit to ask Eri, the wolf, a question about his feelings toward his impending death, allowing both Eri and the player to process the narrative's emotional weight before moving on to the end
Goddess Dialogue: Unlocking magic ability!
Corrupted Chain Sword - This one pushes the player to cling to Eri instead of moving on
Cleansed Chain Sword
Howling Point
Dialogue Systems Documentation
ENVIRONMENTAL STORYTELLING
Worldbuilding and Level Integration
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I designed the world with careful consideration of the impact that major characters have left on it, particularly the Great One (antagonist) who holds a lot of influence
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In collaboration with our artists, I drove the implementation of several visual motifs connected to the Great One, such as scratch marks among areas he frequents as well as chains that are symbolic of the fact that by preventing spirits from moving on, he is metaphorically "chaining" them down
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To further the environmental storytelling, I suggested that the level proceed in a continuous downward spiral, allegorical of the way in which spirits who spend too long in the grove will deteriorate
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I lastly provided several pages of Norse Mythology references to help artists with inspiration, and based the environments off of Gjallarbrú, Gjöll, Hel, and Yggdrasail
Location Names
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After noticing that players would not always understand where they were or the emotional weight of each area due to our limited cinematics and dialogue, I designed location names and pop-ups in order to provide additional context
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These names, when combined with the dialogue systems and storytelling, were able to holistically bridge the gap in making the story less opaque to players
Cinematics
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Inspired by The Legend of Zelda series, I lastly created a few cinematics using Unreal Engine's sequencer in order to highlight changes in the environment, make the world feel more alive, and inspire intrigue and excitement in players
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While keyframing the cinematics, I focused on making them as dynamic as possible in order to increase engagement and show off more of the areas
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These cinematics appear after specific player actions, such as unlocking a new path forward, adding a more tangible sense of reward
Great One Chain Motifs
Great One Scratch Marks
Location Popup + Downwards Progression
Door Opening Cinematics
Environmental Storytelling Documentation
LUDONARRATIVE ENCOUNTER
A Major Pivot + Communication Issue Resolution
At one point during production, our team had to cut a core cinematic where Astrid and Eri reunite, which was due to delays stemming from communication issues. To address the situation, I took steps to quickly redesign the emotional beat as a ludonarrative encounter and to improve our team's production process.
Redesigning a Cutscene as Gameplay
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ORIGINAL: The original cinematic plays after completing a combat encounter. Essentially, Astrid defeats a group of enemies to free Eri from a cage, and then the two reunite and can fight together.
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REMADE: I redesigned the scene into a scripted loss where Astrid cannot defeat the enemies and faces defeat, prompting Eri to break out of the cage and rescue her after she slowly blacks out. In addition to saving scope for a full cutscene by relying on fades and audio cues, I was able to increase the emotional weight of the beat by having Eri directly engage with you as the player.
Updating Task Delegation Documentation
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Finally, in order to address the issues that originally caused the cut to be necessary, I started creating a new type of document to better delegate tasks
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In these documents, I detailed the exact desired tasks for major sequences broken down by discipline. It allowed for teammates to better understand exactly what to do, why, and what sequence it would affect, allowing for much more straightforward progression compared to our prior task lists which were more miscellaneous.
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I additionally provided clear reference documents to better communicate expectations and goals
New Sequence Plan + Beatmap
Full New Encounter!!
Task Tracking and Reference Documentation
I Learned About:
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Working Under Constraints
I had to learn to work under a tight scope, as I joined the team a few months into development at a point where we had to cut more content than we could add. It forced me to find creative ways to implement the game's narrative so that I could ensure our tech and art teams were not overwhelmed. There were times where major cinematic beats and character appearances had to be reworked or removed, leading me to learn a variety of ludonarrative storytelling techniques to compensate.
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Communication
Fenris Games finalized at 27 members, and the roster shifted a lot throughout development. I took an active role in facilitating communication, as I voiced a number of problems, kept professors updated, and took feedback with an open mind. I also helped with production by integrating action items into my design documentation to ensure that tasks would not be lost, and attended regular meetings with each discipline to check up on progress.
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Driving a Thesis
Working as a Creative Director taught me a lot about how to establish and drive a cohesive vision. I highly value holistic design, and wanted to ensure that each element of the game would reflect its core ideas. In pursuit of such, I kept in active talks with our art, tech, and audio teams, breaking down complex ideas so that they could be easily understood. It helped me work with the team's constraints, as focusing on the core of the game ensured I knew what cuts could be made.