A.W.S.
ROLE
Narrative/Content Designer, 2D Character/UI Artist
DESCRIPTION
As a creative lead, pitched and wrote narrative-based approach to project, dictating the structure of 'game'. Designed and then drew characters, wrote the script for each act, produced each Act's scenes (environment and soundscape), then drew the app's UI.
YEAR
2021
GENRE
Narrative, Historical
PLATFORM
AR Mobile Game
NARRATIVE DESIGN: DIALOGUE, PLOT, CHARACTER, LEVEL DESIGN
LEVEL DESIGN
THE THREE ACTS
The first act is between Grissel and the community at large in various trivial activities in a typical day in Dundee. We are introduced to Grissel alongside her community.
The second act is a scene of Grissel and her husband at church, the same church that had the priests that later accused Grissel and her husband of witchcraft in real life.
The last act is more clean cut as we see Grissel living out her last few moments in anger. There is more narration and explanation of the story at large and facts given about the events that took over Scotland in the 1600s en masse.
At the end, a monument is displayed in 3D rendering, a hard contrast to the 2D characters, with all the names of people who died at the stake present on it.
DIALOGUE, LOCALIZATION
I decided on using English subtitles but had all voice actors speak with as much of a Scottish accent as we could manage to further the immersion and respect the culture that this event takes place in. I gave the VAs a separate script with Scottish intonations to help with that endeavor.
ART
CHARACTER CREATION
We decided on having characters drawn in 2D and projected into a 3D environment through a 2D device. This actually has a very special effect, and looks unique to us, which helps tie in our aesthetic as a team and as a game experience. I started working on the character of Grissel and drew many iterations of her at many different ages, with many different styles. My team was most happy with the last mock up I drew, and so I began to create the characters, visually and script-wise.
We decided to keep the stylization of character to a minimum. Lineart heavy, semi realistic, muted tones to create serious characters that pivoted according to player camera angles so that a 3D rendering of them would not be necessary.
DESIGNING GRISSEL
Grissel does not stand out amongst the other characters to emphasize how similar she is to anyone else in the community, further explaining visually that it could really be any woman that gets accused. There are more male characters than female due to the occupational standard of the time, something that is interesting but we do not feel ultimately detracts from the message of the game.
PLOT AND STRUCTURE
CONCEPTUALIZATION OF NARRATIVE
I created an empathetic, story-based experience rather than a game with objectives, player goals, and rewards because our team believed that ‘gamifying’ this could very easily trivialize the concept and lead us towards a caricatured version of the past. It is also because of this that I decided on a narrative without a general overarching ‘plot,’ as Grissel would not have experienced her life formulaically. Grissel is shown to live a normal life in the enlightenment era until she is accused, and then executed without a proper reason for being a witch.
I also did not give her a specific reason for her ‘crime’ as we wanted to emphasize the absurdity of some reasons why women (and some men) were hung for witchcraft. Instead, in the last act the player sees a group of townspeople shout various theories (mostly based in superstition, as was the religious beliefs at the time) about why she is a witch, and must therefore burn at the stake. These range from curdling milk to wearing too much jewelry to religious persecution, which were all legitimate reasons given during that time to kill ‘witches.’
STRUCTURE OF NARRATIVE
The narrative is mostly driven by a wide range of character dialogues that span over three acts, with a narrator supplying facts and summaries of the time period and events that occurred in between. We chose the first act to be at the witch monument located in Dundee, the second act to be at St. Mary’s Cathedral church, and the third church at the town centre square, an open area that was actually the location of her hanging back in the 1600s.
CREATING GAME WITH NARRATIVE
Due to the narrative being the driving point of the game, I specified a lot of information in the design document through my script alone. Each act had a description of the locations, the characters, the mood, the ambient sounds and general atmosphere in addition to the dialogue. It was a good mockup of soft level designing in addition to guiding the player towards Grissel's grim fate.
