✒️ About Narrative ✒️
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Don't forget about Ludonarrative Consonance!
- Narrative is easily limited by other disciplines, be assertive about narrative needs.
- Iterate as much as possible.
- Write LESS.
Goals
- Tell a story that is age appropriate for middle-schoolers, but enjoyable for all ages
- Create characters that have depth and chemistry
- Write a satisfying character arc for Az and parallel arc for Winston
Lesson 1: Ludonarrative Consonance
Ludonarrative consonance is a fancy word that basically means the gameplay and the story are closely tied together. The gameplay is acting out the story, and the story serves the gameplay.
Ex: an early decision we made was to remove combat from our game. This is because the main character is a 12 year old kid whose goal is to help others. Combat simply doesn't make sense with this context.
Inspirations
For both story and world building, we took inspiration from Deltarune and Adventure Time.
These are the ideas we took inspiration from for each:
Deltarune:
- A small band of characters with a lot of depth
- Balancing light-hearted comedy with serious scenes
Adventure Time:
- World loosely inspired by Medieval Fantasy, but with modern elements
- A PG, light-hearted story, even villains have moments of friendship with the cast
See our Narrative Bible for more information on our inspirations.
How Writing Appears in Leaves of Fate
We split up the game narrative into four categories: major conversations, filler conversations, barks, and environmental comments.
Major conversations:
Required cutscenes placed throughout the level. They guide the main character through the main story arc.
Filler conversations:
Optional conversations with NPCs. They add depth to the characters, their relationships, or the world.
Barks:
Short phrases the companion NPC makes to encourage and build rapport with the main character.
Environmental comments:
Optional moments where the main character comments on something in the environment. They add depth to the main character or the world.
Lesson 2: Narrative is easily limited by other disciplines, so be assertive about narrative needs.
Our narrative had to be flexible because of our short production schedule and difficulties faced in other disciplines. Some story beats weren’t possible because we didn’t have proper art assets, technical features, or otherwise weren’t feasible. If you want specific narrative features, be assertive about those needs early in the process.
Narrative Pipeline
Our narrative pipeline started with the premise and followed the process described below. We also created world building materials to support our narrative process, even if they did not show up in the game.
Premise
A young kid with an underwhelming skillset dreams of one day becoming a Great Knight of his Kingdom. He finally receives an invitation to the Castle. However, when he arrives, the Knights have been locked in a room by a gang of misunderstood Wizards. It’s only through his unique mindset and skillset that he can break through to the Wizards and free the Knights.
Process
- Draft character profiles
- Identify overarching story beats
- Tie story beats to gameplay moments
- Create character voices
- Draft dialogue
- Get dialogue approved by another team member
- Import and format in Engine
- Script cutscenes
This outline looks quite linear, but our writing was very iterative. We often returned to character profiles or voices at later stages of production to update information and make revisions. Steps 1-3 were less likely to change at later stages of production because they’re more foundational to our narrative, but it wasn’t a strict rule. We also ensured that all game writing had at least three rounds of writing and revisions.
For more info about how we implemented dialogue in our game, check out the Dialogue Manager section of the Narrative Bible.
Lesson 3: Iterate as much as possible.
The more revision our narrative went through, the better it got. We intentionally allotted time so that we could go through multiple rounds of revisions, and it produced well-received results.
Below are the Instagram posts that highlight each of our major characters
Instagram post about Fenn
Instagram post about Az
Instagram post about Winston
Narrative Bible
Our goal for the Narrative Bible was to provide an easily accessible guide to all things narrative and world building. You can read more about our narrative process and decisions on it.
Lesson 4: Write LESS
During playtesting, we noticed that players disengaged from the narrative if conversations dragged on for too long. Much of our revision process was finding ways to cut down on the amount of dialogue while still communicating the full narrative to the player. With more time, we would have made the writing even more concise.
Narrative Documents
Character Profiles
Check Out the Character Profiles Here
Character Voices
Check Out the Character Voices Here
Game Dialogue
Check Out the Dialogue for the Game Here
Dialogue Styling Conventions
Check Out the Dialogue Styling Conventions Here