Narrative Game Development Blog
- scottgray500
- Mar 27
- 5 min read
Updated: 15 hours ago
20/01/25
Having thought about what to make for my team's narrative game, I've decided to dig up an old game concept I've had since secondary school. To be brief, it's an action-adventure game set in Pompei, Italy where a tourist stumbles upon an ancient weapon that ends up setting them and their partners on an adventure across the city, culminating in them foiling a evil mastermind's plans to split Mount Vesuvius in half. Since this story dates back to when I was 16, I figure I should rewrite it a bit to make it somewhat more grounded and mature.
27/01/25
I have now more-or-less completed the plot outline for our narrative game. Instead of taking place throughout Pompei, the game will be set in a number of towns and cities surrounding Mount Vesuvius, with a supporting character accompaning the main characters in thwarting a secret sector of the Napoli government's plans of triggering a civil war via premature volcanic eruption.
Looking at it in its current state, I doubt much of this outline outside of the first page will feature in the prototype, but I suppose it's a decent enough base.
23/02/25
Now that the deadline for the narrative game assignment is drawing closer, I have finally decided to share the plot outline document with the rest of the team Although there's still quite a bit of time left, the fact we haven't properly begun development on the game itself is slightly disconcerting.
13/03/25
After urging them enough times in person, it seems that the other team members have finally read my plot outline. One of them seemed pretty on-board with the whole concept, though after elaborating on the events of the outline to the other member and explaining it all to our lecturer, it appears that I should have written a GAME outline instead, since the description of what actually happens during gameplay is very sparse compared to the written storyline, and a good chunk of the outline details the events of a full-fledged game, which is far beyond the scope of our prototype.
Frankly, it would have been a lot more advantageous to have known this ahead of time, since the plot outline took quite a bit of time and brain power for me to complete, but I digress. I have begun work on a game script that should act similar to a script for a film or TV show, which shall include every line of cutscene dialogue each character will have, as well as "stage directions", such as what will happen during playable sections of the game and what actions each character will make during cutscenes.
In addition to the game script, I am also working on a couple of level design sketches, one for the chamber where the player character obtains their rope dart weapon and the other for the layout of the entire level. On top of that, I have also located a selection of free player character sprite assets and sent them to the other group members in order to help us decide what we will be use for our player character.
20/03/25
I have now completed the design sketches and have sent the link to a OneDrive folder with them inside to my group. The folder also includes an incomplete draft of the game script. Here are the two design sketches I've sent.
01/04/25
Thanks to one of the other team members submitting a mitigating circumstances request, our deadline has been pushed back from the 3rd of April to the 18th, which should give us a lot more wiggle room regarding development.
02/04/25
I've now finished putting all the levels' terrain together, all that's left regarding level design (other than scripting, cutscene triggers, enemy AI, etc.) is adding platforms for the player to use, which will be what I'll work on next.
07/04/25
After looking up a brief tutorial on how to create one-way platforms in Unity, I've now finished arranging all of the wooden platforms in the second half of the level. There's an issue with how the rope dart interacts with the platforms when I try to hook onto them from below, but I'll look into sorting that out as well.
14/04/25
I've started working on editing one of the sprite sheets that came with the animation pack we're using for the player character in order to get sprites for the enemy NPCs. Since the player animation pack has a number of animations like walking, running, attacking, damage, dying and so on, and that the enemies were described as "shadowy figures" in my script, I figured it'd be a pretty good way to reuse resources by simply recolouring one of the other sprite sheets, since it would also fit with the look of the player character.
Unfortunately I decided to do all my sprite edit work in MS Paint, so all of the sprite PNGs ended up losing their transparency, but I'll get round to fixing that tomorrow, shouldn't be too hard.
15/05/25
I've fixed all the animation frames for the enemy NPCs in Photoshop, and also made a placeholder sprite for the head of the rope dart. In addition, I've added a basic health bar thanks to this tutorial. https://youtu.be/0tDPxNB2JNs?si=ANuRv1sprjqkoBVo
I've also been tasked with editing the middle of the first level to ensure that the enemies' AI is able to pull off the chase sequence properly, along with editing some geometry in the second level to ensure it's legitimately beatable.
16/05/25
I've generated images for the flashback sequence during the main cutscene and a new sprite for the head of the rope dart via ChatGPT, as well as background music via AIMusicGen.AI. Up until this point, we didn't have a proper name for the game, but as per another member's suggestion, we are now going with the name "Spirit Dart", named after the possessed rope dart the player character wields.
I've also finished editing the mid-section of the first level (as seen below) so that there's a small area after the drop a drop for the enemies to spawn behind the player, we're also planning on having the chase sequence end after the player crosses the bridge on the right, rather than having it last until the end of the level.
The bridge itself is planned to collapse once the player crosses it, though that task has been left to a different member. Other than that, I'm currently working on adding to our GDD.
17/04/25
Even though today's the last day before the assignment is due, it's been a little more easy-going for me than the last few days, since the other group members have been focusing on the game itself, while I've primarily been adding onto the GDD.
Despite that, I did make a notable addition to the game in the form of an overground section at the end of the second level that is planned to transition into the ending cutscene.
Other than that, things are looking up for the game: cutscenes are being made, enemies are fully implemented, level design is being further optimised, the works.