Dev Diary: Narrative Design

An integral part of video games is narrative design. Narrative design is more than the main story, dialogue, and in-game text. It is a blend of game design with writing. It is about story elements in all elements of the game such as mechanics, level design, environmental art, character design, and systems design. The narrative designer ensures that the game has a cohesive feel and objective.

We chatted with Heather Jackson about her approach to narrative design and how she has used that approach in First Moon of Mercury, our upcoming sci-fi puzzle box game.

Thanks so much for joining us today, Heather. Why don’t you start by telling us a little about yourself?

I started my writing career in television, working on animation and kids' shows. In 2015, a friend told me that Bloom Digital was looking for a writer for a choose-your-own-adventure story game for teens - which was totally in my wheelhouse!

For the next few years I wrote TV shows and games, and by 2020 I'd fully transitioned into the game industry.

What is usually your main goal when approaching Narrative Design?

It really depends on the type of game! With a visual novel, I'd start with the characters. With other genres, I first need to determine the basic shape of the narrative: Will the story branch? Are there side quests? Do we want different endings? What's the narrative pattern (i.e. gauntlet, branch-and-bottleneck, linear, non-linear, etc)?

Steam post image A draft of the demo flowchart in Miro.

What was your main goal when approaching Narrative Design for First Moon of Mercury?

Most of the games I write are visual novels, which are story-first games with established narrative patterns, but First Moon of Mercury is a puzzle game first and foremost. So I needed to figure out the technical requirements and limitations before pitching a story for the game.

Tell us about your process.

I work in Miro, coming up with the shape of the story in a flowchart. It's literally been different for every game I've worked on, even the visual novels. Miro really helps to visualize the plot, especially since games rarely follow a linear beginning to end flow.

Steam post image An early section of the timeline leading up to the events in-game in Miro.

What is your research approach, and what sort of topics did you research for this game?

I try to only research what is essential for the story, since research can be a time consuming rabbit hole! But this game did require quite a lot of research about space flight, solar flares and the consequences of geomagnetic storms when they hit Earth.

Luckily, I had help from Stitch's Marketing & Community Director, Victoria Rogers, especially with regards to how the power going out on the Eastern Seaboard would affect ALL communications on Earth!

Steam post image An expanded view of the timeline of events leading up to the events in-game, including links to articles and research.

How horrified were you when you started reading about the potential chaos that could happen if a strong geomagnetic storm happened today like it did during the Carrington Event in 1859?

I was prepared for the horror! Before I was a professional writer, I made ends meet by transcribing footage and interviews for documentaries, and one doc was about solar storms and how absolutely screwed Earth's energy-dependent civilizations would be if a Carrington Event happened now.

What is your favourite piece(s) of knowledge you learned while researching for First Moon of Mercury?

Favourite? I don't know if I have a favourite. The one I was most surprised by - and really should not have been if the education system was doing a better job of informing kids about important infrastructure! - is all the cables running under the oceans that are the basis of Earth's communication networks, including financial transactions!

These cables are massive and so numerous - how did I not know they exist? Did I think all communications passed between satellites in the air? Maybe. I hadn't really thought about it. But now I can't un-know it!

Steam post image A section of an internal document exploring ideas of what could happen if the world's communication cables were fried by a powerful geomagnetic storm over the Eastern Seaboard.

Tell us about something you think more people should know about narrative design.

It's hard. When it works, people don't notice it, and that's good. But the downside of that is most people assume narrative design is easy, because they don't see the work that goes into it.

Unlike with visual arts, I can't show the team my process because it's just a bunch of words and diagrams scribbled on paper! Or, even more nebulous, in my mind palace. No one else can see in there! But stuff is happening. Many things are considered, tried, discarded and revamped every single day. But it's all invisible to the team.

What is your favourite part about the narrative in First Moon of Mercury?

I like a challenge! And the biggest challenge for narrative in First Moon of Mercury is that the Player Character is not a human. The mechanics of the game dictated that, and there was a lot of worry surrounding a story where the PC is a computer with limited autonomy. But I think it works!

Now to write the script and get it in game so everyone else can see it works too.