Narrative Design • Technical Design • Systems Architecture • Prototyping

I was the primary Technical Narrative Designer and narrative systems architect on Judas from Ghost Story Games for two years, working alongside the creators of Bioshock and Bioshock: Infinite on an innovative new game that blends systemic, replayable content with the type of crafted narrative familiar to fans of the Bioshock and System Shock series.

I came onto the team at a really exciting time, right after a major shift in development when I was given the opportunity to architect the narrative delivery and quest systems from the ground up. I helped to design strategies for making our narrative content dynamic and scalable, while at the same time retaining the crafted story experience fans expect from a Ken Levine game. I work closely with creative leadership and other disciplines to create engaging and fun delivery of our storyline in a dynamic and player-driven narrative game where each playthrough is a new unique experience.

Dynamic narrative design

I worked closely with writing, art, audio, and engineering in order to drive and implement narrative and mission content; taking writers’ visions and making them into playable experiences that are fun, engaging, and radically player-driven. It’s been a fun and interesting challenge to try and create a Bioshock-style narrative experience in a game with a rogue-like foundation and level design — where many different things can change from one playthrough to the next based on player actions, as well as working within a dynamic level design.

Player-driven narrative in a rogue-like game presented a number of unique challenges, including what narrative content should trigger when and under which conditions, and how to traffic control all of the narrative content so the game has the same pacing and feel of a scripted linear experience. I designed a system with a combination of metadata tracking which monitored the player and game state and could be queried by a variety of game systems, as well as working with engineering to implement a system of hierarchy and priority so the validation of narrative content was as performant as possible while also being easy to create and debug content within them.

Taking stories from ideas to gameplay

I worked directly with creative leadership and writers to take stories from outlines into fully playable, enjoyable experiences. I collaborated with art, animation, level design, AI design, combat design, and engineering to own and implement narrative moments and gameplay missions end-to-end. I worked closely with other disciplines to drive narrative and mission design within the game, to bring more player agency and enhance narrative from writers, and create unique, handcrafted moments to excite and surprise players

I also worked as the bridge between disciplines to unify narrative, gameplay, AI, UI, and mission design into a cohesive experience; helping to create and refine the system of player verbs, narrative tropes, and objective types used across our game.

Unreal development

My work was done primarily through UE4 Blueprint scripting, level scripting, and level sequences to create data-driven narrative systems and content throughout the game — everything from small one-liner “radical recognition” events in response to player actions, to the large scripted main story missions and cinematic moments.

I’ve also worked alongside engineering to help design and implement or refactor various core game systems, including those tracking all of the player data and game states used by narrative, audio, and progression systems which are used to create a dynamic and above all player-driven experience. I love building beautiful and streamlined solutions to complex problems, and creating systems that are scalable and flexible.