ChaosTheory Games and United Nations
I worked with Chaos Theory Games on an internal training module for the United Nations and World Food Programme. This module is under NDA.
As narrative designer, I was responsible for the main quest, which involved creation of dialogue, flashbacks and characters to suit the client's brief relating to real-world issues explored through a fantasy lens.
aXonPlay
aXonPlay is on a mission to improve the lives of adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder through interactive storytelling. I am working with them as a narrative designer, designing the world, its past, its characters, and writing all written content.
This game is still in production.
MODE'S SECOND CHANCES
I wrote game content, namely dialogue trees, for Second Chances. I work in Twine and a specialised system in Unity to create a range of branching narratives between a multitude of characters.
This project was developed for Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) made possible by the collaboration of Google with us as part of the Google Impact Challenge. The goal of the project is to inspire young minds to pursue pathways in STEM.
Second Chances is set in a fantastical but relatable world where medieval meets Hip Hop. Marlee the game’s main character is new at the school, meeting new friends and enemies. But Marlee has a troubled past and AIME High is her last chance to get things right. Underneath Marlee’s tough exterior is the power to be a great leader.
But things are not easy, the school is facing annihilation from a monstrous mindless creature the ‘Digestor’. Embark on a journey to save the school one grade at a time! Help create an amazing team to win nail biting matches against your opponents in soccer sports tournament. Have you got what it takes to save Aime High from being eaten?
DR EGG DIGITAL
In a magical world of scientific discoveries where even the impossible seems real, three children with special powers discover the greatest lessons of all...
Based on the AWGIE award-winning theatrical production by Catherine Fargher, Dr Egg and the Man with No Ear. The largely 7+ audience will be able to explore the story as well as interact with animated gaming elements and ‘collect’ objects such as seeds or body parts. Users can make ethical choices about creations that may be scientifically ‘successful’ or ‘dangerous mistakes’. The educational browser seeks to appeal to a range of learning levels and will go further to encourage student’s creative thinking, decision-making, and ethical explorations in relation to the natural environment and living things around them via its multi-user online gaming format.
Still in production.
BAROVIET
A young girl saved by a forest spirit before the moment of her death. In fear that her attackers are following her, she promises to help the forest spirit in return for its powers.The spirit grants her the ability to see things in the world she never could before and in return she must complete the series of puzzles that keeps it bound to the forest.
Baroviet is a 3D minimalist puzzle sidescroller where a lost girl must navigate through puzzles by creating tears between the physical world and the realm of spirits and shadows. The player completes puzzles by visually and physically changing the forest and by using a combination of platformer-style mechanics and cipher-puzzle mechanics.
Baroviet was one of 6 student game selected for the Student Showcase at GCAP 2016. It was also shown at PAX 2016 and was featured in two articles by Gamasutra's Katherine Cross and Let's Play Video Games' Laura Dale. The project started development in August 2016 and at the time of being selected had been in production for under three months.
I worked on Baroviet as the lead designer where I dealt with the game's main mechanics, puzzles, level design and narrative.
On the design work on Baroviet, Gamasutra's Katherine Cross said:
"Its design is a near flawless slope that gradually eases the player into ever more complicated applications of the lenses to solve platforming puzzles...it feels like one of those rare titles that can be played by adolescents without either condescending to them or overwhelming them with issues beyond their ken. It’s worth a look, if only to see how they managed to get the tone just right, with each mechanic clicking into place like a tumbler lock."
SIMPLICITY
Simplicity is a narrative driven puzzle platformer that delves into the psychotic mind of a child on their way home from school. Following a psychotic episode, a child's every day journey from home becomes one filled with danger. Coupling dynamic platforming elements with puzzle elements, we created a unique game that focuses heavily on providing a metaphorical experience of the difficulties of mental illness.
Simplicity was completed as a major production for the end of the first year game design course at AIE and was created by a team of four people in nine weeks.
This production was a huge learning curve for the team and despite having finished official production, we hope to polish the game in order to fully achieve the experience we designed.
The game is built for PS4 and Xbox (playable on Windows and Mac provided a controller is available).
"Objects in Space is a modem punk stealth space-trading game set in Apollo - a huge cluster of star systems dozens of light years away from Earth. You are a lonesome ship's captain, buying and selling wares in order to keep your bucket of bolts afloat and stay one step ahead of pirates, organised criminals, corrupt governments and shady laws.”
Objects in Space is the latest game by Flat Earth, set to be released in 2018.
From early March 2015 to June 2016, I was a team of six writers who were writing the stories of the diverse people of the Apollo cluster. The game world is an incredibly complex and rich universe with such a focus on how a human colony removed from Earth struggles with a clash of old and new ideologies. During my time as a writer, I created a range of both stand alone quests and over-arching stories that were interwoven with the universe's story. As such, I wrote full quests, dialogue, news articles and journals to populate the world. Having the opportunity to make this world feel lived in and to see the effects of the Apollo cluster on the people who lived there was a wonderful experience for which I'm very grateful for.
OBJECTS IN SPACE BY FLATEARTH GAMES
THE COUNCIL
The Council is a 2D visual novel where the player must convince three entities, later expose as embodiments of mental illness, to let you out of their jail which they believe will keep you safe from an unknown force. The player must convince these embodiments via engaging in conversations and making dialogue choices with the entities, with the ultimate goal being to leave them behind in the prison and leave.
The initial idea behind it stems from lack of motivation when dealing with mental illnesses and the struggles of convincing yourself to be productive. The game is meant to be a short, intense, and overall unnerving experience.
The game falls into the genre of narrative drive, textual visual novel game. The game places a large amount of emphasis on engaging the player via dialogue and emphasising player agency and the importance of choices.The player listens to what the entities say and respond to them in an attempt to convince them to leave. The game is about understanding about how work around mental illnesses to remain a motivated individual. However, the entities can be easily interpreted differently.
MENS REA
Mens Rea is an interactive visual experience creating during my first year at AIE. The title - which translates to "guilty mind" - sets the scene, where the player enters the mind of a murderer. Scattered throughout the landscape is the recurring and inescapable face of the killer's victim and from the beginning of the environment, the harrowing outline of a gallows can be seen.
Meant as an exploration into the human psyche, Mens Rea attempts to capture the feeling of guilt as action clashes with morality. This environment is ultimately the only solution the killer can see when attempting to reconcile human morality, empathy and values with violent and animalistic actions.
The experience emphasises narrative as told by environmental design, never explicitly telling the player its purpose, leaving ambiguity for audience interpretation.
NNOOO'S BLAST 'EM BUNNIES
"Defend your burrow from a horde of evil bunnies! Pick them off using your carrot rifle, pelt their furry hides with your watermelon pip machine gun or wreak havoc with your runner bean rail gun. Want to destroy as many of their colony as possible? Your turnip mortar will do maximum splash damage."
Earlier this year, I was part of the final Quality Assurance Testing for Blast 'em Bunnies, testing on the Nintendo 3DS and Xbox One.
Credits for QA Tester.
I completed client work with the start-up company GoFar with a group of four to design an app that would gamify better driving habits to motivate their user base in re-defining their driving skill. The ultimate goal was to lower car emissions and so our app focused on the growth of a personalized planet that would be reactive to user performance.
I worked mostly with the documentation, crafting complex and detailed game design documents that outlined User Experience and User Flow. I also put together a small market research survey to assess whether the work we were producing would be at all beneficial to the target market.
