SHARAN PICARD
Narrative Game and Level Designer
SAINTBLADES
"In this single-player story-driven game, explore the world of Saintblades through the eyes of different characters as the story unfolds through the comic book.
Unravel the mysteries of the New Land, the truth behind the Sacred Blades, and prevent history from repeating itself...even if it means rewriting it."
Genre: Sidescroller, narrative
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Platform: PC
Team: 1 Person
Specification: Postgraduate degree final project
Roles & Responsibilities:
-Game and Level Design
-World and Narrative Design
-Character and Environment Art
-Programming
-Sound Design
My work with World Design:
Creating a Compelling and Independent World
-
Brainstorming
The project began with a prompt: What if, in a fantasy setting, the object of worship was not a force of nature or divinity, but something man-made?
After elaborating on what sort of man-made creation would be common enough in all culture to be present world-wide, weapons made it out on top of the list.
From there came the idea of a world where blades of all sorts are considered holy, and the story of how they came to be seen as tools of destiny, as well as a draft of an inhabitant of such a world.
Afterwards, I worked on developing the world itself, elaborating its system of interlocking structures and drafted a chart in Miro.
⇓ Nature: The physical laws of the world, its geologic and geographic components as well as fauna and flora.
⇓ Culture: All that is of artificial construct, such as buildings in different regions.
⇓ Language: How is knowledge transmitted.
⇓ Mythology: How cultures make sense out of the world they inhabit.
⇓ Philosophy: The ideologies of the different people.
⇓ Religion: What flows from Mythology and Philosophy, how the people structured their beliefs and the practices that come along with it.
⇓ Governance: The societal structure and laws of different people, the dynamics between different groups within themselves and their interactions with other groups, their economy and what they make for a living.
With a first layer of information in these categories, I could see and understand the world better, helping me craft a timeline of events that transpired and that are yet to come in order to anchor the story into the world as well as characters to navigate through it.
Now having a place, a time and characters, all the components needed were present to make a story.
My work as a Narrative Game Designer:
Merging two media into an Innovative Game Experience
-
Brainstorming
To reinforce the narrative aspect I wanted to include in the project and make it more than a visual novel, I chose to combine the European comic book with the video game as media to convey an interactive story.
The format inspired me ideas of game mechanics, such as flipping between pages, moving through comic panels as well as moving these around to affect the story (using a mechanic to fill in the blanks similar to the image below).
-
Gameplay and Narrative
The storyline of the main characters gave me ideas for sections of gameplay, merging together narrative and game mechanics. For example, the merchant character introduces eavesdropping and trading to collect information and ressources, where the runaway character has gameplay sections of riding, running and jumping to reach the objective.
Outside of the diegesis, the Memory Shards the players can collect throughout the levels can be used as panels of the comic to fill in the blanks and help the protagonist regain his memories and to reconstruct the story.
-
Working for a Persona
Along with the ever-growing video game streaming community since the beginning of the pandemic, the target audience for this project is someone who enjoys watching walkthrough to experience the story without having to play it herself, as she is someone who considers herself bad at games and gets stressed and overwhelmed easily when playing them. Keeping that in mind, I designed game mechanics that are simple yet support the narrative: character movement, object interaction, dialogue options and point-and-click gameplay.
In order to limit stress and reinforce the narrative aspect, the game does not punish failure to reach an objective, instead branching towards another story path, and the player can always return to a previous point in the story to retry a different outcome.
As for the narration of the game, it is split between comic boxes and speech bubbles, making it easy for streamers to voice the lines for their audience.
-
Scoping down according to Ressources
Considering the limited time I had to produce the project as well as my own skillset, I decided to put aside some functionalities I had developed for the project. I chose to keep the base mechanics of flipping through pages, character movement and interaction for the prologue part, and introduce the other mechanics progressively over the other chapters of the story.
The Level Design tasks:
-
Finding the Flow
Before sitting down to draft a level, I wanted to decide on a gameloop to use in every chapters and came up with the following:
-
Putting Narrative with Design
Once the level gameloop was clear, I moved on to writing the script of the first chapter.
From there I designed the overall location and then proceeded to cut it down into levels, establishing a progression curve following the narrative structure (three acts) of the chapter.
My work with 2D Art:
Conveying the World
-
Environmental Storytelling
To give off the feeling that the world is inhabited and that events occurs regardless of the player's presence, I enjoy putting details in the environment that shows something happened here, sometimes foreshadowing and giving clues to the players.
-
The importance of esthetic and ambiance
In order to convey that the story takes place in a comic book, I wanted the art-style to be hand-drawn with visible pencil lines for contour and texture. I also wanted the visuals to be rich, giving each location and scene its own ambiance through colors, lighting and patterns, combining lines and colors to make a distinctive art direction.
-
The Character Designs:
-
Adapting Fashion
The characters' design are adapted to their environment, influenced by their region, branch of religion and their profession. Yet regardless of their differences, the people of the New Land all have something in common in the way they present themselves: Whether a simple cross in a pattern on their clothes or an array of decorative daggers, all people wear blades.
The protagonist, unlike the other four main characters, begins the game with no decorative blades on him. He only wears simple cross patterns, and instead gains decorative blades from grateful NPCs throughout the story by completing quests to give the player a visual sense of progression.
My work with UX and UI:
Making the experience memorable
-
Designing the 3C
After researching what type of controls and camera would best fit with the game mechanics, I chose the game Nights in the Woods as reference for the exploration and interaction phase of the gameplay, as it seemed to perfectly match for the flat comic style I was going for.
-
The European Comic Book Experience
In order to convey an immersive experience, I wanted each screenshot from the game to look as if it could have been a picture taken of a comic book. For that reason, each section of a level is framed by a white margin, cutting the environments into panels in which the player can navigate, and I also removed any HUD, putting necessary information in the menu instead.
The menu itself is a bookmark, and other elements such as information on the controls are stored in narration boxes, making the UI coherent with the and seamless with the world.
-
Adapting to the Playtests
Once I had a playable prototype of the prologue, I had it playtested by different demographics, from younger to older and inexperienced to experienced with video games.
Every players managed to complete the level, though some inexperienced ones struggled with platforms before I changed most of them for staircase, but all were intrigued by the environment and story.
Some of the more experienced players suggested a controller instead of the keyboard to play the game, and I found that the gameplay felt more fluid after mapping it to a Xbox controller.
What I learned:
-
The Importance of Time Management
In the context of a final semester where waking hours are shared between classes, homework and a part-time job, it's important to have a good estimation of the time each tasks requires, as well as the discipline to follow a schedule for time management.
I greatly underestimated the time I could invest in this project to learn how to make the blueprints for functionalities and produce assets, and had to find ways to make up for it by scoping down.
-
Knowing where to Cut
Lacking time to put into this ambitious project, I had to scale down early on a lot of elements I designed and had to cut down some functionalities as well, but this allowed me to produce a playable prologue that feels whole.
It is better to have a small but viable prototype than an uncomplete (and perhaps unplayable) project.
-
To Be Continued
I want to continue to develop this story outside of school and see how far I can take it.
For that, I could recruit friends who would be interested in continuing this project with me and lend their skills.