Shadowbringer

Digipen Institute of Technology (Senior Year)

Team Size : 22 Engine : Unreal

IWhen you're hungry, I'm hungry too. That's all you need to know.

A 2D action platformer where your health drains down with time, and the only way to stay alive is to defeat enemies and steal their spirit energy

Steam

A Mysterious Lab

I was the narrative designer on this project. I co-wrote the game's narrative elements with the director. When editing, I concentrated on making the script punchier and more dramatic.

I also had some feedback from the art team as well. Because I was also responsible for designing how the narrative elements would be implemented in the game, I had to work closely with the artists to address some of the concerns they had and made sure the game was still within a reasonable scope.

The titular Shadowbringer hears a mysterious voice in his head, represented by optional text that the player can choose to trigger by reaching the correct spots. Having these be mandatory was too frustrating for players due to how suddenly they could pop up, so we settled on making these accessible via button prompts.

I also worked on the lab documents that the players could discover and read while exploring the lab. These documents hint at the player's true nature and paint the lab holding them in a dark light.

I worked with the sound lead to write the script for the guards as well. I wanted to give a sense that their jobs aren't treating them that well either.

Finally, I drew some of the posters that you can find on the walls of the game and helped with initial level layout design and white-boxing as well.

QA and Testing

I was also the person in charge of QA and testing. I gathered playtesters and gathered data from surveys, as well as observed player behavior. I collected this data and reported it to the team, so we could address the problems in the game and make sure the final experience was smooth.

I also worked with a programmer to create a test data recording system for our builds which tracked things like :

Recorded time spent by a player in each area.
Recorded player deaths and cause of death.
Recorded amount of times certain abilities were used.
Recorded times the player was detected by a guard.

Extra Comments

This was my first time working in a team of this size. Thanks to the pandemic, our team was initially split between the US and Thailand. Finding live playtesters was difficult during this time, but I managed to get the data the team needed by reaching my online connections. Once we were able to work locally together, it gave me the opportunity to sit down and work closely with people from both countries. It was definitely a very interesting experience.

I was promoted to the narrative designer role during the second phase of the project, but I also kept active in checking in with other members on the project to see if they needed my assistance. This type of dark sci-fi was also not in my usual wheelhouse for writing, so that aspect was also a new challenge for me as well.