ROLE

Game Writer/Narrative Designer & Music Composer

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Developed the world lore, core characters, and overarching narrative structure, establishing the tone and thematic direction of the game.
Created the full story outline and primary script documentation using Microsoft Word, producing narrative content later implemented directly into the game.
Rapidly defined base character concepts to provide early visual direction for the art team, ensuring alignment between narrative intent and character design.
Designed branching narrative scenarios that integrated cohesively with gameplay systems and mini-games, maintaining logical consistency and player engagement.
Collaborated closely with artists to refine character quirks, visual traits, and personality details, ensuring cohesive storytelling through design.
Translated narrative themes into environmental storytelling and gameplay-driven moments, reinforcing tone without relying solely on dialogue.
Composed and produced the game’s background music using Akai MPC and Fruity Loops, supporting the comedic tone and narrative pacing (SFX handled by a separate team member).

Project Details

YEAR

2024-11-11 - 2024-12-20

GENRE

Comedy Visual Novel

PLATFORM

PlayStation 5 & Pc

TIMEFRAME

6 Weeks

TEAM SIZE

ENGINE

Tengine

Gameplay Design Philosophy

When designing the gameplay philosophy of the visual novel, a flowchart to be able to not only read the gameplay sessions and what would lead up to what, but drastically make the script smaller, as you can with a quick glance see where you are supposed to be and what is supposed to happen.

The Flow

Chapter based storytelling, allowing both me as a writer and narrative designers to be able to keep track of the flow of the game.
Slow progression, with focus on allowing the player to meet all of the characters before pressing forward on with the dating choices.
Mini-game balancing to make sure that the games flow doesn't become too stale, that the world doesn't feel like it has been frozen in place.
Chapter changes keeps the story flowing forward, time progresses with your choices.
Linear story design in the beginning until the latter half where the game now allows you to pick which ever fish you want to pursue.

Power of words

Writing

Where do I begin...

When the pitch was picked, I was certain that I would be picked to write this story since I had kind of helped push the project lead to pitch this idea. The novelty of the idea was too good to let it off the hook!

As an author, I knew what I was to expect, but I was unsure if I would be able to pull it off. Normally you don't write what would be the equivalent of a quarter of a novel within 6 weeks, especially not when half of that time is being allocated to creating the music of the world. But in reality, it only further fueled my writing, as I was able to create theme songs for the various characters which I used during my writing process.

I began by studying Hatoful Boyfriend, as it is a visual novel where the player dates birds instead, which was a similar enough experience that I managed to learn a lot from that game. I tried to apply the same mindset when it came to writing the script, with a heavy focus on the comedy and absurdity.

I began by creating the dateable characters and made sure that each character had distinct personalities before I then went to work on the NPCs. The project lead already had somewhat of a story in mind, and it was up to me to figure out how it would play out and how to make that story enjoyable to play.

On top of that, I also wrote a whole radio script and recorded it along with the project lead in order to give the world more gravitas. I felt that the player's room was rather dull and empty. There was a lack of life in the game that I knew a good radio set could immediately solve by giving the game a voice of its own.

I began by writing in response to the story so the player's actions would be transcribed to the radio, making the player feel seen and heard. This way the choices felt even more personal.

All in all, I felt quite satisfied with my work on this game, even though it couldn't be further away from my preferred genre—sci-fi action adventure stories.

Writing Samples

Takeaway

Here's my takeaway...

I enjoyed this project. I might not have been able to fully get everything I wanted done, but seeing as this was the first ever game that I truly got to work on, I felt that I was definitely learning a lot along the way.

I got to write multiple characters and have them interact. What's even crazier is seeing your own words displayed in front of you, and even better—hearing other people react to the words you wrote.

Having people comment on the characters, which ones they were attached to and which ones they disliked, was incredibly rewarding. All in all, it was a great learning experience, and I am sure that I will end up working on one of these again. If not, I will always carry this as a memory!

じゃ、またね！

CAPTURES FROM GAMEPLAY

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