Alibi

How I started

I started out and got into this because of my familarity to genre that Rosie imagined, both from my own experience growing up in a Chinese high school but also games like 13 Sentinel Aegis Rim. 

We narrative team with a size of 8, started owning different characters. We crafted how the events were intertwined, resulting in the ultimate tragedy. I was personally responsible of Zhou, a bystander to the bullying. I crafted events surrounding his appearance, identity, and relationship to other characters.

How we progress

We writers have biweekly meetings, focusing on reiterating how our characters interact with one another and develop bonds, good or bad. We all started out from the individual events/memories that make them apart. We all know each other's characters from checking the docs shared on Miro. Then we intersect our characters with shared events, with different perspectives showing their unique stances and identities. All choices needed go through approval of the directors in the end. With this process, we gradually move towards the final tragedy

Making words into experience

Our goal as narrative designers then shifted towards set dressing. Me continues to work on Zhou, writing inner monologue as well as item descriptions in both English & Chinese for our audience and our dev team's convenience. 

What came out of it 

• A period-accurate environment and prop system that anchors the game's setting

• One complete character arc (Zhou) that carries the game's core conflict

• A consistency pass across levels that caught and corrected setting inconsistencies before they reached players