Review paper and poster

Description

My goal was to demonstrate how Thief weaved a narrative that was less concerned with telling exposition to players and more with encouraging them to find information that revealed interesting details about the world, its inhabitants, and goings-on.

—

Process-wise, I did the following:

  • Highlighted the game’s emphasis on the bespoke placement of objects, NPCs, and audiovisual cues to convey a narrative that the player can only piece out and understand by exploring levels.

  • Identified the game’s use of foreshadowing as its strongest element and how the cutscenes and in-game collectibles contributed to that feeling of apprehension.

  • Explained why the game’s paranormal elements stood as the weakest element in Thief due to the AI not being tweaked to accommodate non-human behavior.

  • Studied the game’s standout location and how it subverts players’ gameplay and narrative expectations with its loopy layout and otherworldly contents.

  • Listed the chief lessons designers and writers can learn from Thief including:

1 – Use exposition subtly

2 – Set the tone for each level and design them in a way that conveys progress

3 – Make players feel they’re learning things they’re not meant to know

4 – Use mechanics to relay the story and player-environment dialog.

—

I’ve been placed in the Gold Category for the 2017 GDC Narrative Review Competition as a result of my work. The poster pictured above was presented at the conference in February of that year.


Role

Writer, poster designer

Date

12/05/2016