Gift of the Gods
Roles:
Narrative Design Lead
Environmental Concept Artist
Game Type: 3D Narrative Exploration
Team Type: Volunteer, Rev share
Team size: 40
Gift of the Gods is an indie project for a 3D, third person narrative-forward explorer puzzle game. Our showcase begins with the first level - Demeter’s realm, the Goddess of harvest and agriculture, where wild and sprawling idyllic farmland is backlit by a perpetual summer.
The player is plunged into a world of Greek mythology where ancient and modern collide. The Gods in this world put you to the test in gruelling Trials order to win a Gift, but an uprising of mortals on the outside are interfering with their process.
Will the Hubris finally be punished, or will we join the Unbelievers and dare to steal from a God?
Our showcase begins with the first level - Demeter’s realm, the Goddess of harvest and agriculture, where wild and sprawling idyllic farmland is backlit by a perpetual summer. The low poly design style is reminiscent of Pokémon, with the environmental atmosphere of Journey.
I was tasked to create and lead the team for Narrative Design. I developed the worldbuilding story arc, and created briefs for the team to create scripts, research mythology for backgrounds and develop cut scenes for core narrative drops. I ensured that branching endings and dialogue made sense for the characters and made for satisfying gameplay.
I was also tasked with environmental concept art to pick up some gaps as members of the team were slow to pick up, namely, developing the map of the level, terrain, flora and fauna, and key featured buildings.
I presented the narrative to the teams in a variety of formats - voice note, slide deck, written documentation, Discord messages, and repeated the explanation so that everyone understood with clarity.
Creating a story background which the player can't see directly enabled us the showcase some of the lore through the environmental story telling left behind from previous trial's participants. We also used cutscenes to slowly regain memories from the player character whilst remaining an 'empty shell' for the player to exist in.
Having multiple branching directions that end in only three options means the player feels like their making lots of complicated decisions, but doesn't mean we have to make three different games. We primarily showcased the endings via cutscenes.
Branching ending options based on multiple character's personalities and player ethical choices throughout the game. We developed how to drip feed hints throughout without ruining the final twists.
I supported the leads of Sound, Programming, Level Design and Art by distributing tasks based on narrative assumptions, then letting those teams adapt them as appropriate for gameplay. We would then circle back later and ensure they remained appropriate to the narrative.
V2 had a rather complicated set up which was getting too confusing to keep track of, but allowed us to explore all the options for endings and narrow down to the main three we could work with.
Going through multiple iterations of level design deciding what tasks were mandatory and where they should be located to support narrative beats with Level Designers and Creative Director.
With the Art team, because there were so many items to keep track of and different priorities, I built a spreadsheet that showed them the thought process behind the prioritisation so they could see how the item would be used in game.
We had several plants, each made in low poly with variant instructions. I concepted it as low poly as possible to support 3D workflow - these are heavily inspired by my love of origami.
I knew the shrine was on a hill and I had a sketch of the inside, but the outside needed to match. In order to create this vision properly I needed to work backwards from the specific plants for modular terrain.
I worked hard to make the job of 3D as easy as possible by breaking down the shapes. I also gave instructions on variations and placement rules on terrain.
I used foliage to help create a variety of player blocking techniques so we could direct the player in an open world setting without it feeling unnecessarily restrictive. Level design were grateful for this detail.
3D WIP done by Danny from the Gift of the Gods team.
We further developed the farm to integrate it into the landscape - Creating a waterwheel to power the bread oven from a nearby stream. I wanted her farm to be rural Grecian style, with a central bread oven (as Demeter's icon is a wheat plant) where she shares the harvest with her fellow farmers.