“Buck Up,” a side quest for the game “Solarbots.”
For this side quest, I met with the development team to set the limits of what we could build into the game in the first quarter. What was needed from me was to write several sidequests that expanded on the world we’d built – adding locations, findable items, characters, dialogue, and relegating monsters other writers had created to the locations. I also left design notes for the Art Team, and I met with them weekly as we created each monster, location, item, and character. In the document, I tagged story themes and quest formats.
The game was to be an open-world post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy MMORPG with elements of dark comedy and horror. “Buck Up” was created with the intention of adding some levity to a grim world.
“Dark Worship,” a side quest for the game “Solarbots.”
As with “Buck Up,” Dark Worship required meetings with both the development and Art Teams. However, the tone is significantly different. At this time, side quests needed to expand upon a grim, ravaged world and establish subcultures that developed within it. There were to be elements of horror, both physical and psychological.
“Juno.” At one point in my time at “Solarbots,” we needed to release simple gameplay on a short timeline. With the Creative Director, I devised a plan to write short, text-based quests that interspersed with scenes of battle. Narratively, the text-based quests exposed another main storyline that occurred two decades before the plot of the full game. “Juno” was a story toward the end of this early questline, diving deep into prominent NPCs, locations, and themes for the game.
“Arborian Route.” Eventually, it became my responsibility to write all narrative content for the game; this included plot, dialogue trees, characters, locations, main story quests, and side quests. After the starting area, there were three main paths the player could take to reach one of three empires and complete the first act of the game. I meet with the Creative Director, Development Team, and Art Teams weekly to collaborate on overall vision, what was within the realm of possibility, and design. Below is the documentation of one of the three main story paths of Act 1.
The Main Page:
Main Location 1:
Documents for the Crosfell Questline:
Main Location 2:
Documents for The Grabs Questline:
