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Starshot, Unity VR Game for Meta Quest
Narrative Design Responsibilities:
Level & Narrative Designer
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Concepted original game idea and story, planned out major beats with gameplay
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Wrote dialogue scripts for all(8) gameplay levels, plus the tutorial and ending scene
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Collaborated with our 2D artist to create posters, infographics, other screens/maps and more world building props to fill environments
Fling and float your way through a zero-gravity spacecraft in Starshot, a fully hand-tracked VR puzzle game! When systems begin to mysteriously fail aboard, the AI pilot, S.T.E.L.A., accidentally wakes you out of cryo-sleep instead of the lead engineer. You must punch an energy core throughout various levels into power receptors and uncover the true cause behind these malfunctions.
Link to game website
Trailer
Narrative Overview
Process
Pre-Production:
Determining the scope for the narrative kicked off Pre-Production. We had limited resources dedicated to the narrative with only myself, a sole character artist, and our project manager who assisted in writing. We had to decide: How many characters(and how we would handle voicing them), amount of dialogue per level(considering our artist's workload for mocap, facial anims, etc.), and other efficient ways we could involve the narrative(environmental storytelling, worldbuilding props, a system of terminals with logs...). Then began solidifying brainstorms into documentation:
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Character sheets for companion, player, and enemy
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Narrative document - drafting the major beats from original concept, summarized descriptions of the character's/spacecrafts/companies and their history, defining the systems I needed to help code(narrative trigger system, dialogue system, terminals), and planning lore rooms/how lore will coincide with levels...
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Began scripts for in-game dialogue and bark lines
Dialogue Scripts:
Afterwards came writing the dialogue scripts. For two different samples, click on Rec Room Levels or Maintenance Levels. In the Rec, the player is in the living quarters of the spacecraft, so S.T.E.L.A is present, whereas in the Maintenance levels S.T.E.L.A communicates through overhead speakers.
I wrote dialogue script for each level (8) and for the ending sequence as well as the tutorial. These scripts aided in setting up the narrative system and dialogue triggers around the levels and setting the flow, as well as being used during voice recording sessions and putting the lines on the VA sheet.
VA Sheet:
Gave the voice actor the direction of the line, which part of the game it was in, notes on what the animation would be and other notes when necessary, and space to keep track of its implementation.
Worldbuilding Props:
I collaborated with our 2D artist on conceptualizing and providing the copy for different worldbuilding props that could fill our environment and give context to the world this story takes place in. These range from advertisements and posters for the spacecraft's company, infographics that supply background on what can be found on the spacecraft(like game mechanics) or what can be found on the destination planet, displays on screens showing timelines of the trip, and more.
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