Fetching Sticks
Narrative game created as part of a small team for the GameDev.tv 2022 Game Jam.
INTRODUCTION
I worked in a small team to create this narrative-focused game on the theme of 'Death is Only the Beginning' for the GameDev.tv 2022 Game Jam.
Ranked #4 for Story
Role: Narrative Designer & Writer
Tools: Yarn Spinner, Unity, Miro, Trello
Concept
Our team met at the start of the jam for a brainstorming session in Miro. We combined ideas around ghostly pets, the River Styx, and unlocking memories to create our concept. We decided to tell the story of a dog travelling into the afterlife and remembering the key moments of their life – ending with the revelation that the ‘grim reaper’ style figure at the head of the boat is in fact their owner, here to accompany them on their final journey.
Narrative Design
I wanted to ensure that we told the story without an excessive amount of text, so we relied on a combination of dialogue, music and visual cues. For example,
- - Greyscale images of locations like the dog pound and the park to show that they’re hazy memories
- Colour polaroid photos showing how important these memories are to the dog
- Text from the owner written at the bottom of the polaroids to demonstrate their bond in an organic way
Yarn Spinner Script
The game works by using a parallax background to give the impression of sailing, with the boat stopping at key locations for players to solve polaroid puzzles and unlock memories. I chose to use Yarn Spinner to handle the dialogue, including simple commands like <<StopBoat>> and <<StartPuzzle>> that could be linked to the code in Unity. The simplicity of the Yarn syntax made it easy to share my work with the rest of the team for feedback and I included comments for clarity.
Unity Integration
After I completed the Yarn Spinner script, I worked collaboratively with another team member to help write the code that would be executed on the Yarn commands. It was helpful to see exactly how Yarn Spinner integrated with Unity and I’ll definitely be experimenting further with this tool in future projects.
