Restoration Station - Narrative Spreadsheets

As a part of a colleague's (Summer Wimmer) senior Practicum project, I worked as the Lead Narrative Designer for the project named Restoration Station. A "Stardew Valley"-esk game, tasking the player with restoring an old train station and building relationships with the town's inhabitants.

My major task as a narrative designer on Restoration Station was dialogue and character biographies. For each character, I would construct the characters background in the game world, attached to their role in the game. As well as their personality that would be integral to building unique and dynamic dialogue.

Once these biographies were completed, I would then use them to go in and create dialogue for as many scenarios as I could think that the player character would be in. Working diligently to create unique and distinctive voices for each NPC.

An important part of this project was keeping all of the different narrative documents organized. I was charged with organizing these different documents into one singular spreadsheet that the developers could look at when mapping out and building the prototype of the game. Dividing each line of dialogue by which character it is for, the in-game trigger and location, the category of dialogue, and any additional notes.

While this project had a number of changes and difficulties, it was one of my favorite projects as it allowed me to really get a hold of the role of a narrative designer. Creating concept, turning concept into material, and compiling the material into a finished game.