Unchained

Narrative Lead

August 2024 - Present

Team size: 70+

Unchained is a top-down tactical RPG about strength and vulnerability. You play as Enra, a gentle botanist who seeks to reassemble a broken family heirloom known as The Chain in hopes that its dark powers can save her father from a terrible fate. Contend with rival Chain Hunters, negotiate with enemies, and recruit new allies to your side.

Main Responsibilities:

Leading the narrative design, including collaborating with 3 other members of the narrative team and providing feedback on their work, as well as working closely with design to tie in narrative
Writing narrative content including dialogue, barks, and cutscenes
Creating narrative documentation including character sheets, character direction guides, and beat sheets
Collaborating with game designers to ensure characters, enemies, level design, and negotiation system were all coherent and integrated with the game’s narrative
Directing professional voice actors for the voice-over, along with selecting appropriate takes for the final product

As the narrative lead, I worked together with and directed three other members of the narrative team, assigning them tasks as well as providing feedback and revisions on their work. I wrote 200+ lines of dialogue and barks in-game, and iterated upon them throughout the course of the project. I also directed professional voice actors to record these lines, and was in charge of all VO direction and take selection.

In order to set up the narrative basis of the game, I used and adapted pre-existing material from the game's pitch to create a fully fledged plot and narrative arc. I also created and developed multiple major characters that would join your party as part of the main cast, ensuring that they were integrated in the pre-existing world while adding greatly to the plot and expanding the story.

As narrative and design wanted to work closely for such a story heavy game, I attended the majority of design meetings to listen in and give input. I worked closely with the lead designer to create the level plans, bosses, and recruitment options, as well as to ensure the negotiation system successfully combined both narrative and gameplay.

I was very involved in concept art, creating detailed character art guidelines to help the concept artists, and providing multiple rounds of feedback to guide them in the desired direction for each character in the game.

Below are some examples of my work for the game:

Displayed on the right are the barks that I wrote for four different playable characters on what each would say at different states during battle. In addition, I edited and iterated on the barks that my team members wrote (not shown).

In-Battle Character Barks

This is a script I wrote for one of the earliest encounters in the game—the first sequence that includes and tutorializes combat. I worked closely with design to make the tutorialization and narrative were cohesive. We dedicated lots of time to playtesting in order to insure the player was able to learn the mechanics while not being taken out of the story.

Unchained - First Conflict

As the narrative lead, I helped provide art direction for the characters I had created. I created detailed art guidelines for every character, which included descriptions of the characters' personality, lore, important traits, as well as key features of their appearances. I also created mood boards and compiled reference images for each guideline.

I gave careful feedback to every artist during the concept phase, giving comments at each new iteration to ensure narrative and art were cohesive, including for design, colors, and shape language.

To the right is an example of the references I provided (minus the long written guide), and every iteration the artist has provided so far after receiving feedback.

[Box Garden Concept Art]

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