​​Reclamation is a gameplay focused metroidvania project by Hat Hair Games. When I joined them, the creative director only had a vague idea of the story and characters. I wrote the introduction sequence and gave the playable character a narrative objective and a personality. (More info about the game here in the Credit section)
Reclamation intro screenplay V2
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[The hero has defeated Oogrim. A dead amount of tentacles, teeth and eyeballs falls to the ground.]
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« That was the fall of the ubiquitous and powerful, never vanquished before, lord Oogrim. »
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[The hero stabs the corpse with the own banner of the evil lord and leaves triumphantly]
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« That was my fall... »
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[A tiny eyeball rolls away from the corpse and awakes.]
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« What?! What are you tiny creature? »
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[The eyeball looks at the camera and blinks twice.]
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« These are evil words, so evil... You are tiny but pure evilness.»
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[The eyeball looks at the camera and blinks 3 times.]
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« Now you’re being rude, you malicious child of darkness... My child. My heir who will reclaim our rightful kingdom and my glorious body. How shall I name you? »
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[The eyeball looks at the camera and blinks once.]
« Then I shall name you... Oog! Go Oog, avenge us, raise our banner»
[Oog leaves. He passes by a few broken banner showing Oogrim’s symbol. The hero also drew his own symbol on other banner or goofy elements on them. Oogrim became a mocked clown, its empire had fallen. ]
« There begun the tale of Oog. Still a bit weak... »
[Oog stops, looks at the camera and blinks once.]
« Sorry... Slightly frail but fearless and hungry. Hungry for powers from minions who gave up their loyalty to me. This was how Oog would regain our lost powers, by devouring traitors. »
[Starting tutorial part]
// Oog is still a child, small, seemingly inoffensive, almost cute. But Oog is evil and vicious, halfway between the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Plankton from SpongeBob SquarePants with a touch of Nibbler from Futurama. Oogrim becomes the narrator who sees Oog as its evil child and its only hope to regain its kingdom. Oogrim narrates the story and can sometime talk to Oog. Oog answers only by blinking once or twice. Oogrim’s reactions to these dialogues show how Oog can be rude and mean. //
Meet Sigur Sigurdóttir...
Name: Sigur Sigurdóttir
Gender: Female
Occupation: Explorer / Map maker
Inspiration: Jack Sparrow’s madness, combined with a few of his gestures, but with Nathan Drake’s moral compass.
Wants: To be the first piercing through the mysteries of the Celeste North, last uncharted place to mankind.
Needs: To settle.
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Says things like : Forward ! / Of course I have everything we need for this mission! Other than the crew, the ship or the equipment, we have everything, trust me! / Cheating you say! Right away with the fancy words! Let’s call it a draw shall we! / North by north-east ! / That island is no island. It's a liar and I know something about liars. It will be renamed as a peninsula by the end of the day! / Indeed I did buuuuut…
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Biography: Smothered by her prominent family, Sigur left home when she was 15. She went to the harbor. There she knew every ship and every rule. She stole the clothes of a drunk sailor, grabbed a barrel, rolled it to a ship that was about to set sails and there it was. She was sailing to far away places. ​
She is now 37 and a recognized explorer. Everyone knows the adventurous Sigur Sigurdóttir and how she survived and lead a crew on the remote Frost Island managing to map it for the first time. Or how she went by herself to the dangerous Hornstrad Island only to demonstrate her theory about the island finally being a peninsula. But everyone also knows the very reckless Sigur Sigurdóttir. The one who lost an important ship trying to pass the abandoned Hollow Cap or the one whose sledge froze with all her equipments by Mount Taranaki. She could’t care less about the weather that day. Sigur dares but sometimes too much. This is why she sometimes has struggles to convince investors to fund her missions. Her crew is often a ragtag of fools, drunks and leftovers.
Anyway, Sigur belongs to the wild and needs to feel humankind in her back and the unknown facing her. She goes forward and loves the ocean spray at dusk or the absolute silence of a snowy dawn. Seing a new horizon brings her bliss.
When Sigur isn’t exploring, she is back at her home harbor. On a typical morning she studies maps, looking for her new adventure. On a typical afternoon and night, she gambles to fund her next adventure and drinks to find her next crew. She usually ends up starting a fight but prefers to avoid it. Sigur can be a big mouth and owes money to anyone she knows. And she knows a lot of people.
Thin and elastic, she moves like a dancer waltzing away from conflict. She is thin with a very white vivid skin similar to pure ice. Her hair is also almost white like unspoiled snow. She is always wearing an old red wooly hat. A small ring shaped rock is attached to a hair strand lying on the side of her forehead. No one knows where it comes from. Finally, big blue eyes with dancing eyebrows are a key to read her thoughts.
Sigur Sigurdóttir is drawn by the north. She always knows where it is. She is like a magnet drawn to adventure and the unknown. But Sigur sometimes doubts. She questions herself and her quests a lot. That’s why she always has in her pocket her family’s’ compass. The only souvenir she took with her the day she left her people. She remembers every of her mistakes and thinks that exploring the world will keep them away from her. But she is wrong and brings these burden in every adventure. Sigur can indeed be very melancholic sometimes. This is indeed another effect that new horizons can have on the mind of explorers.
Exploration might be my favorite gameplay. More focused on combat, I believe video game has barely explored the vast potential of exploration gameplay. With the idea to brainstorm on exploration gameplay in open-worlds, I wrote these descriptions not about swords or guns, but about basic exploration tools and how they can push players to explore: Compasses.
The Eld Compass
Fire is the greatest gift offered to mankind. It is also the most dangerous.
The Eld Compass is sculpted in a single black lava rock. Warm but touchable, the instrument constantly releases an eternal smoke. The needle and the symbols are pure magma shining and breathing.
That compass doesn’t simply point at fire. It shows the way to the most fragile ember or to the most apocalyptic volcano. But it also shows the way to anything that can warm the heart of its bearer. Hoping for warmness, one will blindly follow its direction until it reaches its destination. Weather it is warm or cold, human or not, leading to light or unsuspected darkness.
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The Enda compass
Exploring is an endless path that will always lead back to its starting point.
The Enda compass has no symbols. It is black, refined, sober.
It is made for exploration. For finding what’s new to humans. What has never been touched or explored. What has never been stained by the human hand. The bearer of the Enda Compass will be the first to visit, to witness, to claim. But exploration is endless. Endless causes madness. A dark, infinite loop from which it's hard to escape.
The Tíma Compass
Time always takes its revenge.
The Tíma Compass is made of thin transparent glass. It is filled with grains of sand moving freely. When being used, these grains move slowly from the top part to the bottom one passing by the center of the compass. This strange movement occurs no matter how the tool is held. Some kind of magic hourglass ignoring space rules to focus on breaking time’s.
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Therefore, the Tíma Compass is a powerful one. Following its needle will make time go slower or faster to its bearer. But defying time means consequences.
The Ljós Compass
So many want the light not to see but to be seen.
The Ljós Compass is made of the darkest material. So dark, one eye can’t distinguish edges and joints of the compass. Only its needle is light, a white vivid light.
The Ljós Compass is as easy as it is tricky. It points at light. But only for those who seek light to see. Sneaky, it will point darkness to those who seek light to be seen. Those who say it is easy to avoid the catch usually don’t realize how thin can be the line between seing and being seen.
The Arás Compass
« Doubt everything, even your suspicions » is curved on the back of the Sauka Compass. Made of an ancient dark wood, that compass is half burnt. Its glass is also half broken. Mystery inhabits this compass as the words on its back have been curved by a hand lead by paranoia and fear.
Indeed the Arás Compas points at people holding hostilities towards its bearer. If it can be useful to know who your enemies are, it is dangerous not to know the evil guiding them. That is why the Arás Compas gives as much answers as dangerous questions to the one using it.
The Alvöru Compass
Merging real and unreal worlds. Some call it bliss, some call it madness.
The Alvöru Compass’ color change in eerie ways. It slowly fades from ethereal white to night black while emitting a light fog. A spectral tool for the wicked to use.
The unreal realm is invisible to the eye. Yet it surrounds us. The Alvöru Compass shows this not tangible kingdom to its bearer. It is a wonderful key to another world. But traveling between both means losing sight from what is real and what is not. It is a risk of eternal madness.
The hip and the heart is a short story I wrote for a writing contest. Constraints were:
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- No more than 500 words
- Genre : Medical drama
- Setting: Dance class
- Character : Soulmate
« You need to find your soulmate. »
« Love! »
« Survival »
« Oh »
« I mean an organ donor. A hipmate in medical terms. You need a new hip. »
« Otherwise? »
« Death. »
« That’s harsh ! »
« Brain, lungs, science has fixed most organs. But society hasn’t fixed junk-food, television or processed food. Because something has to take damages within the body, broken hip is the new cancer. »
« That seems legit! »
« So I signed you up to a dance class to find a donor.»
« I’ll have to dance? Can’t we find a new hip on the darknet? Or a farmer’s market? »
« Listen. It’s been a month since Mum died. We were the only two persons at her funeral. Please. I don’t want to be the only person at your funeral. We are not hip compatible. You need to find a hipmate if you don’t want to die alone. »
« That’s harsh. »
« Yeah. Unlike your hip. Cause I love you baby brother. Class start tomorrow. Choose your style. You don’t have much time. »
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Five month after his sister’s diagnosis, Edgar went to dance class. Hip-hop, jazz or swing, he chose…
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« Welcome to ballroom dancing Seniors ! Oh, I see youth is joining us today. »
Edgar was flattered. He blushed then realized that old people surrounding him might not have what he was looking for.
« Crap. »
« Find your dance mate people, Let’s dance! »
Couples were forming. Quickly, there was no one left but Edgar… and Anna. She was small and wrinkled. Edgar warily approached her. She smiled and it wrinkled her face even more but what a smile! He smiled too! She approached him. She limped. Edgar’s smile limped too.
« Edgar »
« Anna »
They started to dance, looking each other in the eyes. Smiles begun to grow back.
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Two weeks after the dance, Edgar was lying in his coffin. His sister was sitting in a chair by him, alone in the crematorium. After a while, she felt a rising pain in her chest. At that moment, Anna entered the room.
« Anna you should be in bed! The transplantation was a success and once again, with all my heart, thank you, but you need to rest. »
The pain in her chest was getting stronger, her heart was going dangerously faster. She was going to express it when Anna answered.
«After the surgery, when I rejected him. He told me only one thing - Be there, with my sister at my funerals - Then he grabbed his chest and collapsed. I didn’t know you could die from a broken heart now. I am sorry Maria.»
Maria’s heart slowed down. The pain faded out. She stood up and offered her chair to Anna who accepted it.
« Thank you » She said to her brother’s hipmate.
There were now two souls at Edgar’s funeral.
Monty is one of the leftovers often taking part in Sigur Sigurdóttir’s adventures (Bio in the Character Description section). He is a very old and weird hunter still leaving with his even older mother. He can sometimes be creepy but a bit of a poet. He has no idea how peculiar he can be but is always friendly, especially to Sigur.
Players decide if he joins or not their exploration team. When he is not with players, he is an NPC hanging out at the tavern or the docks.
Bark
Triggered by
Wait! We’ve already been there. I thought the expedition was about finding new places !
Visiting a place you have already visited
Splendid, a new discovery by Monty and his team!
Discovering a new zone
Need any help Sigur? My mom’s been on my back lately, I could take a few days away!
Passing by him at the tavern when he is not joining players’ team
Need a hand Sigur? I might only have 9 fingers, I have 11 toes, the count is right !
Passing by him at the dock when he is not joining players’ team
A wise choice Sigur! Should I kiss mum goodbye before leaving? No that will make her anxious. En route!
Selecting him to join players’ team
Nothing like home! Good luck Sigur. I’ll be there if my bravery is needed.
Removing him from the team at the tavern
Magnificent. But to explore is to shrink the world and so their home. What if we’re wrong?
Seing a legendary animal
Even if mum always says I am the most shiny treasure, that is a fine reward Sigur!
Finding a reward
Where to Sigur? I am suggesting south, it’s like going down a hill.
Getting aboard the ship
An explorer without equipment is like… a writer without… his paintbrush!
When crafting new equipment
Rivers, mountains, bays, name them Sigur to find your way. I can help. River… water-strip. Mount… dirt-pile and Bay… Monty, sounds good!
When looking at the map that players can custom
Align the needle to point at north. So easy to use and yet so useful! Like a toothbrush!
When using the compass
BurHvalur protects the wreck of a war-ship players must safely reach to progress. This is an interactive story I designed to recreate the progression and level design of this side quest for a larger project called HimminHvalur.
This work is focused on creating a consistant interactive experience where players can freely explore a text world.
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Sail the ocean, explore the depths for clues and find a safe way to the ancient wreck.
The main and a secondary mission description for one of my projects. An adventure / exploration game where players have to find the legendary whale, HimminHvalur. Part of the secondary mission can be text played in the Interactive Story sample.
Main mission The whale from the skies
// Description of the main mission at the very beginning of the game
Eldey, your home island, is dying. Fishes have vanished from the sea making people hungry. If nothing is done, your kin will also vanish soon. Hamar, chief of the island, has spoken. The culprit is HimminHvalur. This huge legendary whale has been recently spotted. Has it swallowed every creature of the ocean ? Has it taken them in the depth to protect its kingdom? No one knows. But this monster is dangerous and probably not alone. The ocean is vast and the whale is hard to find, hidden in the mysteries from the past the depths keeps. Legends and sailors will give you necessary clues to locate it with the loot the monster took from us.
Find HimminHvalur. Save your people.
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Secondary mission The Whale and the war-ship
// Description of one of the four secondary missions. Players have gathered many clues to locate the shipwreck and now need to find a way to get inside to progress.
Investigations have led you to the location of the War-Ship. Hidden in the wreck, you’ll find part of the clues on how to find HimminHvalur. But the carcass is protected by the whale of war. Búrhvalur is aggressive and attacks anyone entering its domain. The monster is far too powerful for a frontal attack. Torn by ancient battles and explosions, the sea floor is full of craters and trenches. Maybe a hidden path could be found to safely reach the ship? According to the lighthouse keeper, a small wreck with wings could be the start of that safe trail. He gave you its location. But the way is shut. Locked by a code the keeper forgot. Three numbers his mad mind erased but maybe carved in another demented spirit?
Find the safe path and the code to enter the ship-wreck.