Greed and Ruin
Be wary of each other.
One of you may become its host.
Greed and Ruin is a fantasy and mystery visual novel game mixed with horror elements about a dysfunctional family tormented by a supernatural creature hell bent on destroying them. The player’s goal is to find the creature before the family destroys itself.
This project is currently in progress, and was developed over the course of three months with a team of three members.
Synopsis:
The Hayden family is cursed. Or so Alistair Hayden, claims.
Many years ago, in order to save his dying business, and transform it into one of the leading fashion houses in the world, a deal was struck between Alistair and an ancient, powerful being.
Now it has come to collect, and no one is safe. Only Ruby, an adopted daughter from one of Alistair’s sons, is trusted to see the real danger the family is in. Can she piece together the scattered clues of the past in time to save everyone?
Download:
https://legallydistinct.itch.io/greed-and-ruin
Fact sheet:
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Genre: Fantasy and mystery
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Audience: Young adults
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Platform: PC
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Team: 3 members
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Software: Ren'py
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Scope: The whole game will be planned as a series of 3 to 5 episodes.
My role:
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Game writer
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Narrative designer
Documents (click to view):
Detailed information about the characters, their personalities, backstories, flaws and motivations.
Goal:
Writing and developing a visual novel based on classic murder mystery stories, revolving around a set of characters who are in essence. horrible people, but who at the same time, and under the right circumstances, could still all be worthy of redemption.
We aimed to combine a contemporary setting with supernatural and fantasy elements.
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Explanation and break down of Act 1, following the classic three act structure.
Example of written messages found in the game's journal, where the player can attempt to decode Alistair's dark thoughts.
Sample of dialogue with player and NPCs with choices from Act 1 in screenplay format
Your descendants will know my wrath.
In the course of the game, the player engages in conversations with the family members, and selects dialogue choices to gather clues to find out which character is possessed by the creature.
As a narrative design working on a visual novel, my main challenge was writing diaogue with several aims in mind:
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Furthering the plot.
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Offer backstory and exposition.
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Correctly display each personality.
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Show clear and yet not too obvious clues as to which character is possessed.
Another challenge was determining the right balance of freedom to give the player. Since our project is still in development, the current iteration of the game remains fairly linear, and the real impact of dialogue choices has not yet been implemented. However, there are two instances where the player can choose which character to converse with. The conversation with the unchosen character is lost, and that dialogue will not unfold, which means there is information the player will be missing. We made this choice to give the player power in their choices, and also allow for replayability.
As a game and narrative designer, I decided to limit the player’s choices in this iteration to maintain narrative focus and control the pacing of the game. As the project evolves, we plan to expand the player’s agency.
Narrative Process:
In order to tell this story and successfully showcase these themes, I realized we needed well-developed characters with complex personalities, which is why a very large part of the development was dedicated to crafting these characters. I took inspiration from popular murder mystery movies, and books around wealthy family members who are used to lives of luxury and privilege, to create our very own version of what it means to belong to a toxic family, and how it can shape a character’s actions.
Moreover, as writer, I took on the challenge of exploring how to create villainous characters, and yet develop them in a way that the player could still feel some sort of empathy towards them. The idea was to make Hayden family members come across as unkind, selfish and egotistical individuals, but not fully evil. They can be redeemed under the right circumstances, depending on the player’s actions throughout the game.
To do this, I first created customized character bios where I could write down and keep track of important information around each character. This proved useful for two reasons. Firstly, it gave our team’s artist relevant information to create his designs based on their personalities, and secondly, it helped me to write their dialogues, since I understood the character's essence, their unique way of speaking, their objectives and their flaws. I came up with a one word concept about each of these characters that for me summarizes who they are and what makes them different from the rest, and I wrote their dialogues accordingly.
For example, Lyle is authoritarian, so all his interactions are related to the constant seeking of approval from his own father, and his unwavering demand for others to look at him with that same level of respect. No matter the interaction, or who Lyle is speaking to, he will always talk in a strict and condescending way. This way of working restricted me in the types of answers I could write about each of the characters, but I believe this limitation also helped me to stay true to their personalities, and keep me focused on where the story was going.
Themes:
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Toxic family dynamics
Explore complicated relationships between family members who share more animosity than love. Generational trauma passed down from parents to children.
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Ambition and greed
Showcase how promises of fortune, fame and reputation, plus high expectations of greatness and pride, can cause corruption and selfishness.
Mechanics:
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Dialogue choices that impact player's experience and possible ending.
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Journal access to update player's findings throughout the game.
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Map to choose which areas of the house to access.
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Influence if a character lives or dies based on interactions.
Design Process:
A challenge I faced during development was writing directly in the engine. I had never used Ren’py before, so I had to learn the basics of how it worked, and I was forced to be extra careful with spelling and grammar mistakes, since Ren’py is not equipped to point out typos. However, this made the process a lot quicker since I didn’t have to spend time writing on a separate document, and then pasting everything to the engine.