The current development process for the game “Stories of a GeoFarmer” is broken down into the following teams:
- Research team
- Dialogue team
- Design team
- Development team
The research team has completed the necessary components for the dialogue and design teams to complete their portions of the work and the initial dialogue is beginning to trickle in. A very rough outline of the game was provided previously and the new dialogue reshapes a portion of the initial outline. The trick now is to take the dialogue and attempt to synthesize what works from the script and what works from the outline into a semblance of a cohesive game.
The first step to aligning dialogue and design is to map the outline to the script. The easiest way to complete this step is to use the actual game engine and characters. This project has the benefit of having a full suite of characters and locations from the previous iteration of the game that will no longer be used. By taking these unused characters and locations and assigning them dialogue, a basic prototype emerges.
As the prototype emerges, gaps and incongruous pairings of design and dialogue become evident. A working catalog of needed additions and issues is a fantastic way to organize changes that are needed. The trickiest part of this process is accommodating players and gameplay while trying to stay true to both design and dialogue. For example, if a story beat requires a player’s action, will an NPC mention the action? Will reminder text mention to the player what they are supposed to do? Will the player be locked out of specific actions until they complete the action? Given the ambitious nature of this project, these game design decisions are being made on the fly. The trick to combining the design and dialogue portions will be synthesizing the two while following proper game design procedures (including tracking the changes). That is the current focus of all the teams and will hopefully yield to fruitful results shortly.