Amazon Games MMORPG: New WorldNarrative Designer and Writer for Seasons
As the narrative lead for Seasons content in New World:Aeternum, I pitched and developed the overarching narrative framework, introducing the Silver Crows, a band of mercenary heroes led by the player. I led narrative and quest design for Season One "Fellowship and Fire" and Season Three "Eternal Frost," developing character-driven stories and quests that engaged players and deepened their emotional investment in the world, motivating them to truly care about their actions.
Designing a new NPC Interaction System
I led a cross-functional initiative to overhaul the NPC interaction system for New World, significantly enhancing player immersion. The improvements were widely praised, including a positive review from MMORPG.com, and played a key role in elevating the game to AAA quality for our console launch. I architected a solution that empowered designers to easily add cameras and animation to thousands of lines of NPC dialogue, bringing players closer to the characters. This project required close collaboration with multiple teams to realize the vision. With a tight timeline leading up to our console launch, we had to carefully navigate several trade-offs to make it all work.
Creating a Living Chess Puzzle in Season 4: Eternal Frost
One of my greatest pleasures as a narrative designer is to delight players by finding new ways to raise the bar for our narrative and quest content. In Season 4, I designed a quest where players navigate a mad King's Ice Castle, featuring a unique puzzle that requires solving a Living Chess challenge to obtain a key to a locked entryway. I implemented the puzzle using our in-house scripting language, and re-used existing creature 3D models and animations, ensuring the experience was not only fun, but also cost-efficient.Player Feedback from Discord:
"Well done to anyone who worked on the new Seasonal Questline - I know, it's not quite common to throw in some appreciation when it's deserved but God d-mn the new questline is fun and engaging.""Season Quest was really fun! - ... There were some funny moments and the breaking ice, the wind on the hill, the chess mini game... Cool stuff :D"
Stoking the Fire: In-Game Cinematics
Another area where I played a key role in expanding our storytelling approach, was with In-Game Cinematics (IGCs). In Season 1: Fellowship and Fire, I wrote and implemented an IGC with a close-up perspective on NPCs, which was a first for our game. (In the cutscene, our stalwart companion Grace O'Malley interviews a series of misfits who apply to join us in the Silver Crows mercenary band.)This scene not only brought our NPCs to life in a fun new way but also sparked interest in enhancing our dialogue system, leading to the overhaul described above. It also demonstrated to the studio that our engine was capable of producing cinematic moments.By Season 4, the momentum around Cinematics had grown, allowing us to produce a polished IGC that I wrote, featuring the latest Silver Crow character I created, Daichi, as he uses samurai moves enhanced by fire magic to defeat an Ethereal creature called an Enenra.
Early work as a Narrative Designer, and ABC Disney's Scholarship Grant Program for Screenwriting
I'm very thankful to Visual Communications and in particular to my late friend and mentor Linda Mabalot, who gave me my first job as a narrative designer, working on a non-profit educational game called The Time Rangers. I wrote the game bible and had a blast working on the script, collaborating with a rockstar character artist Serapio Calm, and directing some fantastic Asian-American voice talent, including the amazing George Takei who generously donated his time to the project.Linda also inspired me to apply for and win a seat at the year-long ABC Disney Scholarship Grant Program for Screenwriting. It was an incredible opportunity, learning from the best on how to break story.
Personal Game Projects:
Into the Night
I love Japan, ninjas, and games with romance, so of course I wrote a little game in Yarn where you can live out a ninja text-rpg fantasy- "You had me at kage-bunshin?" Too much? I want to up-level this to a 3D game.
Side Writing Projects:
Elemental
Elemental is one of several original spec scripts that I've written. (If you like and aren't offended by Archer, I've got a decent spec for that as well.) This is another one I'd love to make into a game. I love urban fantasy!
Let's raise the bar for storytelling in games
Feel free to reach out- I'm always interested in exploring ways to tell better stories!
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