Save The Cat
- Genre: Action-Comedy 3D Stealth Game
- Type: Narrative Design Document
- Tools: Google Suite
- Iterations # 2
Role: Game Designer & Narrative Designer
Composed of: Research and conceptualization, ideation, design documentation, and writing of prose and dialogue.
Iterations Overview
Goal
My goal for Save The Cat was to create and polish a Narrative Design Document including general plot, boss barks, and original mechanics. At the same time, I wanted to come up with a fun, campy adventure about being burnt out from a formerly beloved activity.
- Concise Plot: I knew if the design document had too much detail, it would overwhelm the reader. I had to keep the plot clear and simple.
- Limited Characters: If I wanted to keep the document from getting too complicated, I had to limit the number of NPCs.
- Emotional Stakes: I wanted the experience of the narrative to feel cathartic, so I had to make the emotional stakes feel real and relatable.
Overview & Polishing Highlights
Game Premise: A procrastinating author must save her winged cat from his latest escape attempt – evading her deadly high-maintenance editor in the process – and maybe evaluate what she really wants to do in life in the process.
It’s a 3D mainline Mario game meets the mechanics of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle so burnt-out adults can finally speak their mind to their awful bosses.
Polishing Highlight 1: Regrouping Information
Goal: I intended for information in this revised version of the document to be easily accessible and able to be parsed at a brief scan.
Techniques
- Added a Table of Contents to quickly direct the reader to whatever information they needed.
- Revised how information was grouped and changed the document so it had the most high-level information at the start and the most specific information near the end.
Polishing Highlight 2: Visual Guidance
Goal: I meant for the visual language of the design document to guide the reader’s eye through its text, which, in the original document, was rather dense.
Techniques
- Broke up blocks of text with images and colours other than black and white.
- Divided large paragraphs into columns and tables that can be much more easily perused.
Finished Portfolio Piece
Results: Finished a polished, workable narrative design document.
Goal: Improve an existing design document with the skills I’ve since acquired in game design documentation.
Execution:
- Revised Categories: I swapped out ways information was grouped together from the original document in order to make it more easily legible.
- Visual Intrigue: I added colour, images, and tables to the document to aid in reading it quickly and efficiently.
