Terrarium is a mobile, sustainable city simulation game. The player, as a Navigator, develops and manages their floating city in the sky by balancing Power Supply, Air Quality, and Citizen Wellness as their population increases.
Role
Tools
Deliverable
Duration
Producer
Narrative Designer
Unreal 4, Notion, Miro, Blender, Figma, Adobe Suite
Playable prototype with full functionality and multiple quests
Three months
Core Responsibilities
Lead ideation of game premise. Advocated for and ensured narrative presence in the gameplay.
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Developed narrative premise to support the game setting and mechanics
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Drafted project milestones, outlining development pipeline, including narrative milestones
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Adapted narrative based on user testing, tweaking character dialogue and story pacing to improve the gameplay experience
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Designed quests for players based on gameplay systems
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Created and implemented game systems and dialogue using a database connected to the Unreal Engine
Dynamic Environment
A key feature of Terrarium is the dynamic environment. As players make choices and affect their city's metrics, the city's interactive landscape responds with corresponding elements of rain, sunshine, smog, and even hail.
In the narrative designer role, I wrote the setting briefs, a narrative history, character briefs for Terrarium. I tailored these design elements to the mechanics of the game.
As a city simulation game, Terrarium's players had a multitude of construction and augmentation paths available. With such a wide scope of potential gameplay available, I decided to create in-game events, bottlenecking narrative delivery. As well, narrative was communicated through the core quests and achievements of the game.
As the producer, I oversaw aspects of ideation, design, and development - helping to align and coordinate our team towards concrete production goals. I encouraged our team to remain collaborative and agile as challenges arose.
I crafted descriptions for all available in-game player assets such as new buildings or building upgrades, designing three quests for players to engage with and all NPC dialogue. Lastly, I wrote an opening cutscene for the game.