This week, I replaced the text-based introduction with an interactive one. I wanted the player to be part of Viola's frustration, which causes the violin's fantasy world to open up. After this part, the game starts right away with a smaller tutorial level where the player meets Fenrys.

​Click 'Read more' to read more about the introduction.

I don't have much to say this week: it's very much what you see is what you get. The story bits in Viola have been upgraded! Animations, sound, music, visual effects, camera work... It's all there! Some polish would still be nice, but I'll have to actually finish up the rest of the game first. Just a few more weeks!

Click 'Read more' below to see more of Viola's story!

Games often use enemies to keep the game filled with conflicts for the player to engage with. Obviously, Viola is the same. So, this week, I put some extra love into the enemies you see in the game, and I added a fight against one of Viola's antagonists: Justice.

Click 'Read more' to read more about Justice and the other enemies in Viola.

This video showcases the narrative design possibilities in Viola. By combining gameplay and linear storytelling, the player can feel directly involved with Viola's story.

Click 'Read more' to read a little more about this story!

This post is about the "Adaptive Conversations" in the game. The player could already examine certain objects, but now they can be joined by the characters in the game!

​Click 'Read more' to read more about this mechanic.

This week I worked on adding story content to Viola. I've added three methods of storytelling in the game, all of which deserve their own post!

In this post you can get a look at the introductory cutscene. The level I'm creating is the "vertical slice": a piece of finished game to showcase. The level itself is a little later into the game, so the player needs context before playing the game.

Click 'Read more' to read more about creating this cutscene.

This week, I worked on creating the "Wishfire" mechanic and section. After (almost) every level, the player gets the opportunity to rest at a Wishfire: a camping ground where you can heal your party and have an extended chat with them.

Click 'Read more' to read more about the origin of this mechanic, and my implementation.

Through the weekend and yesterday, I worked on a mechanic to allow the player to talk to NPC's: non-playable characters. In Viola, any NPC can join your party, so it's important to be able to talk with them.

Click 'Read more' to find out what I used to make this mechanic.

This week, as well as the last, I spent some time designing characters for the game. After all, this is the RPG where you can recruit anyone. So if the NPC's are the game's unique selling point, they should be interesting! And making characters has always been the most fun part of making a story to me.

Click read more to check out more of the process I put into designing characters.

Viola is a story about a young girl, trapped in her own nightmare.

I'm the kind of writer who does a lot of outlining. I want to know what the story is about before I start writing. However, I almost always start with a very specific scene. For Viola, it was a scene about a girl being trapped by her own negative thoughts given a corporeal form by her own fantasy.