First-person narrative mystery game in Unreal Engine featuring a knowledge-based investigation system.
A detective called to a remote mountain town finds all the inhabitants have vanished. Explore a player-driven narrative investigation where the game is the mystery – every clue you collect and connection you make shapes how your narrative unfolds.
Environmental Storytelling. The whole narrative is pieced together by the player themselves through what they find in the abandoned town.
Excerpt: the Sheriff's phone
Sheriff's phone
Deputy texts
Deputy Reed
Sheriff, there's been another one. Max Alden, a Property Acquisition Agent for the facility, was found dead in his room, the Penthouse at the hotel.
Sheriff
Just what we need. People have been getting nervous enough already. The facility might even think they need to get involved now.
Deputy Reed
I think they're right to be nervous. There's been too many now to call it all a coincidence.
Sheriff
A string of bad luck doesn't make accidents into murders. Let's follow procedure and hope no one starts interfering in our work.
A choice-based interactive story combined with a time-management simulator. Game design document, 21 pages.
The player gets to create a character and live the life of a high school student training to be a peacekeeper in a world where medieval times, modern day, and the future coexist. The player’s choices will have consequences throughout the story – both explicit choices and their gameplay style affect the story’s outcome.
Your Choices Matter. Major choices, Dialogue choices, and even Gameplay choices all factor into your story and other characters’ perceptions of you.
Every Moment is a Choice. Stories will often progress with or without you. So when you have to choose between helping your friends save the school or keeping your date with your crush, choose wisely.
Theme. The theme of the game is that what we do and how we spend time matters. Even the decision to not act is a decision that will have consequences. What do we really value in life? Our friends? Romantic partners? Helping strangers? Our own money or power? Or doing the right thing?
Background. The player will choose whether they come from a poor, rich, or middle-class background. This will determine which students will accept the player right off the bat, and which will be prejudiced against the player.
Structure. This game will use a branch and bottleneck structure, but this will be prevented from destroying lasting consequences through statistics and variables which will come back later in the story.
TV Pilot + Series Bible · Small-town drama · 69 pages
In a close-knit small-town community, a juvenile delinquent, a police officer, a Pastor's daughter, and a Priest must choose wisely as their lives intersect and their town is impacted by their decisions.
Contestants on an elimination game show try to survive virtual horror movies for a multimillion-dollar prize. But there is real danger hidden in the virtual horrors...
Murder mystery · 15 minutes · Story by me, the cast improvised the dialogue under my direction.
A dinner party begins innocently enough. But one of the guests is more dangerous than they seem.
Narrative Implementation
As a game developer as well as a storyteller, I know how to implement the systems which build a game's story as well as how to tell it.
The Rebirth of Franklin Albrecht (Studio Taranta): main programmer on the early demo of this psychological horror game. I built the deduction board, the candlelit alternate reality, and the Pixel Crushers Dialogue System integration. Play the demo.
Education
I studied screenwriting with a focus on television at Arizona State University (BA, Filmmaking Practices), with coursework in screenwriting for games.