Piano Knight
My Contribution
My first project in which I officially worked as a narrative designer/writer.
For Piano Knight, I had two responsibilities. First, as a narrative designer, I worked alongside our other narrative designer, Petra Jarret, to write a script for cutscenes that would play in between battles. Second, it was my job to concept the various enemies in the game and determine the effects of each of their attacks. This included the final boss fight against One-Man Band Knight.
For this narrative, Petra and I decided to go all-in on cheesy puns. Music puns and knight puns were both on the table. We wanted it to feel like an old comic book in terms of how characters speak directly about what they're doing (Ex: "That Piano Knight can't stop me. Not as long as I wield the Triangle of Ultimate Summoning"). We felt that this approach fit very well with the quirky mechanics of the game.
One-Man Band Knight is a villain that I concocted to act as a direct opposition to our game's main theme of teamwork. While Piano Knight gathers allies who play different instruments to fight alongside with, One-Man Band Knight is obsessed with doing everything alone. This ultimately ends up being his downfall.
Unfortunately none of this work ever made its way into even the incomplete build of the game because the two team members that did not complete their tasks were responsible for programming the dialogue system and the enemy attacks.
Despite this though, it was a major learning experience for all of us and we all were able to come away from the project with far more insight into how a full studio would run and a better grasp on the sheer importance of communication throughout an entire team.
Position on Project:
General Designer & Narrative Designer
Time of Production:
April 2019 - May 2019
Engine:
Unity
Team Size:
18 Total
5 Designers
3 Artists
6 Programmers
4 Producers
Project Description:
A turn-based RPG in which damage dealt is determined through a rhythm game styled minigame. The game's story follows the titular Piano Knight and his merry band as they try to defeat the malevolent One-Man Band Knight, who is obsessed with doing everything by himself. The game features themes of teamwork and friendship.
This project was the result of an experimental production class format dubbed, "Mega Team." Unfortunately the experiment was a failure and a fully playable build was never completed due to two team members that did not complete most of the tasks they took on.
Document Examples
