As I mentioned last time, I have been working on a personal writing project. I thought that there was no time like the present to give some details: I’m currently worldbuilding for a StoryNexus game I’m going to make!
If you ran into me at GDC, this is probably no surprise; I told a lot of people there that I’d like to make a game with StoryNexus. But I wasn’t really sure what kind of game I wanted to make. I ran into Alexis Kennedy (co-founder of FailBetter Games, the company which created StoryNexus) back in San Francisco, and we chatted for awhile. I mentioned that I had found it hard to create a game with StoryNexus the last time I tried to; he suggested that city settings seem to work with the toolset. With that in mind, I needed to come up with an interesting city setting. A few friends suggested setting something on Imezza, but I really didn’t want to.
Luckily the setting answer came to me a few weeks back. About a year ago, I had been tossing around some ideas to write a graphic novel with an artist friend. Unfortunately nothing ever came of that, but I had come up with an incredibly bare-bones plot idea which appealed to me. I dug up the notes (of which there was very little) and started going from there.
I also emailed Yoon Ha Lee, the creator of Winterstrike (an amazing StoryNexus game). She gave me some great advice on what worked and didn’t with Winterstrike, for which I am extremely grateful!
Beyond playing with the toolset a bit, I’ve never built a StoryNexus game before; I decided to start by hashing out the setting. This game is going to take place in a city full of dead creatures (like vampires and ghosts); if you’re curious about it, I’ve started a Pinterest board for inspiration that you’re welcome to check out. The setting has become entwined with a few key NPCs, so right now I’m working on both setting and characters. Once that’s done, I’ll start plotting out story lines; to that end, I downloaded the free version of the GameBook Authoring Tool, which will hopefully help me keep everything straight! This game is in dire need of a name; until I have something better, I am calling it “City of the Dead.”
