Ain't No Grave
Fallout 4 Mod
Mission Designer
Responsibilities:
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Designed a three-mission single-player campaign
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Designed meaningful choices that impact narrative and gameplay
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Designed five level layouts with multiple states to reflect player choices
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Scripted weapons, combat encounters, branching dialog, and mission rewards
"Ain't No Grave" was the product of my Master's Thesis titled "Designing Missions with Meaningful Choices."
My goal for this project was to draft a reliable method for communicating branching narrative choices to players in role-playing games. This presented a few challenges: players needed to know which actions were available to them, what the direct consequences of those actions might be, and how those actions fit into the broader themes of the mission. Through building this brief mission campaign, I discovered best practices for communicating critical player choice information through writing, level design, and mission structure.
You can read my full thesis postmortem here.
DESIGN GOALS
Informed Decisions
One of the most significant aspects of making player choices feel meaningful is equipping the player with enough information that they can weigh narrative options. This mod uses a process I termed "information hooks," where NPC dialogue calls out important details early and often to cement dynamic mission variables in the player's mind. This helps telegraph to players what kind of choice they will be asked to make and predict some potential consequences of their choices.
Lasting Consequences
Once the player has committed to a narrative decision, the consequences of their choices should be presented clearly and immediately. Building off of the same information hooks, I designed the second act of each of these missions to reflect immediate consequences back on the player. This sells the player fantasy of "making a difference" when the player sees characters and world events directly respond to their actions.
Long-Term Progression
The ultimate goal of my research was to expand these best practices to discover a model for player choice that operated at scale while minimizing excess narrative scope. Once I began to represent consequences of player choices at this scale, I discovered several best practices that involved reusing assets and level space in creative ways. The over-arching structure of the content remained the same regardless of player choice, but differences were emphasized in dialogue and optional objectives.
Mission Flow
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Gallery
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