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Harleigh Awner (Technical Narrative Designer, Santa Monica Studio)
Location: Room 2001, West Hall
Date: Friday, March 24
Time: 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Core Pass
Topic: Design
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: Video
Audience Level: All
Home bases in games have long been a player-driven experience: Supporting characters lack agency and believability.
In this session, Harleigh Awner, Technical Narrative Designer at Santa Monica Studio, describes an approach to creating a home base that is character-driven: What it means to give characters the independence to act, why it’s important, the challenges the team faced, and the solutions they found.
This talk will break down two visits to Sindri’s House by describing, in detail, the structure of each visit and how the team approached balancing the goals of character autonomy and unrestricted player control.
Attendees will learn how to create narrative-focused spaces with a focus on independent NPC behavior and character interaction through examples from Sindri’s House in God of War Ragnarök, and how to evolve on the home base framework established in previous popular games.
This is for designers creating home bases or other hubs in their games, or anyone interested in narrative design.