Summary
Riptide is a space combat game set in the galactic gravity cluster of Catolia, where you can customize your ship and work to assist the Revolution in defeating the oppressive monarchy.
Date: December 2023 – May 2024
Role(s): Lead & Narrative Designer, Voice Acting Coordinater, Voice Actor, Community Management
Platform: PC – Keyboard
Team Members: Flint Babineaux, Benjamin House-Kelly, Gerrit Pottmeyer, Jacob Davis, Cat Davey, Lily McMurtie, Merle Roji, Nicholas Kasprzak, Nicolas Delbue, Nicolletta Rothschild, Noah Cichowlas, Thomas Wagner, Zachary Navarro
Project Information
I was onboarded onto the Riptide team for the purposes of helping out other designers with narrative, as well as to be the lead of the designers and assist in organization and communication, as well as the direction that my team members wished to take the project into.
Though some members of the team had already begun to set up some base story ideas and character concepts, many were not fleshed out or expanded upon.
So, it was my job to take what story themes, tone, and ideas that they had, and to be able to make it into a cohesive narrative and world everyone would be happy with. This started with the characters of the world, as well as the ongoing story world, so that I could pinpoint some motivation for the war which was going on.
After I created a large cast of characters and crewmates that made up the world of Riptide, I moved onto what the player would play through or experience. I plotted out three full level outlines based on the objectives and level/environmental design my teammates wanted to aim for, and used as much as they could provide to help make solid and sensible context for the world.
After my outlines for each level were complete, I could confidently move onto the script/dialogue writing part of my job, since my team expressed a desire for the game’s narrative to be told through character dialogue.
This process took a little longer and many more adjustments, so that we wouldn’t be too far out of scope.
Here are a few examples of full level dialogues/scripts I was able to write and work on in the team:
With dialogue reviewed and complete, as we began to implement it all into the engine, I was tasked with finding and casting voice actors, as well as scheduling times at the sound studio for final recordings once we narrowed down the list of interested applicants. It was my job to also make sure the voice actors were all given clear and easy instructions to understand as they recorded, so each character could be accurate to our game’s vision.
Throughout this whole process, I was also in charge of smaller tasks, such as finding narrative reasons for promising marketing materials to exist, and helping them become better promotional icons to suit our game.
I was also the community manager and creator of our game’s discord server, helping foster the community on there and to keep outside engagement up with Riptide as we continued to grow and change.
Game Trailer
Project Takeaways
Out of all of the games I’ve gotten to work on, Riptide has had the biggest team along with the most responsibilities in store for me so far. But by utilizing the skills and experience I’ve gained over the years at Champlain in the Game Studio, I feel like I was able to have a positive impact while also avoid burning out during the whole process.
It’s been a really long journey for me to get to this point, and I’m honestly very proud of myself. I got to use my production and other skills to help my team in any way that I could, and we ended up with a very satisfying game that has a coherent and understandable narrative.
You can now play Riptide for free! We’ve published the game on steam at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2851690/Riptide/
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