The Last Branch
The Last Branch is a beautiful adventure game, where you play as a child of the Godtree, the last hope for life. Explore an ancient abandoned temple, and meet the many lost spirits, lingering in its halls. Repel the infestation of Rot and escape from the temple to restore life to the world!
- Platform: PC
- Engine: Unreal
- Playtime: 15-30 minutes
- Team Size: 14
- Roles: Narrative & Sound Design
- Timeframe: 7 weeks
- Download Here
The Game Pitch
The Last Branch is a third-person adventure game that uses traversal, puzzle mechanics, and simple enemies for a unified experience. The core loop of the game is finding your way through a room and its unique challenges, interacting with spirit NPC’s along the way. The game is inspired by Ico’s world and The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker’s puzzles.
My Responsibilities
- Establishing and maintaining the narrative and lore of the game’s world.
- Iterating on in-game dialogue as a narrative design team.
- Providing descriptions and pacing of rooms for the Level Design.
- Working closely with artists, animators, and musicians to ensure a consistent aesthetic.
- Creating and managing a Sound Manager used for the game’s dynamic soundspace and music.
Table of Contents
Narrative Design
Coming off of working on Eclipse I was very excited to work with another person on the narrative and not by myself. I was joined by a fellow narrative designer Mimi Olsin.
Early on we decided to cleanly split our responsibilities between us, while still making sure to constantly check in, ensuring we had the same vision. Big decisions were always answered together. Often, when asked a question by an artist or level designer I would answer “Let me go check with Mimi.“
Having Mimi as a counterpart was incredibly helpful as we complimented and contrasted each other well. We balanced one another out well and worked together to make a much more nuanced and interesting narrative than we would have as individuals.
World Building
Goals
As we were making a narrative game, we knew that the setting had to be especially clear and communicable to the rest of the team. We also wanted to reflect the prompt “Environment” which was given to us for the project from our school.
Implementation
To ensure the whole team could get on board with the vision, we spent time formatting all of our work into shareable powerpoints that were easy to digest.
The setting we used was a post-apocalyptic world, taking inspiration from Prince of Persia (2008) and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
One of the details we spent notable time on was the cause of the apocalypse, a malevolent Rot. We discussed a lot about whether the Rot was strictly evil or more a part of natural cycles. And while this level of nuance at the time felt frustrating, it was an important distinction to make for the whole team’s sake.
Takeaways
In retrospect it is so clear how valuable having a concise definition of in game ideas is. The definition of the Rot was impactful in many ways, from detailing how the enemies would look and move, to how they would behave during stealth sections.
Spirit Dialogue
Goals
With our main narrative device we wanted to offer downtime for the player to contrast against the exploration in the core gameplay loop. We also wanted to leave space for the players who were more interested in the mechanical gameplay than the narrative and world building, so it was also important we didn’t force feed the story.
We also needed some way to contextualize tutorialization inside the world. Because consistent immersion in the world was a core value of our game, just having pop-up tutorial information about mechanics felt jarring.
Implementation
We chose to use NPC spirits that we placed around the temple. The player is able to interact with them, hearing what they have to say. We strategically placed spirits with tutorial information along the Golden Path and placed more flavorful spirits in nooks and side areas to reward exploration.
Though I was not responsible for writing the dialogue, I did provide feedback and notes on it. I helped create the initial plan and layout for how many and what kinds of spirits we wanted. It was important to keep good track of each spirit, because we aimed to make them reflective of their surroundings.
Takeaways
The biggest lesson I learned from working with the dialogue and NPCs is to not try and be so clever. I forget that as writers we’re “5th dimensional beings that can see the whole story,” so to speak, and that players need more help. I think, while our ideas and goals were very solid, our execution of actually translating those ideas into experiences for the player got muddied by vagueness and being afraid of giving too much away.
Working with Level Design
Goals
From a narrative perspective, our goal with the level was to use it as a microcosm of the bigger world story. In each section we wanted everything, NPCs, art direction, and gameplay mechanics, to match a tone and be able to tell a story through subtler methods than dialogue.
Implementation
To do this we designed three distinct sections that would reflect the Past, Present, and Future of the world. We worked closely alongside our level designer, Jules, to help plan out the beats of the game.
I was part of the process from the beginning, with brainstorming ideas for rooms and the flow of the game, all the way up to the finishing touches, making sure the proper emotions were evoked in each area.
After each area got a pass, Jules would share the updates with me and we’d chat about how it fit in or ways we could adjust it to better capture the targeted experience.
Takeaways
The biggest takeaway from working with level design on this project was learning the value of having backups in case content has to be cut.
Our themes for the sections were predicated on the fact that we would have three complete sections. However, when the team realized our level was overscoped and we had to cut back, that meant that suddenly the dream we had for narrative cohesion (of Past, Present, and Future) fell apart.
Working with Artists
Another huge chunk of my work was communicating with the art team and helping them create assets that fit the tone of the world. I would share reference games, images, and descriptions of the different rooms, architecture, and props we imagined in the temple. It wasn’t one-sided though, as lots of fantastic ideas came from the art team and we were able to incorporate them into the narrative.
Some of my favorite interactions with the artists was getting to work with our concept artist Kate. Her art’s impact on communicating the game vision can not be understated. As a narrative designer I spent a lot of time going back and forth with her slowly refining our ideas.
Sound Design
Besides working on the game’s narrative, I was also responsible for all of the sound design in the game. I built a custom audio manager and managed the implementation of all sound effects and music.
Audio Manager
Goals
Because tone and atmosphere was so important for this game, I planned from the beginning to build a robust and modular audio manager. Speaking with our musicians, I also knew we wanted to support multi layered tracks that we could control and change dynamically during runtime.
Implementation
I utilized Unreal Engine’s MetaSounds to tweak audio levels, reverb, attenuation, and more during runtime using several different types of in-world trigger boxes. I also created a simple blueprint system that could be referenced from any actor that could call tracking sounds for enemies, timed audios for jump pads, and more.
Recap of Takeaways
The development process of The Last Branch was in someways exceedingly smooth while also fundamentally flawed. It was my longest game project, with the largest scope and team so it was a brand new experience that taught me a lot.
What went well?
- I learned that even small innocuous decisions like “Is the Rot malevolent spirits or natural growths?” are incredibly important, as narrative choices can have ripple effects into other teams.
- I loved getting to work with another narrative designer. The collaborative experience brought a new dimension to the workflow for me.
- The game has one of the most cohesive aesthetics in any project I’ve worked on. The art, sound, and writing all feel in harmony with eachother.
What went wrong?
- By far the biggest issue the project faced was a lack of a unifying vision. The school had assigned the product ownership to our producers which many teams, including our own found strange. This may have played a part in lack of leadership as our producers juggled many hats. However I think the responsibility was still on the rest of the team to realize we were not unified in vision.
- The artists and designers felt seperated during this project. This seperation was definitely better by the end, but I think we took too long branching that divide. Outside of work activities (like movie nights or party games) have worked before and since for building team spirit, and definitely could have helped here.
- One of the knock-on effects of disunified vision was a clash of mechanics and aesthetic. The worst example of this is the mantle mechanic. The mechanic itself works fine and supports the level design, but feels out of place. It felt quite strange seeing our delicate tree-spirit climb like Lara Croft.
