![]() #Death come true gameplay license#The Slöp Höuse pages were a lot of fun to write, because it was a license to expand the world, while also surfacing all of the existing stories, lore, and thoughts the team already had about Grindstone. When I joined to work on the bestiary, which would eventually become Hëlga's Slöp Höuse, I wanted to build on what was already working so well in the game: a combination of blood, gore, and family values. Tying lore with progression mechanics and employing synecdoche in world-building ![]() Every action you take as a player is creating Jorj's story, because Jorj's story is told through gameplay and supported by the setting expressed in the level design and art direction. You're helping him save up to take his family on that vacation. With each chain of like-coloured Creeps you're creating, you're telling Jorj's story. None of the story sits outside of what you're experiencing, moment-to-moment as a player. You're chopping up monsters and finding treasure, both in terms of story and gameplay. None of the story sits outside of what you're experiencing, moment-to-moment as a playerĪnd it's all rooted in gameplay. And it works! Layering this blue collar, mining town vibe over top of an epic and brutal treasure hunt creates this really tangible story that is easy to connect with and provides a lot of in-roads for understandable characters. The team used the inherent fiction that already existed within the gameplay (being a barbarian fighting monsters and getting treasure) and juxtaposed that against explicit worldbuilding to provide story and character motivation (being a barbarian is akin to being a miner, and it's more back pain than glamour). You play as Jorj, a hulking stonegrinder, who is a family man at heart, and who just wants to work his gruesome 9-to-5 in order to save up enough money to take his family on a vacation. So while all of the above is true (you are a treasure-hunting barbarian fighting monsters), it's not epic in the world of the game. Except the Grindstone team wanted to give this implicit story a slight twist via explicit story and worldbuilding. Did you fail at a boss, grind out a few lower levels to get better gear, and then go back and slay the heck out of that monster? That's a training montage (well, kind of, but you get my point).Īll of that sounds epic! And it is. That's because the base verbs of the game are already stitching together this story: you're a treasure-hunting barbarian fighting monsters, and each of your successes and failures in any given level is creating a sort of plot around you. Capy Games' lead narrative designer Kaitlin Tremblay They're working in tandem, which means that even if this was the only narrative that existed in Grindstone, you'd still get a solid feel for what kinds of stories could exist in this game. ![]() These two facets, the setting and the gameplay, are immediately working hand in hand, even before anything like characterization, story arcs, and worldbuilding is added to the game. Everything in the setting revolves around grindstones, the same way the gameplay loops revolve around creating chains to generate grindstones. The setting is established cleanly as a way to contextualize gameplay: this is a world where being a barbarian is a 9-to-5, and it's set in a small, blue-collar town where monster guts and the grindstones that come out of said monster guts is the main economy. Part of what makes Grindstone's story and setting work is how well tuned it is to gameplay in the first place. ![]() Using gameplay verbs and setting to establish a story baseline Story conclusions that aren't game endings.Narrative symmetry and character dialogue affirming player actions.Tying lore with progression mechanics and employing synecdoche in world-building.Using gameplay verbs and setting to establish a story baseline.This article will focus on these four approaches we've used in Grindstone: I wanted to write a narrative design breakdown of Grindstone, walking through the major narrative features to talk about how the team and I have implemented story into a mostly gameplay-focused experience. But this doesn't mean there isn't space for a lot of storytelling - it just means that the storytelling looks a little bit different than what we might expect. The gameplay is crunchy and the puzzles are front and center. Grindstone is a brutal puzzle game, a twist on the match-three mechanic where you're playing as a barbarian slicing your way through like-colored monsters. Grindstone isn't what you would necessarily think of as a "narrative game." But since I've been working with the team on Grindstone's updates in the past year and a half, there's one question I'm consistently asked: "How do you create story for a mostly gameplay-focused experience?" ![]()
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