Judas - narrative FPS set on a disintegrating starship from Ken Levine's Ghost Story Games

[conan_edw]

So they spent 5-6 years making a roguelike?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Do they have anything to show for it?

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It'd be nice if their game with some weird shit and RPG elements was a '80s '90s Freedom Force along the lines of somethkng like Marshal Law.

 

[LESS T_T]

Some hints from a narrative designer's resume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeleine-shopoff/

Narrative designer and technical implementation for an unannounced title from Ghost Story Games. Working directly with creative leadership and writers to take stories from basic scripts to full interactive gameplay. Helped architect and implement robust narrative and quest systems for a crafted player experience in a dynamic roguelike environment. Owned implementation of critical path main story questlines and narrative events.

A bit more details from her website: https://www.madeleineshopoff.com/ghoststory

Mentions that time (Jan 2019) when she joined the project was right after "a major shift in development", and roguelike, dynamic narrative, etc. too of course.

Narrative Design • Technical Design • Systems Architecture • Prototyping
I was the primary Technical Narrative Designer on an unannounced title from Ghost Story Games, working alongside the creators of Bioshock and Bioshock: Infinite on an innovative new game that blends systemic, replayable content with the type of crafted narrative familiar to fans of the Bioshock and System Shock series.

I came onto the team at a really exciting time, right after a major shift in development when I was given the opportunity to architect the narrative delivery and quest systems from the ground up. I helped to design strategies for making our narrative content dynamic and scalable, while at the same time retaining the crafted story experience fans expect from a Ken Levine game. I work closely with creative leadership and other disciplines to create engaging and fun delivery of our storyline in a dynamic and player-driven narrative game where each playthrough is a new unique experience.

DYNAMIC NARRATIVE DESIGN
I worked closely with writing, art, audio, and engineering in order to drive and implement narrative and mission content; taking writers’ visions and making them into playable experiences that are fun, engaging, and radically player-driven. It’s been a fun and interesting challenge to try and create a Bioshock-style narrative experience in a game with a rogue-like foundation and level design — where many different things can change from one playthrough to the next based on player actions, as well as working within a dynamic level design.

Player-driven narrative in a rogue-like game presented a number of unique challenges, including what narrative content should trigger when and under which conditions, and how to traffic control all of the narrative content so the game has the same pacing and feel of a scripted linear experience. I designed a system with a combination of metadata tracking which monitored the player and game state and could be queried by a variety of game systems, as well as working with engineering to implement a system of hierarchy and priority so the validation of narrative content was as performant as possible while also being easy to create and debug content within them.

TAKING STORIES FROM IDEAS TO GAMEPLAY
I worked directly with creative leadership and writers to take stories from outlines into fully playable, enjoyable experiences. I collaborated with art, animation, level design, AI design, combat design, and engineering to own and implement narrative moments and gameplay missions end-to-end. I worked closely with other disciplines to drive narrative and mission design within the game, to bring more player agency and enhance narrative from writers, and create unique, handcrafted moments to excite and surprise players

I also worked as the bridge between disciplines to unify narrative, gameplay, AI, UI, and mission design into a cohesive experience; helping to create and refine the system of player verbs, narrative tropes, and objective types used across our game.

UNREAL DEVELOPMENT
My work was done primarily through UE4 Blueprint scripting, level scripting, and level sequences to create data-driven narrative systems and content throughout the game — everything from small one-liner “radical recognition” events in response to player actions, to the large scripted main story missions and cinematic moments.

I’ve also worked alongside engineering to help design and implement or refactor various core game systems, including those tracking all of the player data and game states used by narrative, audio, and progression systems which are used to create a dynamic and above all player-driven experience. I love building beautiful and streamlined solutions to complex problems, and creating systems that are scalable and flexible.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

 

[Maggot]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-next-game-and-its-narrative-legos-in-turmoil

 

[Roguey]

tl;dr

An article appearing on Bloomberg today reports that industry veteran Ken Levine’s studio Ghost Story Games is not a happy place to be. Half the company’s founders having quit, along with many staff, and after eight years there’s still no sign of a game.

Jason Schreier reports, “Levine’s managerial style has led to burnout and, former employees say, caused a lot of pain.”

Levine gonna Levine. Take-Two knew this would happen again, hence why he was downsized to a much smaller team.

 

[Morgoth]

Levine is a misunderstood genius. His game will change the world, you'll see.

 

[Alphons]

Meanwhile at Ghost Story Games:

 

[Spukrian]

"Narrative lego" sounds very interesting... if implemented well.... which it most likely won't be in this game... if it's ever released.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Oh hey it looks like a hard-working investigative journalist has discovered that thing I was saying is completely obvious to anyone with a brain. What a scoop Jason!

 

[Major_Blackhart]

And no one is surprised. At this point, they keep him on just for name brand recognition. How long before the studio steps in and forces things?

 

[vortex]

I'll be flabbergasted if this game won't feature a ghost story.

 

[Ghulgothas]

I'll be flabbergasted if this game won't feature a ghost story.

This studio'll be nothing but a ghost story.

 

[Dodo1610]

The funniest thing about this are indie devs on twitter who are offened by the notion that working on a game for more than 8 years isn't normal.

 

[thesoup]

Ken "Fraudster" Levine

 

[ferratilis]

I thought Jason Schreier only picks on gentiles. Nice to see he's not picky. Mazel tov!

 

[gerey]

Levine is a misunderstood genius. His game will change the world, you'll see.

What game?

 

[Zed]

"video game auteur"

Hmmm.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I like how I've only made like 5-10 tweet replies on twitter in the last 2 years and Jason Schrier blocked me for one of them. I think it was him tweeting that Twitter was supporting Nazi hate speech and I said for him to stop being a bitch basically. I'm I doing it right?

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Weekly reminder that Ken Levine is responsible for two of the greatest video game scripts of all time (the FF games). And the games came out feature complete. And bug-free. With two year dev-cycles.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Kenception is pretty clever. I think I might have came up with that myself.

 

[Dexter]

The funniest thing about this are indie devs on twitter who are offened by the notion that working on a game for more than 8 years isn't normal.

That's a very accurate pictographic portrayal for King Rat and how he operates.

 

[vortex]

Levine is a misunderstood genius. His game will change the world, you'll see.

Not only the world but the Codex too. Levine's game and Bioshock 4 will be so good imershun sim even Infinitron shall make hesitantly but undoubtedly Imershun sim section.

 

[Fronzel Neekburm]

Levine is a misunderstood genius.

You mixed up a few words there, buddy. It should read:

Levine being a genius was a misunderstanding.

System Shock 2 was a fluke and any good that came out of Irrational (up to and including Swat 4, because afterwards nothing good came out of Irrational) most likely happened despite Levine, not because of him.