A Disclaimer:
I wound up getting hired to work in television when I was on Week Five of this project. That was ten months ago and I haven’t found the time to dive back into this project at the pace I want to, in order to keep the ‘eight weeks of (nonconsecutive) work’ integrity.
Therefore, this project, while technically still in-progress, has been temporarily paused on Week Five while I find the opportunity to dive back in, full-time.
A recently orphaned boy, on the verge of adulthood…
A mysterious summons from an ineffable presence…
A cult that sprang out of a famine…
A choice that impacts the lives of many...
Welcome to Visiting G.R.A.N.D.M.A., a video game I made from scratch using RPG Maker MZ!
(This project is currently in-progress and has been temporarily paused on Week Five while I find the opportunity to dive back in, full-time.)
It is a hilarious romp with a dark storyline, that will take you through the full spectrum of human emotion--sorrow, glee, probably gaseous, etc.--and will stay with you, long after you finish playing.
Grounded in emotional realism, yet swimming in absurdism, Visiting G.R.A.N.D.M.A. has multiple endings that each emphasize the impact and consequences of the players’ choices.
What will happen to the people you encounter? How will meeting you affect their lives? Only you can say.
Click here to play Visiting G.R.A.N.D.M.A., on itch.io!
Password: beginning
Making Visiting G.R.A.N.D.M.A.
Prior to making Visiting G.R.A.N.D.M.A., I had never designed a video game before; I had never written a video game; I had never crafted branching narratives that led to multiple endings. I had never even used the RPG Maker MZ software before. I opened up RPG Maker MZ for the first time (and immediately began to panic-search for tutorial videos) on day one of the project.
Five weeks of making-a-video-game-for-the-first-time later, I have fallen in love with this storytelling medium that gives and gives and gives. I feel like a giddy kid at the playground who just discovered the monkey bars, and is experiencing the freedom and exhilaration of swinging through the wind like an untethered fairy.
My background is in fiction and creative nonfiction. I am used to linear storytelling that assumes a captive audience (i.e. a reader is likely to read page three after reading page two, and to continue reading past paragraphs they find boring to get through to the best bits).
I quickly learned that video game creation is its own beast.
No longer did I have the ability to control the order in which world-building details were received--nor whether they would be received at all; I no longer had control over what order someone might encounter characters, overhear conversations, learn backstory, or touch those delicious little details that breathe life into a squirming, bawling, bleary-eyed, brand-new world.
But not being able to predetermine how a player interacted with and crafted their own experience brought with it an exciting opportunity: the ability to create several stories at once, all existing and making sense within the same universe, the same quest line, and letting the player chase down the one they enjoy the most.
Sounds addicting, no? Like storyteller catnip.
Designing the branching narratives, characters, dialogues, object interactions, and secret goodies within Visiting G.R.A.N.D.M.A. felt like creating without rules--even though of course it involved many, many rules, restrictions, and limitations.
...Turns out, creating video games is fun.
I’m hooked!
Why This Project?
If I told you that I realized ‘video game writer’ (in its many title variations) was a job six weeks before beginning work on this game, would you believe me?
Throughout all of the years I gazed in awe and wonder at the ever-evolving storytelling medium of video games--including the time spent actually studying them. Even as an undergraduate, majoring in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, a disconnect existed in my brain between me ravenously gobbling up the stories in video games, writing stories of my own, and realizing oh wait, this can be my job.
So, I started the job search. And found a few amazing ones. The problem was: each job required me to already have at least one writer’s credit on a AAA published game. It felt like a Catch-22: I needed to have already written for a game, in order to be allowed to write for a game.
“Well,” I thought. “It sounds like the only way for me to have my name on a game is to make my own.”
So, I did!
Here’s how my project went, week-to-week.
Weekly Updates, Or: “How to Slowly Lose Your Grasp on Reality”
Week One: Potato Churches, Nose Foam, and the Software Equivalent of 'Open Sesame!'
In Week One, I learned how to make/design maps, how to create interactive objects, and how to successfully transfer characters from one map to another (or, in layman’s terms: learned how to let my characters walk through doors).
Week Two: Plot Outlines, Blushing Statues, and Desperate Potatoes
In Week Two, I wrote a full plot outline, made a fully-interactive potato church, learned how to create branching dialogue and text choices, and crafted a fully-customized main character.
Week Three: Spooky Dreams, Emotional Stakes, and (Hopefully) A Boatload of Suspense
In Week Three, I created my video game’s intro! It only took me multiple attempts, the creation of a completely new character, and finalizing a lot of information about the overarching game’s ending (the larger game outside of the potato church quest line) in order to establish motive, emotional stakes, and the “So what?” question that every game begins with.
Week Four: Sex Dormitories, Homemade Deodorant, and Why You Should Never Accept Hot Chocolate From a Friendly Raccoon
In Week Four, I focused on villains, theme, tone balance, and map design.
Week Five: Silly Epitaphs, Mr. Fluffybuns, and the Game-Over Casserole
In Week Five, I finished every aspect of the bedroom map, started the town map, designed my first forced expository conversation (trap the player, but make it fun!), and...oh, redesigned the messiah’s character (and as a result, the entire second half of the game).
…Weeks Six, Seven, and Eight are coming soon!
How to Have a Great Work/Life Balance! Just Kidding…Here’s More Work.
“The Man Who Promised the Moon” Full Plot Outline (Part One)
I Learned How to Use Self-Switches in RPG Maker MZ, in Order to Interact With a Sack of Flirtatious Potatoes
Suspense, Tone, and Exposition: Creating a Video Game Intro
Creating the Bedroom
How to Have Itch.io Accept Your Game's Files, Instead of Blocking Them Like an Angry Bridge Troll
What This Project Says About Me
I now have first-hand experience in multiple aspects of game-making: level design, character design, map design, sound design, and of course, writing. Dipping my toe into so many waters, so to speak, has given me an increased understanding of how each department has to work together to create the most complimentary version of all of their work combined, in order to make the best player experience possible. This will be a strength when creatively collaborating with other departments, and when creating solo, with the other departments’ needs in mind.
What I Would Do Differently
If I were to do this project all over again, I would show it to people much sooner. Each time a friend looked at a piece of the game and said “This part/aspect doesn’t work,” the game got better.
I would also do more “Learning out Loud,” by which I mean writing down what I learned as soon as I learned it. I had a bad habit throughout this project of dismissing a skill as “unimpressive” once I gained it. It wasn’t until five weeks into the project that I looked back and realized what a colossal amount of skills I had gained—that at that point I was taking for granted. Working in silence (not “learning out loud”) also made documenting the project much more difficult.
Week Five was my busiest and most productive week game-wise, and my least-productive week, documentation wise. By the time I sat down to write about what I had done that week, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of updates I wanted to include, and had no idea how to approach the deluge of information in my brain.
Conclusion
I didn’t expect an experience as solitary as creating a video game by myself to feel so interactive and collaborative.
Working on this game felt like telling a story with multiple future creative partners (possible players), all at once. Which, in a way, I did. I essentially proposed and presented several possible avenues through which a player can craft their own experience, all while maintaining an emotional narrative core.
My responsibilities were expanded from telling just one story, to telling multiple.
Making Visiting G.R.A.N.D.M.A. has been an exciting experience that felt like it opened up a brand-new avenue of storytelling. I didn’t expect to feel just as curious and energetic at the end of the project as I did when I began it, but I do!
I feel like a kid in a narrative design candy store and I’m hungry for more!