DWARF UNDECIDED

Unreal 4, team size 9, Narrative lead. Shopkeeping simulator

Dwarf undecided is a game made for Futuregames. Where I worked as the head writer and narrative lead, I wrote the scene and backdrop for the world that the game takes place in. The game is about selling weapons to dwarven hunters, hunting extremely dangerous prey so most of my writing was around those monsters and weapons.

PRIMARY LOOP INTEGRATION

To fit the game's primary loop I made it so that the entire society of the Dwarfs was built around hunting dangerous monsters. Which makes the fact that the player is only interacting with hunters feel natural.

THE DWARVEN SOCIETY

In characterizing the dwarfs I came into the problem that every dwarf was functionally replaceable, but at the same time their charm comes from their personality, a very individual trait. To address this I made something I call “the dwarven attitude”, it’s a way of living that all dwarfs follow. The attitude explains not just individual motivations for hunting but also social motivations for hunting. Hunting in their society is not just an individual experience, it's a social event that shows status. To a dwarf “there is nothing more Dwarven than beating a dragon to extinction with a stick”.

Art Vanessa Sjö

COHESION

I also used the dwarven attitude to make sure that all text for weapon descriptions, monster compendium and news articles felt like a dwarf wrote it, which was important to make the game feel cohesive in its world.

JOKES

The game is a comedy so most of the text are jokes, but the jokes made in such a way that it gives lore hints of the world. They are also made in a dwarven fashion, so all jokes were either jokes dwarfs would make or jokes based on how dwarves would act (following the dwarven attitude to get it right).

Exempel
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The joke is a reference to the song wonderwall but it also shows the dwarven attitude of being willfully dismissive and not taking the time to understand or listen.

Magic running amok

Local wizard and weirdo fell over today on his way to the chemist.

This caused him to cast a spell that has made all pieces of armor in the entire village to animate and take up agriculture for some reason.

Reports also state their growing soy and have started to make veggie food. THEY MUST BE DESTROYED AT ONCE!

Count arrogant.

The owner of black castle at the top of Foreboding-mountain, is to everyone's surprise a vampire.

And he just claimed that he was better than all of you because he can read.

Drunken brawl survival kit

A Hero's Beer keg & The Legendary Boomerang

Drunken brawls are death traps, but with these weapons you can survive anything.

As long as there is an unhealthy amount of alcohol involved.

War Horn Of Personality

Loud and bombastic, like most of my customers.

It’s really a character piece, a subtle nod to their not so subtle personality.

Winged skeleton?

A gigantic flying skeleton was spotted attacking oldman Jenkins.

We interviewed the injured party and they had some choice words:

“I may lack a brain, but that jenkins is even more brain dead than me. Who attacks a dracolich while in a wheelchair and only armed with a fish?”

ULF ENOK NORD