Arizona Bones

Arizona Bones was a 2d platformer about an explorer who delved into a cavern infested with dinosaurs. I was brought on for the last several months of the games development alongside 12 other contributors at that time.

My role in the team was primarily as a narrative designer. While I also contributed to the visual effects and some programming, I will focus on my contributions to the narrative of the game.

Itch.io link

The Initial Work

As I was brought into Arizona Bones after preproduction, the setting was already predetermined:
An explorer delves into a cavern that is filled with dinosaurs.
With that already established, one of the first things I did was make a initial narrative document (right), where I outline the following:
- The narrative goals we wanted to strive towards.
- An early plot synopsis for where the story could have gone.
- And the methods of delivery for which the narrative could have been be presented to the player.
With this having been an initial document in mind, I also included annotations where the story could be expanded upon, my reasoning for how the story is presented, and any immediate tasks to be discussed with others in the team.
After this, I continued to tweak the story in accordance with the level design until the needed code infrastructure for writing was ready for implementation.

Delivering the Story

One of the larger narrative design challenges for Arizona Bones was that the story was not conducive to traditional dialogue as we only had one character capable of speech within the game itself. To solve this, I advocated to include an explorer's journal that Arizona, the player's avatar, would write in.

The Journal

The Journal ended up being the main way that the story got conveyed to the player.
As the player moved further down into the cavern and collected items, more entries would be unlocked, written in the perspective of Arizona Bones.
This was in service to a theme of exploration, as the player learned more about the cavern at the same pace as the character of Arizona did.
Exploration was the primary narrative design goal that existed throughout the duration of my work in the project.
These entries were also written through the lens of an unreliable narrator, giving more ways of characterization by showing what Arizona chose to focus on or say, and what he didn't.

Professor's notes

In addition to the journal entries of Arizona, there are 4 pages the player could find in the game written by a character called Professor Stones.
These served as optional additions to the story that the player could opt into getting, as most of them required use of some kind of skill or ability to be retrieved.
These entries are non-linear and sparse, starting with an entry where the professor hinting at danger, urging the player to collect the pieces to find out what happened.

Characters

Arizona Bones

When I was brought into the project, Arizona Bones was a blank slate for the player to project onto.
However, given that Arizona is our only onscreen character, that left the story without any characters to drive it.
I iterated on character of Arizona Bones to give him the following traits:
- Ambitious
- Fame-seeking
- Not especially interested in archeological discovery outside of how it can enrich him.
However, I took the flaws of Arizona and used them to signify a personal dynamic arc as he becomes less interested in making himself famous and more concerned for the safety of Professor Stones.

Professor Stones

Professor Stones, despite not being present in the game acted as a foil for Arizona Bones.
In contrast to Arizona's desire to fame, Stones focused his mind towards Arizona.

Stones selflessness acted as a catalyst for Arizona to change.
As noted above, the notes from Stones were collected non-linearly. Arizona's reaction changed according to the expected collection order.

Iterating the setting

The project's preproduction team developed 5 levels for the setting:

The lush jungle cave called the Nesting Grounds, The Crystal Forest, A water level called the Mycelial Aquafer, The Ancient Temple, and the return to the present.

We decided to drop the return to the present, and I pushed for iterating two of these areas further.

Mycelial Caldera

We ran into apprehension when it came to making any water mechanics in the game.
As such, the Mycelial Aquafer was nearly cut.
I suggested a rebrand of this area from water to lava, which we eventually

Ancient Temple

More substantially, I did research into giving the ancient temple a stronger sense of place and theming.
In my research, I decided to push for a theme inspired by the ancestral puebloan architecture in the American west.
Which also gave us a geographic location for the game.