A cosmic horror adventure game with a heavy amount of dialogue and interactive fiction elements. This was an experiment in making something where the player has a lot of influence over the narrative, by allowing the player to have agency over how they and their team react to an ending where the same general events happen. The ending is separated into several parts, with each part being decided based on the player's dialogue choices, relationships with team members, paths taken, and some random chance, bringing the technical number of ending combinations up to 72, whilst only needing to write content and varations for 9 endings. It was also an exploration in genre inversion whilst still keeping to the spirit of it.

A queer romance/mystery visual novel. This story's essentially linear with one ending, so this project was an experiment to see how I could give the player some agency and make impactful choices in spite of that. This came in allowing the player to continue a conversation while making no choice at all, putting decisions back into the hands of NPCs, and choices that made small changes per scene, even though they ended with the same ultimate outcome. It was also an experiment to see how well I could do effective foreshadowing, especially in the context of a mystery story.

A submission for IFComp I made as part of the Work With Indies Interactive Narrative Group. I had to create a game using the TextureWriter engine, and I wanted to create a story that was enhanced by the mechanics available. This led to a story of the player suffering a nosebleed, the idea based on the core mechanic of dragging words onto other words, and once blood lands on the player's hand they're forced to spread blood around the screen to progress through the game. I had to hack the engine from scratch using JavaScript without prior documentation, and on top of creating a game with a heavy focus on its mechanics being closely tied to the narrative, also produced a guide to creating advanced hacks in TextureWriter. This was a very good experience in seeing how I could take strict mechanics and build a story around them, rather than thinking how a story could be changed by mechanics.

An experiment in seeing how well I could imitate pre-existing writing styles and characters, whilst still writing dialogue and narrative content that was entirely original. I was able to very successfully imitate the Narrator from the original Stanley Parable after studying the character, how he talked, the language he used, and how he approaches various scenarios. It also made me realise how themes are used on a wider scale in narrative design, and how every single point of a game can be used to further those themes. I had immense amounts of fun with this one, being completely at home writing comedy with occasional dips into more serious writing.

A dialogue-driven prototype of a larger project, seeing how well I could establish a world and hook a player in roughly 10 minutes of playtime. In this, the narrator is a defined character, meaning all narration is a form of dialogue that the characters can interact with. Also an experiment in seeing how well I could create a player character with a defined personality, and having the player create meaningful choices that still make sense for the character to perform. I also played around with a mechanic of picking dialogue options that would be out of character, and having the narrative and other characters react to them.

Game jam submission under the theme 'heat death of the universe'. I set out to make the most emotionally impactful thing I could, with the player jumping through millions and billions of years of time as they have a conversation with a red dwarf, the last stars in the universe to die. The key idea of the narrative being 'Nothing matters, except it does', with an overarching theme of existentialism. A resounding success with player reactions ranging from "Sobbing," to "I don't even know how to describe what I'm feeling right now."

A Touhou-like bullet hell shooter made in tandem to my university course. A game imitating very similar mechanics to the mainline Touhou games in Unity2D. All mechanics including level setup, bullet controllers, linear dialogue systems, player movement and attack styles, basic particle effects, and save data made by myself. OST by Joel Francis Burford.

A short prototype built in UE5, mimicking game mechanics found in cinematic games. Experimenting with 3rd person controls, level cinematics, blueprint implementation, lighting, and level blockouts.

An (almost) one page design document detailing the central mechanic of a game where driving from one location to another is one of the main game loops.

A full GDD of Open Water, fleshing out its USP into a complete game system, and detailing its narrative context, world, and core design pillars.

A quest document and script for a supply run in Open Water.

Three rounds of 10 item descriptions for swords, being under 20 words for both name and description, using no repeated descriptors, no two descriptions starting with the same word, and writing to a randomly generated quality and tone per item. Each round focuses on a different tone. An exercise in keeping writing concise but impactful where space is limited in narrative design, and writing to very strict specifications. This exercise also taught me how useful restrictions on writing can be for creativity, even when a brief does not call for it as a need.

Exercise in writing barks for an RTS game, where units play voice lines depending on certain actions the player orders them to do. Randomly generated units and personalities, with restrictions per unit of no repeated descriptors or verbs, no two barks starting with the same word, and when voiced each bark being under 3 seconds in length. One thing I realised was how long or complex a bark should be is dependent on how often a bark is heard. Simple one or two word barks are not likely to annoy the player if replayed many times with actions that are used often, and longer ones played during rarer events can be seen as a treat that don't get heard nearly as frequently.

A sample dialogue scene of a woman visiting an elderly man in a care home. Showcasing drama in a contemporary domestic setting.

A sample dialogue scene of a space captain, his first mate, and a close friend abandoning their posts to become pirates. Showcasing comedy in sci-fi.

A sample dialogue scene of a man receiving payment from a dubious side job, set in 1890s London. Showcasing thriller/tension.

Comedy-drama radio pilot about a recent graduate unable to find work in the covid pandemic, who takes a job offer as a marketing assistant in Hell, written for BBC Open Call. Loosely based on a job I worked where legal lines were played with like double-dutch, I used it to practice and work every comedy muscle I could, and run through feelings I had over the pandemic and my job trajectory at the time.

A very obvious metaphor told as two people trying to stop an airship from crashing mid-voyage. My usual take on dry comedy is seeped through the whole thing. This piece nearly spiralled into something much longer, and gave me valuable insights on how to hone a narrative down to a specific length.