PANIC in the Multiverse!

Released: N/A

Developer: DoubleBear Productions

Platform: PC/Phone

Engine: Unity

Genre: RPG/Strategy

Role: Project Lead

Panic was designed to be a more comedic pixel-based game inspired by a love of 16-bit style, Saturday morning cartoons, and JRPG/strategy games. The central design revolved around a dimension-hopping base called PANIC base (Pandimensional Attack Nexus and Intelligence Command) that employed heroes from all over the multiverse to fight the forces of a multidimensional conqueror. The gameplay revolved around a tug-of-war style JRPG battle system where players put together groups of heroes with unique special moves and powers and fought waves of enemies in an attempt to beat them back to their base and do enough damage to win the level before all heroes or the player’s base were lost. It was in the very early stages of development and had almost no budget.

The cutscene editor for the game was designed to allow for two characters to speak or enter sides of the scene and switch their default pose per line. It was simple to create and render, mimicking the cutscenes in earlier generation games where animation budgets were limited. There was also functionality to assign and play VO on each line. It was still in the prototype phase when the game was canceled.

Most of my work for PANIC involved the following:

• Project leadership

• IP and narrative rules

• Combat system prototyping and direction

• Cutscene Tool development

• Character and story writing

While PANIC in the Multiverse! was ultimately canceled because of time, other commitments, and budget constraints, the work done on the IP, characters, and art was salvaged in PANIC at Multiverse High!, which came out in 2016.

Unannounced Obsidian Action-RPG

Released: N/A

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment

Platform: PC/Consoles

Engine: UE3

Genre: Action-RPG

Role: Narrative Lead

Can’t say much about this one because it was canceled before it was announced, but my role on it included:

• Designing and prototyping a real-time reactive dialogue system that allowed for players to “walk and talk” with their companions, including “timed” replies for if you didn’t chat back at them

• Adapting a well-known IP for a Pixar-inspired storyline

• Writing and developing the main cast and narrative elements

• Cutscene development

• Level and creature support

If there’s one canceled project that I wish I could actually finish, it would have been this one.

TORN

Released: N/A

Developer: Black Isle Studios

Platform: PC

Engine: Lithtech

Genre: RPG

Role: Writer/Designer

Technically, I think the title was Black Isle’s TORN but it didn’t come out, so let’s just call it by its simpler name. This was my first ever game as a designer, which was thrilling but ended in heartbreak. At some point or another we all learn the game production gods are rarely merciful. This game was an original dark fantasy IP incorporating a version of the SPECIAL system used in Fallout, which was exciting because Fallout was one of the games that made me want to go into narrative design.

My responsibilities included:

• Helping to develop the races and lore of the world of TORN

• Companion development and writing

• Web-based stories to help introduce the world of TORN

• Level and quest design

I can’t say what TORN would have developed into, but the development headaches definitely helped me learn how to properly scope and develop around technical limitations. The early Black Isle Studios dialogue templates taught me a lot about how to improve dialogue editors on my subsequent projects. I also had to do on-camera press for the first time on this one and it was a disaster - I can only hope the internet has swallowed those baby-faced interviews. While I’ll always wonder “what if” for this project, it’s hard to say what the reception to TORN would have been.