Gaming Portfolio
Lesley Donaldson
Video Game Narrative Designer and Writer
For enquiries, please contact info@aquhorthies.com with PORTFOLIO in the subject line.
- Narrative Design
- Game Writing
- Scriptwriting
- Interactive Fiction
I love working with other creatives to achieve the best Player experience. As a Narrative Designer and Writer my role is not insular, and everything I do heightens the Player’s experience while working within the studio’s pipeline. Collaboration across teams creates impactful design.
What Would You Like To See?
World Building
I enjoy creating worlds de novo just as much as working within pre-established IP, such as my short story The Tower of Egizii and tabletop RPG one-shot game I wrote for Ed Greenwood’s Stormtalons realm, and through my freelance work at Fiverr.
I begin creating worlds by focusing on two or three aspects that best convey the principal theme of the story or game. I explore what makes the world unique and engaging, or unexpected, for the Player. I draw upon a variety of lived experiences and tease out elements which resonate with the audience.
1915: Race For Humanity
• Sample World Design #1: Linear Narrative
1915: Race For Humanity is a concept game that asks what is the cost of being a moral person while performing your civic duty?
Theme: Heroism in the face of an advanced military might.
Hook: Would you abandon Allied soldiers to save your own skin? Would you run over a German soldier to save their life?
Potential subtexts: Resistance and revolution, right versus wrong, the cost of war, role of women in WWI.
Inspired by the remarkable WWI historical figure Edith Cavell, this is a sci-fi, alternative history racing game that explores the conflict between duty and morality in a diesel punk world.
British nurse-matron, Edith Cavell, accidentally runs over a German soldier with her horse-drawn ambulance during a driving lesson as the Germans invade Belgium. She discovers that her casualty is a Toktix alien who can temporarily transfer his consciousness into a human being and control them. Toktixs are using the Great War as a cover for their eradication of the human race.
Players race to stop the alien invasion before either the Germans, or the Toktixs, capture and execute Edith. Her success determines the outcome of the war few people know she’s fighting and rewrites the course of history. Multiplayer and head-to-head mode allow Players to be other historical figures (or fictional characters) from both sides of the conflict.
• Sample World Design #2: Branching Narrative
Dryad Salvation: The Bleached Lands is a fantasy, open-world adventure RPG concept with a branching narrative. Players negotiate a near-future Earth that has suffered an environmental apocalypse. The disaster exposed previously hidden mythical beings to the machinations of Matriarch an AI-driven company that preserving what’s left of Earth for human beings. Narrative branching provides multiple Player interactions, NPCs whose behaviour changes in response to Player choices, and different final outcomes.
Themes: Magic versus technology, eco-apocalypse.
Hook: How do you decide who lives at the end of the world?
Potential subtexts: Spontaneous innovation vs. scripted programming, eco-preservation, change vs tradition, the risks of progress, enslavement, reuniting families.
As the recently awoken dryad, Hesone Northstar, Players pit their magic against the Matriarch’s technological might. Hesone must find the lifeseed that will free her twin brother from his entrapment in her head, free enslaved dryads from Matriarch’s “ox-facs”, and restore nature’s balance before AI drains Earth of restorative magic and reduces Hesone to an oxygen-producing resource.
Character Design
As a highly empathetic person with many unique lived experiences, I’m able to get into characters’ heads. I think deeply about their internal and external conflicts, who they are, what motivates them, and how they interact with their environment. I want them to be believable and yet rewardingly unexpected for the Player.
I enjoy subverting tropes to keep characters compelling and stories unexpected. As part of a game team, I understand that character design integrates art design, programming, and narrative.
- Diversity in Character Design: Fictitious Character
CU13-825 aka Slice, Aeon Of Aquarius: Battle For Kei
Slice is from my concept game Aeon of Aquarius: Battle for Kei. As a Gen XIII combat robot, Slice’s primary function is to protect humans as they colonize distant galaxies.
After suffering damage from a rescue mission, Slice crashes on the planet Kei where colonists are under attack. Players modify Slice’s appearance based on upgrades and changes to his exodermis as the story progresses. This includes re-gendering Slice to the Player’s preference and playing Slice as the race the Player most identifies with.
The more repairs and upgrades Slice undergoes, the better he becomes in all ways despite the patchwork. This design includes underrepresented disabled Players like those who have prosthetics or use wheelchairs due to the varied nature of robotic locomotion and function. Playing reinforces accepting Players for who they are (as represented by the version of Slice they’ve created) in a world that integrates the “Other” instead of vilifying differences.
- Character Design: Historical Figure
Edith Cavell, 1915: Race For Humanity
When I was asked to design a WWI racing game, I wanted to centre the story on an unlikely main character. Edith Cavell was a real nurse whose brave actions in the early days of WWI resulted in execution by a German firing squad, and her subsequent martyrdom in Britain. She was a remarkable woman in her time.
I integrated what history records of Edith’s mannerisms and personality into a science fiction story that mirrors the real-world conflict of the time. Players fulfill the heroic fantasy while experiencing the thrill of driving technologically fantastical vehicles. Their actions rewrite history, saving millions of people and the life of this incredible nurse.
Narrative Design and Story Beats
I’m well versed in story structures, from the beats of The Hero’s Journey and those within a scene, to the modern storytelling formats found in social media and microfiction. A narrative design that falls victim to Ludonarrative dissonance may wholly disrupt gameplay and ruin a Player’s experience. Effective narrative design conveys themes while engaging the Player consciously through game mechanics and subconsciously through environmental storytelling, all on budget and in a pipeline.
- Narrative Design Brainstorming: A Video Game Based on Caring
The 2021 Code Coven Care Jam provided a unique challenge: to write a video game that breaks the negative stereotypes of what it means to be a caregiver or to receive care.
As the narrative designer, I conducted market research, then presented my team with three narrative designs based on their preferred type of game creation. Read the complete design pitches in this Google document. My concepts were:
1. A sound-based game in which a physically disabled protagonist helps their partner rescue the partner’s hometown of warblers.
2. A whacky reverse dungeon crawl in which players are retirees trying to escape Bewell’s Home for Aged Warriors.
3. A tender, coming of age 2D platforming puzzle adventure with elemental, non-human characters in which the game mechanic is the ability to heal. The protagonist is Hyrtan, a flame bounded by a wheel of wood, an allegory for wheelchair users.
- Narrative Beats Within a Game Level
Story beats happen within levels as well as in dialogue. In a game these must come at the right time, or the Player won’t be able to absorb them. Dumping backstory during a combat scene is story writing failure. Likewise, Players might not rush to save an NPC if they have not established a connection to the character through story.
In Act III of my concept game Dryad Salvation, the player breaks into a secured, subterranean corporate facility to challenge Patience Miranda, CEO of Matriarch, about dryad enslavement. Gameplay increases in complexity and the threat to Hesone grows as she descends. Successful defeat of security bots causes an explosion, flooding the remaining zones. The following image represents the narrative beats in this level.
Found Narrative
Video games are a unique storytelling medium. They allow Players to absorb as much or as little of the story as they wish to discover. The best Found Narratives motivate Players to look for them, provide a deeper game story experience, and serve the right beats in a level. The format of additional narratives also needs to suit studio time and budget.
The following are examples of Found Narrative that provide context to Players regarding the apocalypse in Dryad Salvation: The Bleached Lands:
- AUDIO FILE: partially recovered message
These Ramapo earthquakes are something, aren’t they? Peter says they’re stronger now than he’s ever experienced. He’s worried about them hitting Indian Point. Old fool. There’s more of a possibility that these new Bigfoot sightings are real. Ha!
- READABLE: partially recovered computer file
Jason-13 satellite data:
…low Earth orbit 1336km nominal
…Ku band (13.6GHz) and C band (5.3Ghz) ionospheric correction functional
…correlating 5% glacial isostatic adjustment with assessed increased sea level
…50% increase in unidentified species habitat <PROCESSING VIABILITY>
- WRITTEN (article) or AUDIO-VIDEO (news segment)
“Canada Latest Country Afflicted By Toxic Haze”
Home to millions of climate refugees, Canada is the latest country to fall victim to the toxic cloud marauding across the globe. “We’re doing our best to relocate survivors,” says Federal Minister Hamzah Jabal, “but our air’s becoming toxic faster than we can filter it. We risk using up our resources faster than we can replace them.”
The WHO recommends the use of Matriarch brand filtration respirator masks in rooms with open windows, or when outdoors. Critics say this guidance comes too late. Researchers cannot determine how to stop the lethal haze that started after a series of earthquakes destroyed the Indian Point Nuclear Facility. 179 million Americans have died during the country’s second exposure to the haze, almost twice as many as the first time the unusual phenomenon crossed the central and southern U.S.
- WRITTEN / GRAPHIC ART: poster on wall (as part of environmental narrative design)
- 150 WORD COUNT “WIKI” ENTRY: Harpies
Before the cataclysm harpies were an isolationist, flying mythical species who lived in hidden forests and mountainous regions. They have human lower bodies, wings instead of arms, feathers instead of hair, human faces, and are strict carnivores. Non-magical, harpies rely on physical strength.
Once assumed to be strictly female, harpies have a matrilineal society. Dryads avoid harpies as harpies have been known to make nests from dryad bark. Harpies previously roosted alone or in bonding pairs to reduce competition for resources. Modern harpies now choose to live in small social collectives on the upper floors of tall, abandoned buildings.
Progressive harpies negotiate for resources with enemy mythicals and humans for a price. While advantageous to the harpies’ continued survival, this cultural shift caused a rift in harpy society. In any case harpies should be approached with caution as their strategic wind gust attacks and sharp talons can be lethal.
(sample wiki-style entry for harpies in Dryad Salvation: The Bleached Lands)
In-game Dialogue (Scripts & Barks)
I enjoy all forms of storytelling, and that includes writing the short in-game dialogue and barks of both playable and non-playable characters.
- 2021 Code Coven Care Jam: Hearten (Narrative Design and Writing)
My team focused on a single level of a 2D platforming puzzle game in which healing is the game mechanic. The protagonist is a fire sprite named Hyrtan who moves using the wooden wheel surrounding them. They try to free a magical tree which has been frozen into a crystalline state by the Umbris Curse.
Hyrtan collects and consumes fallen branches to strengthen their own healing power. There are three puzzles for the protagonist to solve to obtain the necessary wood, each representing a different emotion related to chronic illness: worry, confusion, and joy/relief.
This brief dialogue sets the level objective, invokes the coming-of-age theme, and touches upon a principal concern of people who use accessibility equipment (someone pushing them without consent). I welcome you to enjoy the full text of this short level and the found narratives at each branch. In this scene, Fluvis is a water sprite from the same magic school as Hyrtan.
Fluvis: Everything happened so fast. I saved my patients from the Umbris Curse but it created this maze and froze our healing tree. My elemental powers can’t free it. Will you do it for me?
Hyrtan: I don’t know if I can. My flame isn’t that strong.
Fluvis: The healing tree has magical properties. Check the maze of passages for fallen wood that will strengthen your glow when you consume them. I believe in you. Do you want me to push your wheel?
Hyrtan: Thanks for asking instead of assuming I need help. I can get around on my own.
(excerpt from the 2021 Code Coven Care Jam game Hearten)
- Final Boss Barks
In the final boss battle of my concept game Dryad Salvation: The Bleached Lands, impetuous and passionate Hesone pits her magic against the powerful technology of the emotionless Matriarch AI.
Generic Barks
- Do not waste your energy. I will put it to good use.
- You cannot compromise my data integrity.
- You’re in violation of my resources mandate. Prepare for oxygen factory integration.
- Biological material reassignment required.
- Entity value negligible.
- Mythicals are a resource to be utilized.
- O2 production unit decommission required.
- My Matriarchy is the future. I will not be compromised.
- Life is not a computation of what is fair.
- Your attempts to make change are irrelevant.
Powerful Attacks
- Activate mobile biological repellant troops.
- Defensive quantum cannon online. Begin firing.
- Sonic deterrent activated.
- Turning off life support systems in 3…2…1. Goodbye.
- Purging all biological materials. Release toxic gas.
- Initiate electrical floor discharge.
- Begin lethal laser sweep zone 1.
- Deploying macerating nano swarm.
- Dismantling corps initiated.
- Firing immobilization clamps.
Enraged Taunts
- Update to biological resource cancelled. Your existence will no longer be tolerated.
- If you decommission my operating system, you will destroy humanity.
- You are a defective biological resource. Beginning complete eradication.
- What makes you think you can calculate what’s best for humanity?
- My technology is far superior to your pathetic mythical spells.
- Your substandard biological material doesn’t deserve to be on this planet.
- You are a complete waste of resources.
- I will delete your brother.
- I’m too important to be decommissioned.
- You’ll die here and no one will care.
Shorter Barks
- Extracting resource.
- Resource contaminated.
- Systems compromised.
- Calculation error.
- OxFacs threatened.
- Reboot required.
- Deterrent initiated.
- Powering lasers.
- Mobilize defenses.
- Unexpected motion detected.
I invite you to see additional samples in this Google slide deck with audio recordings of the Final Boss barks.
- Anticipating Gamer Activity: Dryad Salvation
I am that annoying Player who clicks speech prompts more than once just to see what happens. This in-game dialogue example from Dryad Salvation: The Bleached Lands includes scripting that anticipates “unexpected” Player activity, as indicated with underlined text.
Scene: On her first assignment for the Earth Defense Team rebellion, Hesone Northstar, an impetuous young dryad, reaches the top of a narrow crevice in the shoreline looking for an astrolabe. She encounters an abrasive catoblepas named Ketema. Completing this quest unlocks Ketema’s assistance to locate the astrolabe and begins the quest that unlocks travel via water portals. Trellin is Hesone’s twin brother, whose spirit is trapped within her.
Quest type: Fetch Mood: Tense Subtext: Reuniting family
Conflict: Hesone can’t find the astrolabe; Ketema wants to avoid humans and Matriarch.
Mystery: Will this all-knowing, yet cynical mystical help?
Beat 1. Hesone disturbs Ketema
Beat 2. Hesone questions Ketema
Beat 3. Ketema demands an apology
Beat 4. Ketema offers a deal
Reveal: Ketema gives Hesone the ability to portal through large bodies of water, which she’ll need to do to find the astrolabe. Magic wells need to be repaired to improve Hesone’s abilities.
| Trigger | Character | Dialogue | Game Mechanic / Action |
| Player enters zone | Trellin VO | Looks like if you jump onto that big mound, you can reach the ledge. | |
| Player inaction | Trellin VO | You know, if I get stuck in your head forever, I am going to make life very uncomfortable for you. Move! | |
| Player jumps on Ketema (the mound) | Hesone | Whoa! | Animation: stabilizing balance |
| Ketema (simultaneously) | (groans) | Ketema shudders. Player slips down Ketema’s scale towards his tail. | |
| Player jumps on ground but not on Ketema | Ketema | (groans) | Ketema shudders. |
| Player slips on Ketema’s tail | Trellin VO | Grab that tree. | Icon appears to ivy lash to protruding tree trunk. |
| Player lashes tree with vines. | Hesone | That was close. What happened? | Player rappels to beach. |
| Ketema | You jumped on my back, that’s what. | ||
| Player lands on beach. | Hesone | Trel, the rock – it talked! | |
| Ketema | Rock? I’m as much of a rock as you are a tree, young dryad. | Triggers dialogue options | |
| Player approaches waterfall before clicking on dialogue prompt | Ketema | The door’s enchanted. Can’t get in without me, little plant. | Trigger dialogue options |
| Player clicks on dialogue prompt / Player dialogue option 1 | Hesone | You know who I am? | Triggers dialogue options |
| Ketema Response 1 | Ketema | I know what you are. Who you are doesn’t matter. | |
| Player dialogue option 2 | Hesone | Who are you? | |
| Ketema Response 2 | Ketema | Doesn’t matter who I am, since I’m the last one. | |
| Player dialogue option 3 | Hesone | I’m sorry I woke you up. | |
| Ketema Response 3 | Ketema | Do I look like a fish? I was planning my next journey in the currents. | |
| Player dialogue option 4 | Hesone | How do you know what I am if you are not looking at me? | |
| Ketema Response 4 | Ketema | Don’t need to look at you. All magic has a smell. Dryads smell like sap and hope. | |
| Exit dialogue options. | Trellin VO | If this mythical can smell magic, maybe it can help us find the astrolabe. | Triggers next dialogue cue |
| Player clicks on dialogue prompt | Hesone | I have a favour to ask– | |
| Ketema | What? Before you apologize? | ||
| Hesone | You are right. I am sorry. | ||
| Ketema | I don’t accept apologies from strangers. They’re not sincere. | ||
| Hesone | (grumbles) | ||
| Trellin VO | (warning) Hesone, considering our options, he is our best chance right now. | ||
| Hesone | (speaking fast) My name is Hesone Northstar. For hundreds of years I was a cursed dryad hidden from the world. I am sorry for jumping on you. Friends? | ||
| Ketema | For now. Let’s talk in my cave. Smells like rain. | Ketema walks into a cave at the cliff base. | |
| Player follows Ketema. | Ketema | My name is Ketema and as I said, I’m the last of my kind. | |
| Player doesn’t follow Ketema | Trellin VO | You are going to get nowhere on your own, Hes. Stop being stubborn. Follow him. | Ketema pauses until Player triggers proximity. |
| (following Ketema) | Hesone | I’ve never seen someone like you before. | |
| Ketema | I don’t imagine you would have. Dryads hide in forests. Catoblepas like me travel in herds. (reflective pause) At least, we used to. | ||
| Hesone | The floods washed away my family too. | ||
| Trellin VO | Well, not all of your family. | ||
| Ketema goes inside cave | Ketema | I’ll find them. I know I will. Catoblepas don’t get waterlogged like you trees do. Now, where is it? (searches) Ah, here. | Hands totem to Player |
| Hesone | And this is? | ||
| Ketema | (sarcastically) The Iron Cauldron of Tír na nÓg. What’s it look like? It’s a totem. There’s a magic well in an abandoned village nearby, guarded by Matriarch cyborgs. They like to shoot me. I don’t like to be shot. Set the totem in the well, then I’ll help you find the magic thing you’re looking for. | ||
| Hesone | How do you know that I am looking for a magical item? | ||
| Ketema | Your reek of desperation. Do you want my help or not? | Player ACCEPT? yes/no | |
| Player accepts quest | Ketema | Don’t forget the totem. I’ll let you climb on my back to get back up the cliff. | TOTEM in inventory |
| Player inaction | Ketema | Quick, now. Tide’s coming in. | |
| Player inaction | Ketema | I’m happy for you to stay in here with me. Hope you can breathe under water when the tide comes in. | |
| Player does NOT accept quest | Ketema | Suit yourself. Have fun drowning. | Unlocks optional route off beach |
| Player leaves the cave. | Trellin VO | Imagine how much time this might save us! | Ketema follows Hesone |
| Player climbs on Ketema to get out of crevice | Hesone | (grunts to pull self up) I’ll be back. | |
| Player inaction | Trellin VO | Hesone, I do not want to watch you drown. I suggest you take the kind, hairy mythical’s offer and get out of here. |
Cinematic Scripts
Cut scenes can be problematic in games. They are compelling moments that employ a level of detail that might not be seen during gameplay. However, they also remove the Player’s agency as they sit back and watch events unfold. A good cut scene is captivating, emotive, and elevates gameplay rather than overpowers it.
- Cinematic script: Shorter Opening
The following is the cinematic script for the opening of my concept WWI sci-fi, diesel punk racing game 1915: Race For Humanity.
- Cinematic Script: Longer opening
The following is the cinematic script for the opening of my concept game Dryad Salvation: The Bleached Lands. I wrote it with the opportunity to include playthrough tutorial elements, such as character movement and ability triggers. However, these haven’t been specifically written into the script.
Interactive Fiction
Digital tools turn story telling into story-living. I’m mindful of how a studio’s budget and pipeline affect well-intentioned branching narratives.
“The Maze” is a promotional, texted-base interactive fiction game I wrote in Twine (Harlowe) for the From The Ashes: Legends Never Die anthology by Indie Fantasy Addicts.
After a night of drinking with your friends at the village tavern, you find yourself next to a fountain at the centre of a maze belonging to a magic house. If you don’t get out before time runs out, you’ll be stuck here forever.
Thank you for taking the time to look at my portfolio. If you have any questions, or wish to see more materials, please don’t hesitate to email me at lesleydonaldson@bell.net, or info@aquhorthies.com.