Even before starting to study game design, I wanted to work as a writer for video game industry. That leaded me to work as a writer for some projects. Those projects are not only video games, they are of many different natures.

When I work as a writer, I like to know what are the intentions behind the game to be sure not to create some kind of ludo-narrative dissonance.
Once I am sure what kind of story I have to create, I prefer starting with designing good characters with strong personnalities rather than imagining a suite of events. I like to write stories organically and see the characters evolve naturally in reaction to the events and to other characters’ actions.
This habit must come from the fact that I am regularly a game master during pen ‘n paper games and have to adjust my stories according to my player’s actions.
I particularly love to write dialogs and express the characters’ personalities through their words.

HROLF KRAKI

(07/01/2014-12/10/2014)

Pen ‘n Paper Role Playing Game

Hrolf Kraki is the last part of the Yggdrasill book series edited by Le 7ème Cercle, a French pen’n paper editor. I made an internship at their office after my second year in Supinfogame.

In Yggdrasill’s first part, the player embodies a viking heroe taking part in Hrolf Kraki’s saga beginning. The player follows the adventures of his character helping two despoiled brothers conquering the Danish throne, taking it back from their uncle’s hands.

The second part is about Hrolf Kraki’s life itself. The adventure starts after the death of the two royal brothers. The player plays the descendant of the character he played in the first part and helps Hrolf Kraki take his throne and rule over the whole Scandinavia.

At first, my mission was to design a few mechanics and the « railway » (the main ideas, not developed, for the story) for the last part of the adventure. Finally I have been asked to write the whole scenario, create and depict all the characters and create different mechanics to make a good transition between the two parts.

One of my strongest challenges was to find a good way to make the player accept the death of their first character (one with « whom » they have spent more than a hundred hours playing) and the transition to the next.

On the game design aspect, I had to make a few new mechanics such as a « genetic legacy » system to allow the players creating a worthy heir of their first character. I also had to create a system to make semi-random scenarii using D8 rolls.

Originally, the second part of the adventure was supposed to be only one book, but I wrote too much and the company decided that it was worth to make another book.

For more informations about Yggdrasill and Hrolf Kraki : http://www.7emecercle.com/website/