Project Objective: Create a single-player action narrative, combining best practices in branching narratives transitioning smoothly into multiple gameplay modes, with a focus on replayability.
Sherlock VR: A Scandal in Bohemia is the mashup of first-person brawler and Choose Your Own Adventure story that I have always wanted. In this experience, the player has real agency to change outcomes that follow a narrative path.
Creator and Producer
- Authored design document and visual look book.
- Sourced design talent and worked closely with contractors in asset creation.
- Outlined game mechanics organized around natural locomotion and impossible architecture, worked with the dev team to build out.
- Organized playtesting of new mechanics.
- Defined new narrative choice mechanics with a focus on how to solve for successful user attention functionality.
- Defined a visual/auditory protocol designed to focus a user's attention in a 3D environment.
- Directed a teaser trailer, sourcing talent, organizing motion capture shoot.
Narrative Designer and Writer
Sherlock Holmes is an iconic character with wide cross-cultural appeal. This story, in particular, is a favorite because it showcases not only Sherlock and Watson but also Irene Adler, the only female character in the Holmes universe, aside from Mary Watson, with real personal agency.
Unlike the Choose Your Own Adventure novellas that have linear narrative paths all ending distinctively, the branching narratives in Sherlock VR are designed to loop players back into the meta-narrative arc. Working on three different game scripts was cathartic; I gave each character their own lens for experiencing nearly identical circumstances and got to blow through the cobwebs of century’s old societal bias.
- Adapted plot points from the source material and created new story elements.
- Redefined characterization to fit modern sensibilities, stripping out offensive vocabulary and misogynistic concepts.
- Wrote character bibles and character decision trees.
- Defined narrative choice points.
- Wrote three game scripts, one for each playable character.
- Authored three level design documents, one for each playable character.
Timed Narrative Choice Mechanic Protocol
My non-action VR content experience led me to consider how best to orient a player’s attention in a 360 environment. Sherlock is a narrative game at its core, so I decided to give a timed priority to narrative choices in-game. A visual/auditory protocol was designed to guide user attention. It starts with non-intrusive UI elements, then adds spatial sound and a timer, followed by muting colors and restricting playable areas if the choice remains unmade.