Thalbiryn
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure, Third-person, Single-player RPG
Platform: PC
Tools: Google Docs, Sheets
Solo Project
Duration: 1 July - 25 July 2024
Thalbiryn is a project created during Kim MacAskill's "Advanced Storytelling" course. It is a low-intensity, single-player puzzle adventure game inspired by the workings of a puzzle box.
The project is primarily aimed towards a player profile of PC gamers interested in narrative, puzzles, visual novels or investigative gameplay in the age range of 18-25 years.
Character Bio - Akila (NPC)
1. Background
Akila ended up in the countryside town when she was 12 with no knowledge of her childhood or how she got to the town. She lives her life trying to discover more about her past and investigate the nagging feeling that there's a world larger than the sectioned town she lives in. She has found many hidden paths around and underneath the town. Since the paths are lined with traps, her progress has been slow since she cannot afford to die for her curiosity as something within her says she's alive for a greater purpose.
She maintains a calm and calculated demeanour, analysing and often overanalysing activities in the town. Her obsession led her to work at the library as the town’s archivist. To fit in with the townsfolk and be able to gather information from them, she’s created an open and transparent persona that she hides behind.
In her work at the library, she is organised and diligent since this is the one place in the town that evidences the larger world through the books and maps.
2. Inciting Incident - The player appears
The player appears in the forested area near the town, taking the path to the town centre. This causes quite a stir and attracts Akila’s attention when she notices the townsfolk are off their regular schedules.
When she ends up at the town centre, she is stunned to meet the PC.
Being cautiously curious about the path the PC took to get to the town, her curiosity is soon killed when they tell her they have no idea how they entered this world. While she outwardly seems sympathetic and welcoming, she is quick to turn mistrustful of them, and closely follows their movements in the town.
She gives them a task leading them into the safest of the hidden corridors, causing them to unlock a new area since they are the PC. This only fuels Akila’s mistrust and out of spite and a sudden lack of judgement, she gives them a task to a pathway she hadn’t ventured through yet.
When the PC dies on that route, she is left stunned and disappointed, not for the loss of a person but for an opportunity she should have used more wisely. When the player revives in the town square, she meets them with a sense of excitement they never see again. She takes it upon herself to keep them safe so that When they die it's just another failed experiment to her. But when they revive, she completely changes her tone, showing a slight excitement you never see again. The player is guided to think this is because she’s happy they're alive.
3. Themes
Obsession Akila’s obsession with finding the larger world turns her blind to the life she could have had in the town and unfeeling towards anything irrelevant to her goals.
Knowledge While Akila lacks certain real-world knowledge due to being restricted to the town, she is well-versed and sure of the ins and outs of the town and townsfolk. When she nears the “larger world” and begins remembering snippets of her old life - information that becomes crucial to her and the PC’s journey - she feels confused/in the dark about the newer areas.
Outsider Akila worked hard to make the townspeople accept her as one of them and the arrival of the player reminds all the townspeople that she was an outsider too. She anticipates this will lead them to eventually distancing themselves, putting a wrench in her careful planning.
Trust Despite Akila’s original mistrust, the PC can gain her favour through quests and banter, finding a commonality in being outsiders to the town. The reveal of the events that led her to the town tests her newfound bond with the current PC, where she must choose whether to trust them or take a drastic decision. (This decision will depend on the player’s interactions with this NPC.)
Trauma (revealed later, certain things trigger her): Throughout the journey in the game, it is unveiled that Akila’s loss of childhood memories is due to a traumatic incident that led her to the town. Said incident was the razing of her city by a group of PCs that led to the death of her parents, with them chasing after the child until they lost sight of her. In grief and confusion, Akila stumbled onto the town and she unconsciously locked away her memories to cope with the situation.
Revenge or Closure? Having achieved what she set out to do and gotten back to the larger world, Akila is left with the choice of seeking revenge for her parents or putting the past behind her and starting anew.
4. Voice Print Guide
Brief:
Akila is a calm and calculating individual who has been sure about most things in her life. Her obsession has made her lock away her personality in favour of one that feeds it.
As the player starts changing the world around her, she tries her best to retain the above traits, but you can see her breaking character when she comes across new information, turning curious along with a hidden habit of murmuring to herself as she thinks.
Speech Pattern and Style:
Always
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Welcoming and informative, but they hold a hidden motive
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Serious and doesn’t understand humour
Most times
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Sure, backed by knowledge of the world she knows.
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Brief in conversation and will not speak to you unless you are of use to her
Rarely (Breaks in character)
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Reflective murmuring and drawing deductions when faced with new information
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Sarcastic jibes when something unexpected happens
Never
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Excessively emotional
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Small talk/Chattering
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No contractions (don’t, you’ll, can’t)
5. Sample Dialogue
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Giving a quest: “The path with the mark of a red stork leads to the Hunter’s cabin. Bring back something for tonight’s feast if you wish to access the library.”
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Response to a joke: Stares without a word, slightly wary.
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When something the PC does destroys the path to an area: “You destroyed the red stork path? Well, I am sure you can find another way, it only took me 26 days to find that one.”
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Coming across a clue to the larger world: “A map with the symbol… Symbol of Arachnae… Spiders… Silk… A trading route? No, the grass has not been tread on, then a nest? A web? A trap?”
6. NPC-Player Conversation Setting
The player first arrives at the town centre and Akila reaches a few moments later, finding them surrounded by curious townsfolk. Her analytical mind first gets a brief understanding of the player character before she moves in to confirm and find new information about them. While internally she views this as a very logical process, it is tainted by her excitement for an anomaly in the otherwise stagnant world and how it could help her.
(RP = relationship points)
Character Biography_ Akila_SampleScript_Page_1
Character Biography_ Akila_SampleScript_Page_1
Character Biography_ Akila_SampleScript_Page_1
Location Brief - Library
Context:
A hidden area in the library that the player only gets access to if they manage to gain Akila’s trust, or if they find the secret door and break in.
Description:
Akila lives in a part of the library sectioned away by a hidden door. This is her home, her sanctuary, the only space she shows her true self. Carefully divided into four areas, a modest kitchen and dining room, a bathroom, her bedroom and an even further hidden study.
While the other spaces are almost clinically neat, the study is always in a state of organized chaos. Shelves lined with scrolls, books, vials and more that seem much newer than the rest, evidencing her research into Thalbiryn. Books in a variety of languages lay open on the tables, with a book with fresh notes amongst them. The highlights of it all however are pinned to the wall - a detailed map of Thalbiryn, with locations and hidden pathways not even the Hunters had seen and an investigative map that marked every character in this world, including those who had died and some before them.
Player Interactions:
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Door to the study
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Map of Thalbiryn
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Investigative map
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Suspicious vial - Only Akila knows what the vial contains
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A jar with a dead toad - Akila had preserved this toad since it did not look like any of the other toads, an anomaly.
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Notes - Some of these contain Akila’s thoughts about the player.
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Food items from the kitchen: Berries, Bread