Vyal
summary
A survival action roguelike with examples of:
- Story development
- Mood reel
project overview
VYAL was formed during the development of Gamma Minus’ other project, “Gamma Strain”. With the team keen to explore two different games with similar ideas, I was tasked with developing the narrative for VYAL, taking some design and story cues from Gamma Strain.
story development
Where Gamma Strain was positioned in the zombie and military shooter space, with VYAL, we decided to go with something more tonally distinct. Leaning into the roguelike element of repeated “death and rebirth”, I looked at how this could be incorporated symbiotically in the story.
In VYAL, we are pitted against a variety of alien foes in the ruins of an Earth that has long since been destroyed. We wanted to explore the loneliness of being the “Final Human”, pitted against what initially seems an unbeatable foe. As with Gamma Strain, we piece together the story through small moments of environmental storytelling. Unlike in Gamma Strain, we frequently engage in conversation with the AI that is helping us, as well as our foes.
These conversations change the context of our mission and force us to question our motives.
Below is documentation giving a brief rundown of the story’s broad strokes, as well as some early ideas around how the story is structured in-game:
mood reel
Given the importance of tone in selling the idea and world of VYAL, I put together a short “mood reel” for distribution among the team. The goal was to give a clear sense of the vibe and feel of the game — strange, melancholy, existential.
The text is a call to action from Valkra, the AI who has set us on our quest.