Broken Rosary, Beside a Gun
Broken Rosary, Beside a Gun is a short Visual Novel about a troubled fur trapper deep in the forests of Oregon. Ask him questions so he can reflect on his life and come to terms with his regrettable past. I wrote the story, dialogue, and the music.
This game was made in 6 weeks for the SuNoFes Game Jam and was a excellent challenge in writing period-inspired dialogue and creating ambient American Folk inspired music.
Broken Rosary employs a non-linear, multi-choice/multi-ending dialogue system. This dialogue system is linked with a point-and-click system where players inspect objects of interest on the Trapper’s person. Choosing to inspect a particular object before another will result in different subsequent dialogue options.
As the lead narrative designer, I needed to create clear documentation for the programmers to implement this complex dual-system.
I opted to use mindmapping tool Zen by Xmind to design a branching, color-coded dialogue tree. Each branch is labeled with the speaker, and is enclosed in a colored box to indicate its respective narrative pathway. Connecting these boxes are white branches and colored pathway lines. White branches represent the flow of converstation while pathway lines indicate where the conversation is heading, and which variables have been triggered.
This documentation’s early prototype was well received by the team, and became the standard for the rest of the project.
Dialogue Tree
Character Document
Setting Document