Blessed are the Meek
Introduction
Blessed are the Meek is a video game I created for my final project in Professor Geoffrey Long's Writing for Games class at Miami University. A small team of classmates came together to create a narrative and world for our games to explore. The larger project we created is titled Scriptum Stellarum, which follows the aventures of Lyra Doxapatris, a young woman with the power to use astrology to manipulate the world her.
The project my group created was split up similar to how it would be in a professional setting. We went through a development and design timeline that mirroed that of what AAA game studios use. We split up work when neccessary and came together to discuss the project as a whole. In this project, I served as both a narrative designer and game programmer. In the following sections I wlll explain the overall work my team did, what I did personally, and the final result of our work.
Scriptum Stellarum
The bulk of the work for this prodject was written into a narrative design document. We split up the work each team memeber would do based on what they felt they were best at. I was tasked with creating the the lore surrounding the world of Scriptum Stellarum. I created the main timelime the world follows, as well as anything related to governmental affairs and geopolitics. The world we crafted focused on embracing the astrological history of different regions in the real world. The main three nations of Alexandria, Europa, and China each represent different zodiac systems and each society interacts with astrology differently, which drives conflict among them. Most of the events that led up to the main story are based on alternate history, where we ask how things would be different if you could harness astrological power.
In addition to the lore, I also designed certain societal aspects and norms. In particular I wrote what the language and literature of each nation is like, as well as what their music sounds like and what it means to the people. I also created the character of Praefectus Sadiki Mustaf who serves as one of the main antagnositc forces in the game. Additonally, I wrote for the character of King Bambe Tun of the Mayan Kingdom, an ally during Lyra's journey. Certain organizations like The One Million Faces, China's spy operation, are my creation. Other miscellaneous things like the writing some character arcs and the creation of certain locations like Turris Caeli and the Ancient Observatory were also my ideas.
Below is a synopsis of the main story as seen in our narrative design document. If you're interested in reading the full 58-page document, you can find it here.
“Lyra Doxapatris is a young woman who has been graced with the ability to harness the power of all of the zodiac signs. One day, Lyra's rejected sibling Blair is discovered to be a part of a cult known as the Restoration of Nature's Order, who have tasked themselves with ridding the world of astrology for good. Lyra sets out with her friend Basil to save her sibling from the cult. Throughout this journey, the pair get themselves involved in everything from the current war between rival nations Alexandria and China to the secret magic of the isolated nation of the Maya, tracking Blair all the while. Eventually, Lyra is able to track down where the Restoration of Nature's Order is hiding and confronts them, but ends up being captured. From there, the friends Lyra made along her journey come to rescue her, but by the time they reach her, the astrological marks grant her power have been burned off. In this final confrontation, Blair betrays the Order and fights alongside Lyra's friends to defeat the cult once and for all. After the dust settles, Lyra is freed and the group heads home having rid the world of a great threat.”
— Excerpt from the Scriptum Stellarum Narrative Design Document
Blessed are the Meek
In addition to the narrative design document, we were each tasked with creating a game that represented a snippet of the story we wanted to tell. For my game, I chose to center it around a certain chapter of the story that involves Lyra visiting an abandoned observatory in search of a powerful artifact. The game features enemies known as “Umbrae” that are corrupted entities that used to be citizens of this desolate city. You must get the artifact and escape before falling to the Umbrae.
The engine I chose to create this game in was Unity. Unity is a very versatile engine that allows you to build and run games quickly on a variety of platforms. Unity uses the C# coding language for most of what a game requires, so that is the language I adopted as well. I used Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 as my IDE (integrated development environment) where I wrote most of the code for this game. Aseprite was used to create all of the textures used in the game, no asset packs were added, everything is original. All these tools were used on the Windows 11 operating system.
The game itself is a top-down action game where you must interact with your allies and fight using astrological powers. There are multiple dialouge options availble so each playthough can provide unique story experiences. There is also optional lore to be found in the game that will teach you more about the lore of the world.
The dialouge system in the game is powered by the “Text Animator for Unity” plugin by Febucci. This plugin allows for easy creation of dialouge boxes by using a custom programming language to automate the process of making dialouge trees. The plugin also allows for text effects to be added to help control the pace of line delivery. You can see in the images below examples of what the dialouge system looks like.
See below how dialouge pops up as it is tpyed out on the screen:
Dialouge also pauses the game, shows additonal hidden characters, and zooms the camera to an appropriate distance.
Interact points like the in the following image serve as a way to add optional dialouge to a scene. See also how light rays are used to effect the underlying color of the sprites. You can also see how particle effects are used to add visual detail to the scene.
And what would an action game be without combat? The combat system in Blessed are the Meek is based on a mana system where using abilities cost mana. Mana and health rengen slowly over time, so management of those stats is important. Lyra's main ability is a magic sword with long range, useful for doing big damage to large groups of enemies. She also has a very short range punch that costs no mana to use, making it a useful backup option.
Conclusion
This project served as a trial by fire for my team and I. We had to follow real-world processes and had similar timelines to professional teams. I learned a lot about the process of creating a game from start to finish, working with others, and writing interesing and engaging stories.
As of writing this it has been a couple of years since I last worked on this project. I can say that the skills I gained while designing and developing Scriptum Stellarum are still used in my work today. Without what I learned here, my ability to work with a team and write collaborative living documents like narrative design docs and game design docs would be much less refined.
Download
Blessed are the Meek is free and available to anyone using a browser. The online version is powered by WebGL and thus must be run on an actual computer (not a phone).