Narrative / Level / Systems Design: Voxabular P.I. - Penny's First Case

A game I designed and produced while working at Tilt Studios, leading a tight-knit small team during the pandemic.

A free-to-play mix of the classic point-and-click and text adventure genres where you explore a 3D interactive world and use the language you're learning to solve mysteries. Get immediate translations and hints, or write anything you want. Give your character commands, and she will do them. Speak to NPCs, and they will respond.

My role included creation of voxel assets, animating them in Blender, implementing those animations in response to trigger events or dialogue, placement and setup within the 3D open world stage (also parsed from a Blender scene) including lighting and environmental sounds, Time-of-Day progression, quest design (objectives / sub-objectives, completion conditions, etc.), non-linear narrative design (choices matter), and dialogue trees.

Cosmology

When first we came to be, the Twin Gods, Voxyr and Voxyria, loved us. We don’t know how many gods there are, which forces they preside over, or what they think of us. But Voxyr and Voxyria have been there since our dawn.

Seeing the humans’ fragility, Voxyr, God of Will, endowed them with the tools they needed to survive. Sharp senses, physical prowess, intuition, reflexes, and a deep connection to the nature around them, the domain of Voxyr.

But humans still lacked the strengths of other beings, and their extinction seemed imminent. And yet, they displayed something Voxyria, Goddess of Wisdom, had waited for ages to appear amongst the living. She shone upon them the light of understanding, the faculty to see and remember symbols, to speak them, and to pass them on to others.

Thus humankind began to grow in a way no other living being had, beyond their physical bodies and into a new realm.

In time, however, this proved to be our downfall. Wisdom had fallen to the will of those set apart from nature, and all life-forms in the world periled.

Voxyria grew desperate, for her gift had become a curse that would one day claim not only the lives of plants and animals, but of humans themselves. And Voxyr... grew furious. Ever more resolute, he cast upon us a curse stronger still: a will so adamant, that no matter how humans spoke their minds, even if they shared the same experiences and feelings, they would never truly understand each other. And so their progress was halted, and the end avoided… for a time.

Pantheon

The Twin Gods are Gods of the Mind. They preside over the perception, interpretation and reflexion of all that exists by all that lives. In time, they grew to rule over elements, through the collective perception of them. Though their influence is subtle, it grows great the more it is acknowledged.

Voxyr is the male aspect, the sun, fire, air, winds, thunder and storms, of all plantlife and all manner of beasts. His domain within the mind is that of will, the basic instinct to survive. This is a trait common in all life, and so Voxyr came to be a protector of nature. In a biological sense, he rules over the crocodile section of the brain, where moods, feelings, reflexes and instinct are sometimes hidden, but always at the ready. Perhaps that is why he is known to be quick to anger, but also loving and compassionate. His appearance is wild and untamed, with a fiery mane crowned with antlers agrown with moss and flowers, dressed in hanging robes of pelts and a long cloak of hides, and armored with scales of reptiles and fish, rainbow-colored and glistening.

Voxyria is the female aspect, the moon, the earth, the flow of water, tides and rivers. Though her entire existence she has waited for a lifeform to display her faculties, and so felt the urge to protect humankind, she is also fond of creatures that come close to it, like some insects, birds, and cetaceans. Her realm extends across consciousness, the act of interpreting and reflecting upon that which is perceived. Biologically, she presides over the processes found in the neural cortex: reason, language, symbolism, music, memories, and dreams. Though somewhat removed from the realm of emotion, she strives to hold onto what she learned from her brother, as understanding is also her duty as goddess of dialogue and diplomacy. Her appearance is tranquil and silent as the night, with a curtain of hair as deep and black, crowned with crystalline insects’ wings, dressed in flowing robes of resplendent silk and a long cloak of iridescent feathers.

The Curse

As Voxyr’s Curse took its toll upon humanity, cooperation became impossible. Tribes first separated, then feared and hated each other, then warred amongst themselves, causing pain and loss unimaginable throughout the ages, such that Voxyria could not bear.

For Voxyr, this was a needed sacrifice to avoid further destruction, the very way of the natural world in which species contest their survival. Though sometimes he wished humans would never have come to be in the first place, he still felt they deserved a chance as much as all the creatures that had come and gone over the ages.

But Voxyria believed humanity could overcome the barriers set upon by language, that they could one day grasp the tools of knowledge for all, not just for the few who sought power, and finally unite, prosper, and in time, become protectors of the world, and sail across the stars for new knowledge. For knowledge benefits not from isolation, but from cooperation. Thus she sought to aid humankind, by striking a deal with Voxyr.

She proposed that hidden in the accumulated knowledge of humans, reside a gift from them that only those of pure intentions could obtain. The Voxabular, a wondrous artifact that could retell words in the language of one’s own. But to use it, the bearer must have a special kind of will: one to learn, to grow, to know others, to listen, and to speak. Voxyr saw no harm in this newfound willpower, and the deal was sealed. But one more condition he added: both of them must remain hidden, from memory, from history, from sight, so that their influence would vanish, and only humans remained to determine their own fate.

Thus were Voxyr and Voxyria sealed away by each others’ powers, though hints of their existence still remain for those who seek them, in the land of Vox Valley where our Academy thrives. Could those who seek their favor carry out the purpose of their covenant?