summary

An educational RPG adventure with examples of:

- Educational Application

- Narrative Application

- Branching dialogue

project Overview

Initially, my work on the project was analysing the main storyline and offering feedback on ways to improve its narrative flow and structure. Following this, I was tasked with writing dialogue sequences between the player-character and the different NPCs they will meet along the way. The player character’s (Rinc) dialogue are foreign language phrases the player has learnt, which are then entered manually in a text box and answered by the NPC chatbot (pre-programmed with various responses to questions, some simple answers, others designed specifically to drive the story or develop the character).

A core tenet of the design philosophy on Language Hero was to have a narrative that captured the excitement of a non-educational RPG adventure, while still achieving that core pedagogical function. I was given Zelda, Studio Gibli and Pixar as references for the tone and style. My first task was to do a pass on the overall storyline, taking the general plot and editing it to deliver a simple but satisfying character and story arc.

The story involves Rinc’s search for his parents, after they are separated during a storm. Eager for adventure but lost in a foreign land, Rinc quickly learns that he can’t find his parents without befriending and helping the people of this strange land and uncovering its ancient secrets.

educational application

Each chapter has pedagogical goals. In Chapter One, for example, the main goal is learning to describe objects and people. The character dialogue needs to support fun and interesting characters while also adhering to these goals.

narrative application

While the educational goals are important, there is a main story that also needs to play out, therefore the pedagogical goals of the dialogue also need to be balanced with dialogue that drives the narrative. Roughly two thirds of the dialogue focuses on the learning goals (describing people/objects/directions etc), with the remaining third driving the story and character arcs.

branching dialogue

I mapped out the branching dialogue using Lucidchart and later Articy: Draft, using linked nodes that could then be exported as sheets or raw data.

Below are a mix of edited-down samples (optimized for readability) and more complex and scrawling examples.

Articy export (PDF formats)

Language Hero Chapter 2 Scenario 3 (Renzo) Sample

Language Hero Chapter 1 Scenario 7 (Heindal) Sample

Note: I recommend downloading the PDFs and using Adobe Reader to view them.