Aubrie Starks
Narrative Designer
Level Designer
"Mad World" Project Overview
Engine: Creation Kit
Game: Fallout 4
"MAD World" is a single player DLC mission for Fallout 4 in a township and factory claimed by the Brotherhood of Steel and captured by Raiders. The quest involves the player joining the Brotherhood in fighting off the raiders from the town, infiltrating the factory to shut it down before it is permanently damaged, discovering a traitor in the Brotherhood, and deciding who to side with in the end: a cold, unfeeling commander who throws his people's lives away or a war-mongering paladin who cares about her people and wants to supplant him.
Design Goals
Gray Choice
I wanted to tell an interesting, morally gray story where no one is purely good or evil.
Long Sight Lines
I wanted the player to see upcoming objectives and play spaces long before actually needing to reach them.
Circular Flow
I wanted the player to circle through the interior spaces of the factory in a spiral, with the central room as the fulcrum.
Gray Choice
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Narrative is my passion, and I wanted to tell an engaging story with a morally gray ending. This meant that both sides of the plot needed to have positive and negative attributes that the player could identify, and they needed to achieve some kind of equilibrium.
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Early on, Paladin Thomas was a clear villain, so there was no morally gray choice. She was just a war hawk and Cross her commanding officer.
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I altered the story, making Cross a cold, uncaring commander who was willing to throw away lives to accomplish the Brotherhood's goals. Thomas became a bitter second in command who cared about her people but also wanted to do horrific things to guarantee their safety.
Long Sight Lines
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I wanted the player to see objectives from a distance to use them as landmarks in the interior, so they could more easily create a mental map.
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The long sightlines could confuse the player as to what the immediate and ultimate goals were.
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I altered the layout of the interior space so that the player had longer sight lines to their immediate goals, but I moved the sight lines to the next goals to a point where they would become visible once the player reached the goal they knew of.
Circular Flow
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I wanted the player to cycle through the space, circling constantly. The play space in the central room has circular flow on the ground floor and the catwalks.
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Early on, the central room did not have enough vertical gameplay, and the overall layout of the interior was not as circular.
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I reworked the central room to be a bit larger and have loops in both ground and vertical spaces. I cut the basement area from the interior to focus the gameplay into the primary loop through the area.
Post Mortem
What Went Well?
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Circular flow worked well in the central area and the interior as a whole.
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The narrative was interesting, especially with all of the environmental elements present.
What Went Wrong?
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Instead of iterating on what I had for the interior, I scrapped it and redesigned, which wasted valuable time.
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Even after changing the narrative, most players still found Thomas to be a clear villain.
What I Learned / How I Fixed It?
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Small changes to meet stakeholder expectations/needs are better than completely restarting.
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If I want the player to choose either moral or emotional justification, they have to be given equal weight and time.