On this small team, I took on the role of Lead Narrative Designer. I was in charge of fleshing out our game’s world through a story that the player could experience unfold as they completed more and more constellations, as well as writing lore entries for the items and entities in the game for our almanac, a collection of these story and lore entries. I developed different writing processes for both the story and the lore entries.

When writing the story for Planetary Planter, I was met with a challenge: how do I tell a compelling narrative in a farming game, a genre with low stakes and low stress? I realized that constellations almost always have myths and legends attached to them. Since the player is building constellations, what if their character was memorializing a new legend?

From there, I did research on what makes constellations compelling. One of the strongest aspects of constellations is that they have shapes that different cultures can recognize as the same thing, so I chose to make the constellations that the player is creating simple, recognizable shapes, such as a watering can or a campfire.

After that, I worked with our level designer to determine how many solar systems would make up each constellation, and split the story that constellation was telling into that many pieces. This way, when the player completes one solar system, they get one piece of the narrative, encouraging them to play more to get more story.

For the item and entity entries in the almanac, I was given the challenge of writing dozens of entries and making them entertaining to read, rather than tedious. First, I created a list of all the items and entities in the game that would need almanac entries, as well as what conditions would need to be met in order to unlock this entry.

Next, I set about writing the entries for a given item. I decided to write these entries from the perspective of the Farmer, the character the player is playing as. This way, I could both keep the entries entertaining by writing in a lighthearted and occasionally humorous manner, while also giving the player an insight into the character they’re playing as.

Finally, I did research on the real world version of the item or entity the entry is on, such as stars or asteroids, and put a fun fact in at the bottom of the entry. This way, they player can be both entertained and learn something about outer space in real life.