As mentioned in last week’s posting we’ve got some interesting ideas in the pipeline for a narrative thread that links the current and coming events together. That got me thinking about the role of narrative in general with Celtic Heroes so I fired a few questions over to Tom, one of the guys involved in the development of the stories told in Dal Riata.
I'm Tom, a writer and game designer on Celtic Heroes. I was one of the first people who joined One Thumb Mobile for the development of Celtic Heroes back in 2010, initially as an intern and later as a permanent member of staff. My only experience of game development at that point was my Master's Degree (in Interactive Entertainment), and the few small projects I made myself that came off that. In terms of writing I'd done rather more, including writing a graphic novel, a number of short stories, a little bit of journalism, as well as a bunch of other stuff I did for my undergraduate degree.
What does narrative writing involve in Celtic Heroes? What sort of things need narratives? How are major and minor plots decided/created?
We'd had a rough idea for a backstory for some time, and a little while ago Phil - who's been featured on this development blog before - did a great job in developing our world history and establishing the world of Celtic Heroes beyond the game for the rest of the development team. Our story focus now, at a high level, is to explore this world history and bring some of the most exciting parts of Celtic mythology to life in the game.
Of course, because games are a medium comprised of a number of different elements, it's never the case that the story defines everything that follows. Rather, the initial seed of a story will exist when we start work on a new piece of content, but then that story will grow organically based on design goals, art assets, and discussions with other members of the development team.
Sometimes it's necessary to scale back the dialogue for characters when explaining a key concept. We've done a lot of work refining our initial starting experience for Android with this in mind (which will be coming to iOS soon too), and we've subsequently seen players finding it much easier to progress in the game's early stages with these revisions. So writing in Celtic Heroes is not just about making compelling characters and stories, but it's also a tool that we can use to improve the overall experience for the players in a number of different ways.
That said, I still get the opportunity to cut loose with more minor characters and quests where the greater freedom allows for more dialogue and, by extension, more characterisation. Where I can, I try to find the humanity of the characters we create for Celtic Heroes - the one or two things about them that informs the way they speak and behave towards the player.
How do you go about creating storylines and narratives? Is it a solitary process? How do you make sure there are no plot holes?
At a high level, we usually define a brief outline of what the story will be for a new piece of content, before breaking it down into what quests we want to include (in terms of the outcomes and rewards for the player) and looking at how the overall storyline can tie in to those quests. From there, we'll determine what the stories for individual quests are, then go on to create the related NPCs and mobs, and any associated dialogue.
At the level of dialogue and conversations, I tend to work in two phases. The first phase is creating a basic conversation structure with placeholder dialogue where I can hook up the quests and test them to make sure that everything works correctly. Then, as the second phase, I'll take another pass over the conversation and replace the placeholder text with dialogue that is more flavourful and representative of the NPC in question.
I think the thing that can hamstring a writer most easily in games is the notion that a story is developed first, completely, and separately from the rest of the development team. By being flexible, communicating with the rest of the team, and having a good overall understanding of game development, a writer can know what is likely to be possible narratively, and can then develop stories and quests for the game with that in mind.
Where do the source ideas come from? What sort of research do you do? Do you take any liberties with the original and add your own elements?
Celtic mythology is interesting, because it exists on a number of different levels. On one level, there are the stories themselves - the Ulster Cycle from Irish mythology being a famous example. However, it also exists on a much more subconscious level. Many of our festivals in the present day are based on ancient festivals from the Celtic calendar. We live - in the United Kingdom at least - in places where this mythology was formed, and some mythical figures like King Arthur - who have their roots in Celtic myth - are so entrenched in our culture that they exist in the minds of people who otherwise have no exposure to Celtic mythology at all.
I think of all the parts of Celtic mythology, Welsh mythology interests me the most since it tends to replace battles and adventures with a focus on magic and mystery, and that really appeals to me. Of course, because a lot of Celtic mythology is so old, the actual telling of the stories can be rather dry. For this reason I feel very fortunate that I've lived in both Wales and Scotland, and can go to the many evocative locations in those countries that inspired the mythology in the first place in order to get a feel for it first-hand.
Another source of inspiration for me are the many modern interpretations of Celtic myths, which I think bring the stories to life in a way that is more relevant to contemporary readers. One of my favourites is the novel 'The Snow Spider' by Jenny Nimmo, which involves a boy who discovers he is a descendant of the Welsh magician Gwydion and must do battle with his ancestor's nemesis, the mad warrior, Efnisien (Celtic Heroes players may be familiar with those names!). It's a fantastic book.
Celtic Heroes is, itself, essentially a modern interpretation of ancient mythology, albeit with an ancient setting too. Our philosophy has always been to draw inspiration from the mythology to tell our own stories, so by necessity we've moulded various myths into new forms in order to fit our purposes while still, I hope, retaining what made the original stories special.
What does the future hold? Are there any unexplored areas of source lore that you’d like to introduce? Any existing plots that you’d like to expand?
Dal Riata - the part of the Celtic Heroes world which exists in the game at present - is based on the ancient Scottish island kingdom of the same name, and represents the Scottish and Irish portion of Celtic mythology. In future, I'd like to explore the myths of other parts of the Celtic world which, at the time, primarily consisted of southwest England, Wales, and northern France. Though there is some overlap, each area has its own twist on Celtic myth, and it would be very exciting to visit some of these areas in Celtic Heroes one day.
Before we do that, though, I'd really like to see the continuation, and eventually resolution, of the plots involving the Blackstone Cabal and their attempts to free the imprisoned god Crom, in the Otherworld. We've already got some great ideas for Crom, and to see these realised in the game as the climax of the players' journey through Dal Riata would be very exciting. Of course, before any of that can happen, players are going to have to defeat Crom's accomplice, the evil mage Gelebron, who will be making an appearance in our next zone!
What do you think of fanfic?
I think it's great! While it's not something that I've written, I love the fact that people are so passionate about a fictional world that they want to add to it themselves. One of my favourite bits of working on Celtic Heroes has been seeing people become enthused by the world, the characters within it, and the part that they have to play.
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Interesting stuff! Thanks Tom. I can’t wait for some of the ideas that have been developing within the design team to come to fruition and it’ll be fascinating to see how the art team visualise these character and environments. Perhaps we should have a little word with those guys next week to see how they take these ideas and bring them to life in the world of Celtic Heroes…