California 49 — Narrative & Character Design
“California 49” (fictionalized code-name) is a narrative/worldbuilding game re-imagined from an unreleased sci-fi project. *Re*-fictionalized for portfolio purposes, the piece translates the game’s central themes of isolation, discovery, and environmental mystery into a reinterpreted setting—a gold mine of strange phenomena and forgotten memories.. The project explores atmosphere, tone, and lore integration through a writer’s lens, blending grounded realism with speculative tension and layered background stories.
Developed as part of a small, collaborative team, “CA49” has become a thrilling lesson in creative trust and adaptability. Working within a sci-fi setting has pushed me to expand my comfort zone, translating emotion and atmosphere into a more technical, unfamiliar world. With a developer as project lead, our process was loose, experimental, and refreshingly democratic—every idea feels like fair game. The small team dynamic invites real creative freedom; I get to shape story, tone, and worldbuilding all at once. It reminds me how energizing it can be to have your hands on a project’s world from so many angles—and how much joy comes from building something strange and new, together.
PURPOSE & ROLE:
Working collaboratively with a small unincorporated studio team as one of two writers, I joined at the project’s earliest stages (Feb 2025) and have continued through ongoing level-writing, narrative systemization, and documentation. From building and maintaining a character tracker, developing character archetypes and occupational hierarchies, writing in-world found documents and lore entries, and organizing the foundational lore bible and clue tracking system, writing this game has been a true testament to freedom and passion of a small team with unbounded ideas. The narrative team also assists with environmental storytelling and spatial layout notes as the team refines the mine’s geography and narrative flow between locations and events.
This RE-fictionalized case study demonstrates professional narrative development processes within a small-team production environment. It highlights my ability to build coherent narrative frameworks, craft humanizing stories within moments of tension, manage broad documentation, and maintain tone consistency across multi-layered storytelling systems—all while translating complex worldbuilding into emotionally resonant, player-driven discovery.
🔗 VIEW PROJECT PACK
DELIVERABLES:
Character Tracker Snapshot
an excerpt of my character-tracking documentation, illustrating level / region-based organization, relational mapping, character development, and consistency tracking
Clue Tracking System (Narrative-End) Overview
an explanation of the narrative-based clue-tracking system— used as a bridge from the narrative-to-development stages of level-building
Location Overview — Ore Sorting Room / Chute
environmental design, purpose and traversal flow, narrative hooks, hazards, symbolic elements
Found Document
copy from an in-game letter found as a clue by the Player
Script Excerpt
a short piece of dialogue overheard as a clue by the Player
© 2025 M. Smith. All rights reserved. This material is presented for portfolio and illustrative purposes only. Certain names, details, and events have been altered or fictionalized to preserve privacy and confidentiality.
