Vintage Mystery In-Game Documents & Dialogue

GAME WRITING | CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT | WORLD-BUILDING | DIALOGUE

Project / Brand Name: unannounced exploration-mystery game

Type of Work: In-game documents & dialogue, character development, early worldbuilding

As part of an initial writing session for a game in early development, I developed two in-world dialogue pieces designed to be discovered by players of an exploration-based game set in a mining town in 1880s California.

The prompts were intentionally open-ended, allowing for creative liberties in shaping the game’s world through environmental storytelling. Both pieces introduced original characters, balancing clarity with ambiguity to encourage player interpretation. The goal was to create compelling fragments that enhance the game’s atmosphere, rewarding exploration with layered storytelling.

This material has been re-imagined to protect the privacy of the original project.

Deliverables:

• A Letter Exchange – a written correspondence revealing character dynamics, past events, and underlying tensions, offering players a narrative thread to follow.

• Overheard Dialogue – a late-game conversation capturing urgency, conflict, or revelation, designed to deepen immersion and hint at a larger unfolding story.

Tone(s) / Voice:

1880s dialect but understandable modernly, capture the cozy but eerie and ominous energy of an early-days mining camp

This piece has been re-imagined to safeguard the privacy of the original project.

All characters, locations, and events depicted are fictional; any resemblance to real persons or events is coincidental.