| Platforms | Windows macOS |
| Release date | 25 August 2021 |
| Team size | 1 |
| My role | Creator |
| Engine | Unity 2020.1.10f1 |
| Development time | 6 weeks |
Sadie is a short narrative adventure about a disillusioned high school student named Lexi who endeavours to help an old, stray cat in an alleyway.
Talk with strangers and complete a trading quest in order to spring some life back into a helpless feline down on its luck.
Sadie was created in 6 weeks while studying at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment, Melbourne.
Development Log
My personal goal with this project was to build a vertical slice with a sense of narrative, mood and atmosphere, set against a trading quest with different NPCs to talk to.
- Critical Path & Level Design: From the onset of development, attention was given to the critical path, with consideration for the level layout and characters that would be involved in this trading quest. Once the trading quest sequence was determined, development progressed to greyboxing the level.
- In hindsight, although this critical path was satisfactory for the player to read and follow through to the end of the trading quest, it resulted in an overscoped level that was too large for one developer to decorate adequately in a six-week project.
- Narrative Design: To better ensure that the game’s plot, characters and setting felt three-dimensional, a significant amount of backstory was written. This included a narrative design document which detailed the overarching story in which this vertical slice was a part, and a level design document that included an exhaustive history for each location in the game. Collectively, this backstory informed the overall level design and dialogue, to create a narrative that hopefully felt more organic and realistic than it otherwise would have.
- Storyboarding: The narrative design process was further aided by storyboarding the game’s critical path or sequence of events, which helped to ensure that all design decisions were made before commencing the building phase of development.
Credits
Sadie was created with free-to-use assets. Please refer to the full list of credits.
Andrew Nardi, 2021
Andrew Nardi – Game Producer & Designer 