Project Overview

Engine: Creation Kit
Game: Base Fallout 4

“A Tale of Two Attorneys” is a single player DLC mod for Fallout 4. The quest tasks the player with helping two attorneys solve a recent murder case whose outcome could tear the peaceful town apart.  The level focuses on players using their environment to investigate the possible location of the murder, find clues around the means, motive, and opportunity, and talk with residents to learn the truth behind tensions in the town. 

A Complex Narrative

• The narrative of “A Tale of Two Attorneys” takes place in Kuran Town where Super Mutants and humans live in relative peace.  The setting allows for:

• Interesting dynamics and tensions between two factions that do not normally get along in the Fallout 4 universe.

  • Allows for a variety of architecture and NPCs.

  • Perfect for a non-conventional quest like a murder mystery.

The introduction of Kuran Town is simple and the basics of its founding are mostly glossed over. If a player explores deeper, they can find more detailed clues about the history of Kuran Town and how it found itself near the boiling point with this one court case. Players can understand the basics of the story by completing the quest or dig deeper and understand both the history of the town and how its complex history plays a major role in the crisis it is currently in.

There is a lot of intrigue and nuance within the mystery of the murder of Miles. While investigating the one murder, the player has the opportunity to uncover hints of other nefarious acts that have been committed for the “greater good”.

By the end of the quest, the player has uncovered that the suspect in Miles’ murder is innocent, but has murdered others before.

The player must now make a hard choice - do they give the evidence to Nick to prove that his client - who is guilty of other murders - is found innocent and may never be forced to pay for his crimes or do they give the evidence to Kristoph - who is involved or guilty of murdering Miles - to ensure that the accused has some consequences for their earlier actions.

Either choice will result in violence and change for Kuran Town. It is up to the player to decide which is more important - “justice” even under false pretenses or looking for absolute truth no matter the cost.

Polished spaces that fit within Fallout 4

While Kuran Town is much cleaner than many other areas of the Commonwealth, it still shows the signs of its age and the nuclear war.  There is still plenty of clutter, holes in walls, and other signs that this is a world healing after a nuclear attack.  The Super Mutant side of Kuran Town still has its characteristic blood bags and gore while the human side has plenty of trash piles and knick-knacks.

Each office in the courthouse tells mini stories about the different people involved. Miles’ office is tidy and put together, Kristoph’s office has a lot of baseball memorabilia, the judge’s office has an air of importance, and Nick’s office is more run-down and haphazardly decorated.

Conveyance

• Heavy use of landmarks for each office within the courthouse so player can tell difference between each quickly.

• Decoration of space with unique items to help identify one from another.

Quest Flow

• Player can visit Nick between clues to get summary of what has been learned so far and what they need to do.

• Kristoph will give slightly different hints if player talks to him between clues.

• Player explores courthouse and then returns to central area where both Nick and Kristoph discuss clues together.

• Holes in floors allow for player verticality and to quickly move between spaces.

What Went Well

• Created a complex narrative that fit within the limitations of Fallout 4.  “A Tale of Two Attorneys” was my first chance to write narrative for a video game.  While I have experience writing fiction, writing for video games created a unique challenge of making sure the main ideas of the story got across even to players who do not like to read dialogue and engage with the story as much. 

• Integrated environmental storytelling with dialogue and an expanded history of the town.  Related to the previous point, I was able to finally experiment with environmental storytelling through the decoration of different spaces as well as the layout of Kuran Town.  Most players were able to understand the hints given through the environment which helped them to understand the story and characters better.

What Went Wrong

• Narrative was too complex and could be hard to follow.  While I was able to create a complex narrative with backstories and histories for all the major characters, it was still a lot for the casual player to follow.  Similar names, intrigue, secret alliances, and other related murders all quickly became so entangled it became hard for players to keep all the details straight.  In a murder investigation, not being able to understand and keep track of clues is a major weakness.

• Not enough ambiguity to truly have the player make a choice.  My goal for “Tale of Two Attorneys” was for the player to have to choose between two ideals – truth and justice no matter what or making sure someone pays for their crimes no matter what, even if you must commit a crime yourself to make it happen.  Unfortunately, due to the complexity of the characters and confusion around motives, most players gravitated towards the character wanting truth and justice no matter what instead of the one who committed a crime to make sure a guilty person would receive punishment.  While not surprising players would not want to choose the person who committed the crime, I failed at my goal of making them sympathetic and their reasoning enough to sway the player to their side.

What I Learned

• Getting geometry finalized early and quickly allows for more time to develop other parts of the quest.  My greatest weakness with “A Tale of Two Attorneys” is I did not get my courthouse layout nailed down until the initial gameplay milestone.  I iterated between each milestone but did not find the right flow until then.  As a result, everything else I had wanted to do with complexity behind the scenes was pushed back because of the major geometry changes I was making.  The next time I approach a quest like this, I am going to spend more time paper prototyping the map and getting it in engine by the first milestone.  Losing time to geometry re-building hurt my ability to iterate on the gameplay and make it stronger.

• Narrative should be written out, parsed down, and analyzed before attempting to implement in game.  A simple lesson I learned the hard way is that just like a novel or any other writing I do, I need to get the entire thing written down, not just a rough outline of what I want.  If I had written the main storyline completely and iterated with it versus having a rough idea and putting it in engine, the characters and storylines would have come through more clearly.  I could have tested to see if people were understanding the main idea of the story and what pieces and details were critical to make sure the ideas I wanted were coming across.