Martina Marchio
Quest Design - Rea
To prioritize systemic architecture over flavor text, I aggressively scoped down the overarching lore documentation for this pitch. This is a logic-driven Vertical Slice, as the core focus is on quest flow, variable tracking, and psychosomatic gating. The playable Arcweave flowchart below serves as the core technical deliverable - explore the nodes to see the engine at work.
Scroll further for documentation. Enjoy!
Original OST proof-of-concept I produced in Ableton Live.
In Rëa, narrative is a physiological engine. I define this framework as Bio-Brutalism: treating organic (neuro)biology as computational data. Standard morality systems are replaced by cognitive dissonance.
Player agency is directly gated by the nervous system (Amygdala, Cortex, Insula), forcing a constant friction between visceral instinct and rational thought. As trauma shifts through perception-altering rituals, the ecosystem reacts: non-Aristotelian physics dynamically terraform the playable space.
The character’s mental dysfunction ends up being level design.
Systemic Narrative Framework
Quest Design Overview
Narrative context
Worldbuilding Context
Systemic Context
Ecosystem Mechanics & Physics
Rea's Terraforming
Non-Aristotelian Physics
Biological Tropes Subversion
CHARActer design: Beatrece
Biakratès/Βιακρατής
visual pillars
Pigment Absence
Excessive oxygen concentration deprived organic matter of pigment.
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Pigmentless hair
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Pigmentless skin (translucent)
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Pigmentless blood (translucent silver, slightly iridescent)
Appearal
Clothes are not invenotry items. They are fixed moments of choice that occur everytime Bea accesses a new environment in the Main Quest, and have effects on gameplay alignment. Thus, they can't be inventory items that player can change any moment.
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Transformism path: highly-covering, hood and scarfs hide her hair. Humanoid enemies can't smell human DNA - like Vrykolakaas do - and won't attack at sight.
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Temper path: Bea makes no attempt to hide her biology. Hostile NPCs will attack at array trigger, but her equipment has a slight combat buff.
Pre-VS
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Damaged human clothes & damaged breathing aid, human Athens' design.
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Jury-rigged combat clothes & new breathing aid, obtained by Tess during Redmart quests. This specific set of clothes is forcibly covering, to support the fact Bea is not fighting Reapers in the first part of the Main Quest in Redmart.
VS
As they meet, Niira tells Bea to find two sets of clean clothes from her wardrobe. Player's choice is now arbitrary and will influence the alignment ofgameplay approach.
Typical Aettis design, common among elves, but they are also visibly Niira's taste.
Aesthetic contraints
Beatrece’s design must take distance from traditional white-haired fantasy female trope.
Her paleness must not be perceived as an aesthetic choice, nor reinforce the Eurocentric 'fair-skinned' hero. Surviving a chemically hostile ecosystem and thus having no melanin in her system, makes her look pathologically sick, emaciated and fragile (see 'skin shader' section).
Even though her biomatter is pigmentless and translucent just like flora, she is visibly not caucasian. Her facial features are mixed but vaguely asian.
Tech Art: Skin Shader
Tech Art: Symbiont
bea's game & narrative design
Core Identity & Narrative Role
Last pure human alive
Born and raised in Athens, last pure human bunker-colony (Earth’s élite - survived to floods and archaic viruses, xenophobic and unwilling to accept new society). Destroyed by Vrykolakaas.
Pure human DNA is heavily haunted, by Vrykolakaas (violent instinct) and Reapers (trading reasons).
Trauma
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Saw her twin brother Lukaas killed by Vrykolakaas. Thinks he’s dead.
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Lost family and her birthplace.
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Born dead. Niira brought them back to life by installing the Symbiont (latent until Aettis events).
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Bea is clueless about the world she lives in.
Drive & Objectives (VS)
MAIN OBJECTIVE: find reason to voices
→ POINT OF BREAKING = Lukaas is to be saved
Drive = find Lukaas Objective = find a way to Hades
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Act 1
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Drive = seeking answers
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Objective = find Niira in Aettis
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Act 2
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Drive = seeking answers
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Objective = unlock Aletheia and bypass elevators to the Lyceum (“Oracle”)
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Act 3
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Drive = meet Herself in the Thinning (seeking answers)
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Objective = access the Thinning
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Character Arc
Core Gameplay Functions and Mechanics
Act 1
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Lack of player empathy
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Unlikeable
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Arrogant and rude
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Unpredictable
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Incomprehensible
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Lack of backstory context
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Psychological disfunction
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Forced Amygdala dialogue option
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Act 2
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Player empathy
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Likeable
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Pivotal personality change (Aletheia)
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Comprehensible
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Backstory context
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Psychological switch
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Functional somatic dialogue options
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Act 3
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Motivational drive
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Objective acquisition
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Breathing system evolution
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Breathing Aid (pre-VS)
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Breathable atmospheric barrier (Act 1 and 2)
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Symbiont awakening (Act 3)
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Symbiont
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Resource management
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Fed by lichens
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Allignment (UI = sliders)
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Hybris vs Ethos (narrative branching)
(No PoC in VS)
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Ikore vs Rot (interaction with world)
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Temper vs Transformism (conflict approach)
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Dialogue System
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Choices are somatic, based on brain areas
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Amygdala = defensive, rude, arrogant
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Cortex = rational, pragmatic
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Insula = empathetic
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Dialogue outputs are unpredictable
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UI = icons, no textual context
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Act 1 - before Aletheia state unlock
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All choices are clickable, but Amygdala output is forced
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UI = Cortex and Insula icons are glitched
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Act 2 - after Aletheia state unlock
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Somatic choice has proper output
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UI = all icons are functional
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Beat #1 - The Loam
Cognitive dissonance, player gating and exploration
Quest Flow Context:
Quest Logs - Player Gating
NPC Dialogues (linear)
Cognitive Dissonance
Items
BEAT #2 - NIIRa's Room
Environmental Storytelling and information drop-feeding
Quest Flow Context:
Quest Logs - Player Gating
Environmental & Emergent Design
Information drop-feeding
Cognitive Dissonance
Interactibles
Niira Dialogue (linear)
Information drop-feeding
Items
Oxytocin
Cortysol
Endorphines
BEAT #3 - tHE tRIP & tHE aLETHEIA
Resonance, screenplay and cinematics
Quest Flow Context:
Salvia Divinorum
Aletheia
Quest Flow Logic:
Inhale?
Choice #1: Inhale?
Choice #2: Inhale?
hasAletheia = true;
Quest Logs - Player Gating
Resonance - Hybris vs Ethos
Art Direction
Ether Bea's Matrix ("Omni-Bea")
Cinematics and camerawork
Tech Art - Bea's Mind (Ether Instance)
Mandelbrot
Fibonacci
Neurons
Ikore
BEAT #4 - the catharsis
Branching dialogue, narrative context
Quest Flow Context:
Player's perception shift
Psychosomatic Dialogue Options
Motivation collision
Quest Logs - Player Gating
Quest Flow Logic:
Aletheia
Oracle
Niira Dialogue (flavor branching)
Backstory context
Branching
Oracle Interaction
Logs
Psychosomatic Gating
BEAT #5 - the thinning & the myth
Art Direction, screenplay and cinematics
Quest Flow Context:
Omni-Bea
Orpheus & Eurydice
Quest Logs - Player Gating
Narrative Design:
Revelation
Macro objective acquisition
Omni-Bea Dialogue (linear)
Myth - Orpheus & Eurydice
Narrative Context
Art Direction
Narrative Context:
Cinematic Design
Camerawork
Art Direction
BEAT #6 - the bismuth
Narrative Climax and Technical Art
Quest Flow Context:
Quest Design:
Core ability acquisition
Emotional Turning Point
Bismuth Mechanics (future implemention):
Weapon Upgrade
Combat
Hysteras
Matter Manipulation (combat)
Bismuth Narrative Context
Narrative role (hysteras)
Weapon upgrade
Bismuth Tech Art
Liquid Form
Solid Form
macro Narrative overview
Post-VS
Some images utilized in these mockups were referenced from external sources to expedite the prototyping process. Full credit to original photographers.