Writer & Narrative Designer
Hi! 👋🏾I'm SizzlinKola
I love to write and design games to tell an amazing story!
A 2D action-platformer
A sinister force threatens your village. Slash-and-dash your way through nightmarish foes and tight platforming to save your village before it's too late.
A 2D puzzle exploration game
You awake in a dark forest with no memories. Scattered around are objects and notes that may hold clues to your past. You must find your way out by solving puzzles, retrieving items, and piecing together your lost identity.
The Blood Moon Rises
For this 2D action-platformer, I wrote a simple story about a female samurai, Tomoe, trying to save her village from the mysterious blood moon curse for a "samurai" game jam.
The curse was transforming Tomoe’s homeland and villagers into demons, which is slowly revealed as the player progresses.To suit the fast-paced gameplay, this story was conveyed through dialogue and environment.
We had a countdown mechanic that required the player to beat the game within a certain amount of time.
As time progressed, the moon and screen became more red to convey the curse worsening.
Tomoe's dialogue reflected her slowly transforming into a demon as time counted down.
If the timer reached zero, Tomoe fully transforms into a demon. Game over.
Enemies represented villagers transformed by the curse for players to kill.
They don’t have dialogue for most of the game. But when the player arrives in the village, they start talking.
This reveals to the player that they were once innocent villagers, revealing the curse's true nature.
Using my environment description document1, our artists and sound designer created assets to set the mood/atmosphere of each zone.The soundtrack, composed to build tension, established the mood alongside the visuals.Sound effects specific to each zone immersed players in the environment.2
At the end of the game, the player destroys a meteorite which reverses the curse and saves Tomoe's village.
I wrote lore about the meteorite being the curse's source, but we ran out of time to implement storytelling around it.3
The original ending cutscene involved Tomoe sacrificing herself to reverse the curse and restore the villagers.4
Due to time constraints, I had to quickly rewrite the ending to only a few lines of dialogue.
Multiple endings based on playtime to motivate the player to do multiple playthroughs were also cut for time.5
Despite cuts, I wove an ominous mystery into the fast-paced gameplay to maximize engagement through a thrilling, tension-filled player experience.
APPENDIX
1 The environment description document I sent to our artists and sound designer that inspired the art and sounds of the game.2 The list of sound effects I sent to our sound designer to immerse the player.3 The lore I wrote for the meteorite.4 The original ending cutscene I wrote before I had to come up with a new ending using in-game dialogue due to time constraints from the jam.5 The multiple endings idea I wrote to motivate the player to do multiple playthroughs.Credits to:
- Team Lead and Design: Yiaz
- Programming: UrbiEtUrbi, Pheedsta
- Art: Pixi, Hanako, JonnyBlips
- Sound and Music: Jazz
The player takes on the role of an amnesiac named Chase who must find clues and solve puzzles to regain his lost memories, so that he can escape the dark forest.
Inspired by the game jam's theme "building connections", the gameplay focused on exploration to help Chase "build connections" between memories to escape the forest.
The forest environment has surreal elements to represents Chase's fragmented mind as he struggles with amnesia.1
He is lost in his own subconscious, not an actual forest.
Strange objects like floating gems and wrecked car parts create a dreamlike setting that reinforces his disoriented mental state.
To create intrigue, I introduced a mysterious character named Aurora.
I sprinkled subtle clues of her by:
- Hiding her name in dialogue stylized as *^^^
- Having her appear as a ghost periodically2
- Leaving hidden notes about her relationship with Chase
These details provide breadcrumbs and motivation for the player to uncover her identity.
The gameplay loop involves exploring the forest to find puzzle zones and objects representing Chase's memories of his relationship with Aurora.
Completing puzzles unlocks more of the forest. After each puzzle, a cutscene reveals the actual memory the puzzle symbolized.3
I designed the narrative to gradually reveal more about Chase and Aurora's relationship as the player unlocks more of the forest.
We reveal after the wrecked car puzzle to show that they were in a car accident.
This leads the player to initially believe Aurora is dead, especially since her ghost appears in game.
After completing the next puzzle zone, the player encounters the bad ending.
In the bad ending, thinking Aurora is dead, the player can either persist in escaping the forest to find the truth, or abandon hope and remain lost in the dark woods forever.4
This emotional moment motivates the player to finish the game to obtain the true ending:
Chase wakes up from a coma and Aurora, whose name is finally revealed, is alive and waiting for him.5
Overall, the narrative and gameplay built towards this emotional ending reveal as Chase awoke from a coma to find his beloved Aurora waiting, a poignant moment of hope renewed.
APPENDIX
1 I wrote an environment description document for our artists to provide art direction for the forest.2 Here's the spec for Aurora's ghost, including her sprite behavior and placement in the map.3 You can read the script for the campfire cutscene here.4 You can read the script for the bad ending cutscene here.5 Due to time constraints from the game jam, we were unable to implement the true ending cutscene in-game. The script can be viewed here.Credits to:
- Team Lead and Developer: Flameful
- SFX Designer / Composer: Theo D
- SFX Designer / Composer: asherwaves
- Character Art: MotoLuigi
- Game Art: Zuzu
