GAME WRITING

TABLE of CONTENTS

ROSETIA: A First Contact Simulation
My solo-developed role-playing game (WIP)

GAME STUDIES

  • Essays: Character Expression and Speech in Fallout and The Outer Worlds
  • Project: The 'Ideal' Dialogue UI for a AAA voiced RPG (mockup, analysis)

What is ROSETIA?

ROSETIA (a portmanteau of ROSETTA and SETI) is a conversation-based sci-fi RPG in which the player must convince the denizens of an alien world to establish diplomatic relations with humanity.

It came about, quite simply, because I love Star Trek: a television series about talking to aliens and the moral quandaries of interfering in their worlds.

To me, this premise seemed ripe for gamification. I wanted to make a Star Trek video game driven by branching dialogues and impactful choices—like Mass Effect or Fallout: New Vegas, but on a much smaller scale (obviously), and without all the war. I love phasers and photon torpedoes as much as the next person, but it's not what Star Trek is really about; the series has much more in common with the first-contact stories of Ursula K. Le Guin: quiet, contemplative, anthropological in focus.

That is ROSETIA. It's taken me my entire life (and two years of a global pandemic) just to set the groundwork for it, but I'm still so proud of what I've accomplished so far. I hope you like it, too.

Visual Development

  • HUMANS: SETIA iconography, uniforms, technology, and spacecraft (SETIA bernal sphere, player’s personal saucer, main ARECIBO starship—interiors and exteriors)
  • TORTANS: Alien race design, clothing, objects, architecture, written languages
  • SETTING:Triune planet design, map, biomes, vegetation, creatures
  • USER INTERFACE: menus, inventory items, heads-up-display