Story design and writing

The problem

A venue without a story is recognisable immediately. The set is handsome and the experience is flat, because nothing tells the player why they are there or what is at stake.

The other mistake, and the costlier one, is writing the story after the drawings. You then spend your time justifying a door that already existed, and the narrative chases the architecture instead of commanding it.

What the engagement covers

• The world bible: origin, rules of the world, characters, tone, vocabulary.
• The detailed story for each room or each route.
• The game sequence: what the player does minute by minute, what they understand, when, and by what means.
• The mechanism drawings: every puzzle, how it triggers, how it resets and how it degrades. That is the document that lets the room be run without its author.
• Player-facing copy: briefing, hints, resolution.

How it runs

A framing workshop with you, to settle the register and the operating constraints. A first version of the world, discussed. Then detailed writing, room by room, with two sign-off points.

One operating note

A story is also judged on what it costs to run: reset time between two games, how many staff are needed in the room, foreseeable breakage. We write with those three figures in view.