In this 2018 GDC talk, inkle’s Jon Ingold outlines the strategies the team employed to design their sci-fi detective game Heaven’s Vault.
What’s especially helpful is Ingold’s efforts to demonstrate how the game design mixes adaptive authored content and procedurally generated “glue” content to ensure players are always making progress and making new discoveries — regardless of which scenes they play, in what order, and what they manage or fail to discover.
He also discussed how automated testing has been integrated into the writing workflow to empower greater freedom of action, making for an intriguing talk on the practicalities of narrative game design that’s now free to watch via the official GDC YouTube channel!
About the GDC Vault
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page.