Rhianna Pratchett on telling stories in Rival Kingdoms: Age of Ruin
The writer on Tomb Raider comes to mobile
What do you get when you sprinkle a rich fantasy base with a special sci-fi sauce blended from World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Mythology and Game of Thrones?
Aside from a very weird sounding pizza, that's the recipe for Rival Kingdoms: Age of Ruin – a real-time strategy game courtesy of Space Ape.
While narrative-driven RPGs are no strangers to the mobile platform, the chart-topping behemoths that guzzle profits through a straw tend to ignore narrative in favour of the sugary gold-rush of addictive mechanics.
Space Ape Games wanted to shake things up a little – and while it's hard not to glance at Rival Kingdoms and think Clash of Clans, the studio decided that providing a backdrop for the diverse characters that inhabit its world was vital.
That was the job of Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Sir Terry Pratchett, who came on to the project to paint colour into this fantasy world.
"There's something in every character I like," smiles Prachett as she considers the creatures she created for Estara, the fictional world where Rival Kingdoms is set. "There has to be in order to make them interesting to write and craft a backstory for."
"I had fun with the dragons, who have just as much drama and conflict as the humanoid characters. I have a particular soft spot for Malice, the death dragon, Elias the loremaster, and a giant serpent nature ancient called Zillah."
Flying lizards, wizards, and giant snakey things are just a few of the creatures that roam the world of Estara, but for her part, Pratchett is most excited about players discovering the Ancient characters.
"These are all kinds of powerful warriors, spirits, gods, monsters, demons and alien-esque creatures from multiple realms who've all come to Estara to fight the Ruin threat," she enthuses. "I've written 26 of them so far and still have another 14 to go. It's a pretty good story telling exercise to create so many mini-stories for one game."
Indeed, the Ancients were one of the main reasons Pratchett was brought on to the project. As the game's central cast, Pratchett was tasked with bringing them to life starting with just concept art and an introduction to the game's mechanics.
In a sort of "fill in the gaps" approach, Pratchett developed the story, characters, and background as the developers were busily immersed in the game's development and game design.
Pratchett explains that "with all game writing - at least if you work freelance like I do - you have to work with the elements you've given (mechanics, gameplay, level design etc.) and use them to create a compelling story.
"It's like the narrative equivalent of Ready, Steady, Cook. It's challenging and can feel restrictive, but often you can find ways to be more creative within those boundaries than you initially thought possible."
She is vehement in saying that writing for mobile allows you to be "absolutely" as creative as PC or console, saying "the sheer variety of games out there speak for themselves."
Having previously worked on Tomb Raider, Mirror's Edge and Heavenly Sword, Pratchett is the first to admit that she's relatively new to mobile development – but the platform's possibilities are endless.
"The variety and depths of mobile games currently available is really starting to hook in core gamers – whether it's from classic games re-released for a mobile, like Baldur's Gate, or spin-offs of known franchises like Heathstone or Hitman Go.
"It really feels like there's something for everyone whether you consider yourself a hardcore game, a casual gamer or somewhere in between."
In terms of writing for mobile, while the technicalities differ from writing for, say, PC, the approach is the same.
"There are all vastly different beasts and developing a narrative for AAA games is very different from working in the indie scene. But the principles of good storytelling remain the same – particularly in relation to character and character development, which has often got side-lined in the past. In my experience this is one area that players respond particularly well to when given the attention it deserves."
Pratchett continues, "Obviously there's an economy of space when it comes to mobile storytelling and in the case of something like Rival Kingdoms it's just conveyed through text, art and a little bit of in-game animation. You also don't have actors or mo-cap to rely on. However, there's something quite special about the purity of text."
With mobile gaming offering such rich opportunities for writers of Pratchett's calibre, it seems that the platform is enticing talent into the portable realm.
With 80 Days nominated for a BAFTA in the story category this year, perhaps it's only a matter of time until other mobile games jostle against it in narrative award categories of the future.
