The Performance of a Lifetime
Creation Kit // Fallout 4
Narrative, Dialogue Systems, Hub-and-Spokes Design
Level Summary
“The Performance of a Lifetime” is a standalone single-player quest for the Fallout 4 base game. When a murder plot threatens to ruin an aspiring actor’s big performance, the Sole Survivor is tasked with subtly rooting out the killer with a once-in-a-lifetime monologue.
This level was completed following rapid iterative development practices. Level parameters include:
A focused, highly-polished experience
A unique but cohesive twist on Fallout 4
Roughly 15-30 minutes of gameplay
Design Goals
Unique “Directing” Mechanic
Players put their theories to the test by directing a Mister Handy in a stage play
Player Choice
Players have multiple ways to investigate & test every suspect
Adaptive Characters & Environs
The world is always responding to player actions & decisions
Implementation Details
Unique “Directing” Mechanic
While developing another Fallout 4 level, “Lost Love”, I action blocked a system where the player directs a Mister Handy around a stage and feeds them lines, helping the robot give a performance like no other. I was excited to flesh out this mechanic to create a fun and quirky murder mystery!
After gathering evidence for four different suspects, players put their theories to the test in a performance. Players can guide the Mister Handy to interact with different objects throughout the monologue and see how different suspects react, leading to the suspect being arrested.
The player using what they learned in the first “Investigation Phase” to test their hypothesis
Adaptive Characters & Environs
With over 1,100 lines of dialogue and almost 100 quest combinations, I put a lot of emphasis in creating dynamic systems that are always responding to players. To do this, I had a several quests going in the background to help store and track all the different global variables and conditions being updated throughout the main quest, through both quest fragments as well as standalone Papyrus scripts I wrote. All the residents in the cell pulled from various lists that updated based on the player’s choices.
NPCs constantly update their dialogue based on player choices
Keeping things clean & organized was absolutely essential with this many moving parts!
I used several different global variables to create easily-adaptable lists that everything in the quests could pull from
Player Choice
Inspired by so many of my favourite RPGs, I really wanted to give players as much agency and freedom as possible throughout this quest. As mentioned in the previous section, I wrote a great deal of dialogue with branching endings, as well as multiple ways to achieve each step of the investigation.
The player gets to make a series of choices for a stunning finale
This came with the challenge of presenting all the options to players in a way that is clear and not overwhelming. I used a variety of methods for this, such as creating standalone “Case File” quests for each suspect to help the player track and review information throughout the investigations.
The player can track what info they’ve learned through “Case File” quests in their Pip-Boy
Design Process & Iteration
While this was not my first rodeo creating a level for Fallout 4 / in Creation Kit, it was helpful to refresh myself on the various systems in the base game. You have to know the rules in order to break them!
The idea for the directing mechanic actually stemmed from an action block I did for another one of my Fallout 4 levels, “Lost Love”. While I felt the mechanic had a lot of promise, I decided that it would be best to focus on it another time due to scope restraints. I was very excited to return to it to build a full level around it!
The original “Directing Mechanic” action block
With the LDD written and approved, it was time to get to work. One key iteration I made was expanding the gameplay around this mechanic. After discussing with my stakeholder, I focused on creating a strong finale to the quest and working backwards to see what aspects I could simplify. This resulted in implementing a secondary round of investigations following the Mr. Handy’s performance - an important but calculated scope risk that paid off. By “zooming out” the story to focus more on the murder-mystery, I was able to create a better-paced experience for the player.
The technical side of the level also evolved throughout development. With so many conditions, variables, lines of dialogue, and more, I spent a good amount of time planning out my dialogue & quest systems: it was really important to me to build a system that was flexible and thorough enough to be iterated on.
For example, I originally planned on tracking player choices through a single global variable assigned to each character and checking what “unique sum” was currently active. However, I found it to be much cleaner and simpler to change my variables to effectively function as bools, allowing me to keep everything better organized throughout development.
While a fun bit of practical math, it ended up being simpler and cleaner to track player choices through a series of bool checks
Finally, I discovered through playtesting that while the narrative side of the level was strong, it was somewhat lacking in gameplay. To address this, I worked to integrate non-dialogue choices throughout the investigations that allowed another way for players to engage with my quests.
For example, as the player begins to build out a Case File for each suspect, they can explore the environment for a way to access each suspect’s unique interactable - such as a locked terminal, or a hidden ledger. With multiple ways to access each piece of physical evidence and the dialogue to confront that suspect after discovering it, the story felt more cohesive with the space it was in, all while giving the player more to “do”.
Players have multiple ways to deal with roadblocks to their investigations
Post-Mortem
What Went Well
Planning
Well-planned complex dialogue system that allowed me to iterate quickly
Execution
Executed all three of my major design goals
Rapid Iteration
Made quick and efficient changes to level throughout development in conversation with stakeholder
What Went Wrong
Scope
Scope began to expand after core experience was implemented in an effort to add gameplay. This was done in conversation with my stakeholder, but still would have ideally been avoided.
What I Learned
Dialogue Needs Support
Unless you are in a dialogue-based game (like a virtual novel), dialogue needs associated gameplay for a balanced experience
Plan Well, but Adapt
I had a very solid implementation plan during my LDD phase, but when I jumped in the engine, I discovered more efficient ways to handle systems
Gallery
