Warparty
Warparty is a Real Time Strategy game developed by Warcave in the Unity Engine. It was my first professional project as a Game Writer.
Warparty features a world set in an alternate pre-historic timeline where man and dinosaur live together, battling on the ruins of an ancient extinct civilization known as the G’on.
Premise
A base of the Necromas, inspired by African culture.
For Warparty’s story, a basic campaign had been set up, but no concrete implementation or proper storyline had been established. As such, I took it upon myself to write a new story and script the campaign from scratch.
I looked at existing campaigns for inspiration, while also making sure to stay within a certain limit of both time, resources and other developmental restrictions.
Previously established as a leftover from a previous designer was the concept of the Go’n, an ancient civilization that came before the events of Warparty, but ultimately met it’s demise and leaving behind nothing but ruins and relics.
I used this lore to set up the conflict of the world, with the Go’n artifacts being used for a unique purpose.
The sword, said to control the bond between man and dinosaur.
The staff, said to control life and nature.
The hammer, which carries the freedom of Death.
These three forces clashed during the time of the Go’n, which ultimately caused the end of the civilization. Now, years later, the artifacts were rediscovered by three chieftains who understood the message left behind, and all went their own way to fulfill their destiny as the new chosen of each Go’n faction.
The World of the Go’n
Concept Art for the Go’n architecture and style.
Three Chieftains
The three chieftains displayed with their faction.
The Chieftain is one of the most important characters during gameplay. As such they became the face of each faction and the protagonist of their own story.
Mika of the Wildlanders would inherit the sword from her father, and split off to form a new tribe. She initially had no idea the sword carried ancient powers, but learned to harness it after her confrontation with Char.
Char of the Necromas wields the Go’n hammer he found in a desert cave, which permanently began to echo the cries of pain from all things living in the world in his mind. It instructed him to guide the living to the afterlife by spreading death through Go’n temples found throughout the world.
The sage no longer considered himself human, and strived to be one with nature. He found the Go’n staff behind a waterfall and caught a glimpse of the future if mankind continued to evolve and exploit the world. Distraught, he would attempt to return all life back to a single point of origin where mankind could never evolve. To do so, he befriended all kinds of wildlife and founded the Vithara, before beginning his search for the Go’n temples.
The setup to allow all three chieftains to feature as the heroes of their own story involves a race for the Go’n Shrines, which are needed to power up their respective artifact to carry out their mission to bring Life, Death or Balance to the world.
Mika, Char and the Sage would all continuously clash, trying to prevent one another of reaching the Go’n temples. In the process, the temples are usually destroyed, leaving but a single Go’n ziggurat.
In the final mission of every character’s campaign, they would race to the top of this ziggurat and must try to control it for a certain amount of time in order to seize victory. Upon completion of this objective, a different ending is given based on the faction and chieftain you’re playing as.
None of the endings are inherently good or evil, but can be interpreted differently by the player depending on their stance on life. Do we value human life over animal life? Can there be true harmony between man and beast. If an afterlife exists without suffering, would it be moral to skip life itself? These are questions I want the player to ask themselves when they select a chieftain and accept their objectives as characters.
A Grand Chase
Concept Art for a Go’n shrine.
Other Characters
Concept art for the warrior, the basic Wildlanders infantry unit.
Being an RTS, there’s a wide roster of characters all with unique silhouettes and designs which needed personalities. I took it upon myself to write the voicelines for each human character.
The Wildlander characters have the trait of pride, being both hunters and tamers of animals. Because of this, their units will have determination in their voicelines, and have a nearly military aspect to them.
The Necromas are blind followers of their Chieftains, almost cultlike. They act more like servants than soldiers, but their fanaticism shows contantly in every word they speak.
The Vithara have the least voicelines, being all beasts. Nevertheless there’s spirits like Nereids, Wendigos and Dryads that do speak, and are fervent guardians of life that will not tolerate humans.
