Elemental Flow (work in progress)

Elemental Flow is a role-playing game (RPG) with conversation encounters instead of battles, whose story centres on finding your voice and exploring relationships. Players explore a modern optimistic world, where technology has developed to coexist with nature and society has evolved in a cooperative direction.

Encounters are active and involve the player using a variety of elemental abilities which involve talking, listening and thinking, with the right timing and execution to carry out a form of symbolic, active conversation. At the same time, the player must observe the patterns and preferences of the other character, adapting and allowing them to express themselves, all with the ultimate goal of reaching a mutual understanding.

Elemental Flow is being developed by Tea-Powered Games, and a playable demo called Sofia’s Side Story is available for PC/Mac on itch.io.

Design: Systems
Design: Conversation Encounters
Design: Level Design
Design: UX
Programming: Unity 3D, 2D + UI, C#

Dialogue: A Writer’s Story

Dialogue is a game about conversation. You follow Lucille, a writer in her mid-to-late twenties, as she writes her second novel. The entire game is a year in her life through the conversations she has with friends, family and neighbours. Mechanically, different conversations work differently, some have a timed element and happen in the moment, while others are more exploratory, discarding any timing and play out on a map. Dialogue is the flagship work of Tea-Powered Games, and is on sale for PC/Mac on itch.io.

Design: Systems
Design: Conversations (layout, flow, balancing)
Design: UX
Programming: Unity 2D + UI, C#

A Hero’s Guide to Gardening

A Hero’s Guide to Gardening (by Tea Creature Studios) is a game about emotional literacy, gardening at summer camp, and what it means to be a Hero.

Art, writing and primary design for the game are being carried out by Tea Creature Studios, with design and narrative consultation and Unity development by Tea-Powered Games. Hero’s Guide to Gardening is available for iPad.

Design: Feedback and input on Gameplay and Narrative Design
Design: Conversations (layout)
Programming: Unity 2D + UI, C#

Restless

“You’ve been haunting old Mrs Fagles for decades. Now she’s sold the house, and the new owner’s moved in. Sylvie’s broke, bad at plumbing, and anxious about everything. And with a living, breathing, fretting roommate, how are you supposed to rest in peace?

Drink blood. Set fires. Tell lies. Give advice, loan out a wedding dress, reclaim your true name. Remix your dialogue options to reflect your mood or dig deeper into the topics that interest you.”

Restless was designed and written by Emily Short at SpiritAI, with Unity development by Tea-Powered Games.

Design + Development: Unity Frontend, UI, Text
Programming: Unity 2D + UI, C#

The Dream Self

The Dream Self was an entry to the 2017 Interactive Fiction Competition by Florencia Minuzzi (with Design and Programming assistance by Destina).

It’s just another year of your normal London life – work, eat, sleep. However, in your dreams you keep meeting a translucent stranger, a person cloaked in clouds. Who are they, and how do they know so much about you? The way you approach your everyday life will change how your dreams unfold.

Design: Feedback + Refinement
Design: Number balancing
Programming: Unity 2D + UI, C#

Nightwards, Heartwards

In Nightwards, Heartwards, you explore your inner self across a personality map. You can move Nightwards or Daywards, Heartwards or Mindwards. Along the way, you will encounter other travelers, who can accompany you until you leave their comfort zone. Become who you need to be in time to fulfill tasks, form bonds between travelers to make journeying faster and easier, and ultimately settle as the person you want to be. NH was the product of the Ludum Dare 38 game jam, and is freely available for PC/Mac on the Ludum Dare website.

Design: Systems
Design: Positioning and task balancing
Programming: Unity 2D + UI, C#

Tea-Powered Prototypes

An assortment of prototypes developed within Tea-Powered Games, released into the wild because half-finished and “didn’t quite get there” can be interesting, entertaining and informative too. All are available on itch.io (here, here and here) and you can read more on the Tea-Powered Games blog.

Life Game uses genres and mechanics to explore a life from birth to death. Do microgames with marbles as a child, play as yourself in an action adventure high school, manage your adulting in a life sim interactive fiction. Take up music and use rhythm-game mechanics, logic puzzle your way through, or just tap everything and see what happens.

Spirit RPG shows off the first area of an RPG where combat is replaced by communication. This idea would later be developed in a different direction, but the original has its own charm.

Design: Systems
Design: Level Design
Design: Macro experience
Programming: Gamemaker, RPGMaker

JRPG Narrative Design Talks

A series of talks at the London Interactive Fiction Meetup exploring the narrative design of Japanese Role-playing Games. Subject matter varies from introductory-level description and trends to a personal interpretation of the way character mechanics communicate and explore the concept of Identity.

Available on Youtube:
JRPGs and Narrative Design
Exploring Identity through Character Mechanics in JRPGs