**Spoiler Warning** The following post may contain spoilers for:
Draconic Echoes: The Ardent War
Finding a place to start when writing, whether it be creative or otherwise, can be quite a challenge. I find that having an overarching theme to the narrative can be a very helpful tool in overcoming writer’s blocks or coming up with concepts for the narrative in general. Relating many aspects of your narrative to a theme helps to create a more cohesive story as a whole. And no, I’m not talking about going as far as creating a socially impactful message or some universal truth that students must so often try to pick out in high school English class (unless you really want to, or you do have a message in mind). What I really mean is to have a general concept that can be explored throughout the story. Perhaps it would be easier to explain through examples.
The primary theme of Draconic Echoes: The Ardent War is “duality,” or the coexistence of opposites. The following poem is my inspiration for using this theme:
“odi et amo quare id faciam fortesse requiris
nescio sed fieri sentio et excrucior”
Catullus, Poema LXXXV
Or, in English:
“I hate, and I love. Perhaps you ask why I do this?
I do not know. But I feel it come into being, and I am tortured.
Catullus, Poem 85
I won’t go into too much detailed analysis, as that’s not the point, but this poem conveys the coexistence of hate and love as opposites, and how these two opposites existing at the same time creates feelings of being tortured. (The actual etymological breakdown of excrucior being ex- out/from and crux – cross, so basically, it means it’s painful that it feels like crucifixion. Fun fact: this is where the word “excruciating” comes from.)
However, I’m digressing. The point is, I wanted to take the idea of duality and generalize it to a greater narrative, more than just hate and love. And so, there are many opposites set directly against each other over the course of Draconic Echoes: The Ardent War. For example, the Hepteon (pantheon of seven dragon-gods), and the Malhepteon (pantheon of seven dragon-archdemons), are designed to oppose each other as two sides of the same coin. More so, if one were to zoom in further at each individual ancient dragon in the lore, each has a direct opposition. This is most apparent in Chapter 4, where the player must fend off masses of undead in the farmlands, aiding the goddess of life, Emmeria, against the underlings of the archdemon of death, Prasina. These two, the emerald dragon Emmeria, and the green dragon Prasina, are direct opposites, and the turmoil caused in Emmeria’s domain is a direct result of those two existing at the same time.
Now, how does theming like this help in terms of game design. Well, it helps to come up with general concepts and content ideas for quests. When designing a plethora of quests, it is easy to fall into frequently reusing the same type of narrative objective. While I think it’s fine to have the same general objectives, as the central game play loop does matter, a lot, the narrative can help to detract attention away from similar quest structures. After all, a game needs a core structure. So, when designing a quest, if you’re stuck, it’s a good practice to fall back on your central theme. Asking, “How does problem or conflict here relate back to the theme?” is a tremendous help in figuring out what the problem that needs to be solved is, or even what kind of solutions the characters need to carry out.
Overall, the theme of a narrative is a great tool to use as a guideline for not only details of the story, but also game design choices, like quest design. I’d say it’s even possible to have core game play mechanics relate to the theme. One very general example of this would be a game about teamwork, and the mechanics of that game would force cooperative player interaction. And one more time, to reiterate, a universal world shaking truth or exposing a deep-rooted evil of society is not necessary (possible, and I’m not discouraging this). All I am saying is that having a concept or multiple concepts that both the narrative and game design fall back on helps to create a compelling and cohesive experience as a whole. So, if you’re stuck, try out implementing a theme you’re interested in to help out!
If you’re curious about how all my nonsense actually plays out in a game, check out Draconic Echoes: The Ardent War on Steam!