Crown Gambit #2 | Narrative Design and Worldbuilding

For this second episode of our Tales from the Devs series with Wild Wits studio, we had the pleasure of chatting at length with Astrid Stérin, writer and narrative designer on Crown Gambit. After a first episode focusing on the game’s origins, this new interview delves into the heart of the creation of the Crown Gambit universe: its rich and original lore inspired by Breton folklore, its factions torn apart by a war of succession, its paladins linked to divine relics… but also the practicalities of interactive writing, from narrative bibles to branch management, dialogue construction, and collective work with the development team.

Point’n Think: How did the overall world of Crown Gambit come about? What are its foundations and inspirations?

Astrid Stérin: You should know that I wasn’t part of the team at the very beginning of the project. Crown Gambit was initiated by Corto Laly, while most of the studio was still working on Aetheris. He started laying the groundwork with Gobert, the art director, and Alexandre Raffy, the other writer at the time. They worked together for several months before the rest of the team joined them.

Even though I wasn’t there for the very first discussions, I can talk about what inspired the universe. The basic idea was to create a fantasy world, or more specifically a dark fantasy world, that was different from the classic Anglo-Saxon standards. We wanted to move away from the usual elves and dwarves and return to something more rooted in French folklore, particularly Breton folklore. The paladins of Crown Gambit echo a more Carolingian era, with references to regional mythologies that are often forgotten in video games.

Among the influences were, of course, the great classics of dark fantasy such as Game of Thrones and The Witcher, with a Lovecraftian touch in the design of some of the monsters. I’ve also heard about the influence of Dark Souls and Elden Ring, although I haven’t personally played those games.

PnT: Could you briefly introduce us to the game’s universe, and more specifically the kingdom of Meodred?

Astrid: In a nutshell, it’s a relatively classic fantasy universe. There’s a king, a royal family, great noble houses, and a population that endures it all in silence. The universe is structured around two major institutions: the Order of the Ancestors and the Paladins, who play a central role in the story.

The paladins are not vigilantes or protectors of the people: their primary mission is to defend the monarchy. They are closely linked to the royal family and the great lords. They are also the only ones, along with the latter, who are allowed to handle relics, magical objects linked to the game’s deities, called the Ancestraux.

Among these deities, the most important is Asertor, considered the god of gods. According to the legends of Meodred, it all goes back to a mythical figure: Queen Vermessa, who, several centuries or millennia ago, unified the divided kingdoms and made a pact with the Ancestraux. It was thanks to this alliance that she was able to endow her lineage with these famous relics, which have since been used by paladins and royalty to protect the kingdom.

PnT: How do you organize all this narrative richness? Is there a lore bible, a reference document to keep everything consistent?

Astrid: We do have a narrative bible. It acts more like a central hub, a kind of summary that links to lots of other more detailed documents. Everything is organized on Notion, which has become our little internal Wikipedia, super handy for everyday reference.

It’s an incremental construction. We have tables for everything: characters, institutions, noble houses, places, major factions, and of course relics. And as we delve deeper into a character or family, we sometimes realize that a detail is missing or that a point needs to be developed: an event from the past, a secret, a hidden connection… So we add it. It’s a living process that grows as we progress in writing the game.

PnT: Has it ever happened to you that, when adding a piece of lore to a faction, you later realized that it had a knock-on effect on another faction? Like a kind of butterfly effect between stories?

Astrid: Yes, of course. We had a whole pre-production phase leading up to the 2023 Kickstarter, which allowed us to lay out all these interactions. We took the time to think carefully about how the factions influence each other in a medieval setting where all the families are more or less connected. Once that foundation was in place, we moved on to the next step: getting into the details of the storyline. We then built narrative diagrams chapter by chapter to visualize the branches, the possible choices, and all the variables that could influence future events. But the basis of the relationships between the characters and the major dynamics between factions had already been firmly established beforehand.

PnT: We wanted to come back to that aspect. When playing, you get the feeling that the narrative branches are really at the heart of the gameplay, whether through the maps or the paths you take. How did this choice mechanic fit into the writing?

Astrid: It was a central component of the project from the very beginning. When the game was first presented, we were shown the different possible endings, at least in broad strokes, with the idea that each one would be determined by a series of decisions, some of them very subtle. Some of these endings even affect the fate of the entire kingdom, or even the world. And these conclusions are influenced both by the major choices made at the end of the game, but also by lots of small decisions that may have been made earlier, and which, at the time, seemed insignificant.

As for progression, it’s also based on a branching structure. There are chapters where you have to choose one path over another: if you take path A, path B will no longer be accessible. At other times, several options are available, and you can explore them all in any order you choose, but that order will influence what happens. Depending on the characters you’ve already met or the information you’ve discovered, certain situations will unfold differently.

And then there are very visible choices, like entering a room and deciding who to talk to, and others that are much more subtle, depending on a combination of actions and knowledge acquired previously. That’s what makes writing the game so complex… but also what I think makes it so rich. It allows for real replayability, with narrative paths that can vary greatly from one playthrough to the next.

PnT: How do you keep a clear vision of this complex narrative web, with all its possible branches?

Astrid: We use Miro to map out the entire narrative structure. It’s a very handy visual tool that allows us to lay out all the branches and not forget anything. We spent quite a bit of time on it to maintain a solid overview. But on a day-to-day basis, it also involves a lot of navigation: I write quickly so I don’t lose track, “oh yes, in chapter 3 this happened,” and I try to keep it all in my head. Fortunately, we test the game regularly. Each re-read or test reminds us of a detail that we may have slipped in somewhere, such as a reference in a secondary branch. We then adjust the dialogues or the characters’ reactions based on what they know or don’t know. The main points are well defined, but there are always little touches that we refine as we re-read and make choices.

PnT: And in terms of tools, you use Ink, as you did for Aetheris. How does that help you in terms of storytelling?

Astrid: Ink is great. It’s a tool developed by a video game studio, designed specifically for interactive writing. It’s a mix between a word processor and a scripting language, which allows us to write while integrating features related to the game engine. For example, we can specify backgrounds, characters present in combat, expected effects… and on the narrative side, it allows us to structure the dialogues properly: who is speaking, with what expression, and above all, what choices are available at each moment, and where each one leads. It’s great for visualizing the ramifications of the story, the paths that cross or diverge. And when I play games from the studio that created Ink (Inkle), I’m blown away by everything they get out of it. The potential is huge; it’s really a tool that’s perfectly suited to interactive storytelling.

PnT: We’ve talked a lot about the universe, but what about the characters? Did you create the families and dynasties first, before defining the central figures? Or was it the other way around?

Astrid: I can’t say for sure which characters came first, since I wasn’t part of the team at the very beginning of development. But the major figures, such as the three heroes and the main members of the royal family, the king and his successors, were already well defined when I arrived.

Then we expanded the universe with the great noble families: we created the heads of the houses, their relatives, and sometimes even dug into the family trees to understand who married whom, where certain allegiances came from, and so on. All the paladins in the game were also established at that point. Even if some of them aren’t developed in detail, each one has a gimmick or specialty related to their past.

And as we went along, we added a host of secondary characters, some anecdotal, some linked to specific moments in the gameplay. There are also nods and cameos inspired by members of the team. Often, these characters are born out of necessity: you arrive in a village and need a village chief, a tavern keeper, a thief… And sometimes, these small roles become more important if the character survives and returns later.

PnT: When writing the dialogue, how do you find the right balance between narration and gameplay? Crown Gambit is a very narrative-driven game, but it also has significant deck-building mechanics.

Astrid: The dialogue is really at the heart of the narrative. Deck-building comes into play mainly during combat, but everything else about the world, the characters, and the choices is conveyed through dialogue. It’s through the dialogue that the player understands the story, explores the issues, and discovers the personalities. There’s no external narration or descriptions, everything is done through the text and interactions.

So we worked to avoid two pitfalls: 20 minutes of dialogue without a break, or, conversely, too many gameplay phases without context. We alternate between calm, intimate moments, where you can take the time to discover a character’s past, and other more tense or fast-paced moments. From the outset, we agreed as a team on the areas where we could slow down the pace to establish a little more lore, and those where we needed to speed things up.

But despite everything, it remains very empirical. Initial feedback on the alpha showed us that some things that seemed crystal clear to us were not clear to players. So we sometimes added a line of dialogue here, a reminder there, to aid understanding. Conversely, we sometimes find that when we reread a chapter, there’s too much exposition and we need to lighten it up. We use various little tools to add rhythm: offering choices, breaking up the flow of clicks, providing more dynamic interactions. In the end, it’s a lot of testing and tweaking, but that’s also what brings the story to life.

PnT: You mentioned chapters earlier. How is the script written? Do you work in a linear fashion or do you jump from one point to another as needed?

Astrid: It’s a bit of both, but overall we proceed chapter by chapter to maintain consistency in the chronology of information available to the player. That said, we didn’t start at the very beginning. For example, chapter 3 was one of the first to be written, even before chapters 1 and 2. It was more of a production decision than a writing decision. The idea was to get some practice on a less critical chapter, and then come back and polish the early parts of the game, which are the ones that need to immediately captivate players.

At the same time, we draw up precise diagrams for each scene: who is talking to whom, what choices are available, and what consequences follow depending on the decisions made. This type of structure forces us to move forward in a fairly linear fashion so that we can keep in mind, at each stage: “What information has already been revealed? Which characters have been encountered?” We always have to check that we don’t give away a revelation too early, or that we don’t refer to an event that the player doesn’t know about yet.

PnT: And in terms of lore, such as the Ancestors, relics, and intra-diegetic texts, was all of that established from the outset or developed over time?

Astrid: Much of the background had been sketched out before I joined the team, particularly everything related to the Ancestors, the deities that form the mystical foundation of the world of Crown Gambit. For the relics, there was already a foundation in place, with a few iconic weapons already defined. But in some cases, we just had “Paladin A” with “Relic 1,” with no further details. So, as we got into the corresponding chapters, we imagined what kind of relic and power might correspond to that character, making sure to vary the mechanics and aesthetics.

As for the intra-diegetic texts, such as the paladins’ code of honor or the laws governing the use of relics, these are elements that we often had to write as development progressed. Sometimes a piece of dialogue would refer to a specific rule… and we would realize that it hadn’t been formalized yet. So we would write it down on the spot. This work was therefore done fairly early on in development, but gradually, in response to the narrative or world-building needs that emerged as the scenes unfolded.

PnT: As a narrative designer at Wild Wits, how do you organize your exchanges with other team members? Who do you work with most on a daily basis?

Astrid: I collaborate a lot with the graphics team. It’s essential for us to be on the same page about our shared vision of the world and the characters. For example, I send them visual references and ideas about the atmosphere of a place or the personality of a character to guide their creations. But communication goes both ways: they also remind us when our ambitions are getting a little too crazy (laughs). So we adjust together and look for compromises to keep the creative intent alive without pushing them to burn out.

I also talk regularly with the music team. We discuss the types of sounds or atmospheres we want at a given moment: do we need fifteen different sound effects in a scene? Should the music be more tragic, or more energetic? These are important choices for the overall tone of the game.

At Wild Wits, we mainly work via Discord, with a high level of transparency. All channels are public, so it’s easy to see what others are doing, ask questions, or get collective feedback on an idea or dialogue. I’m also in close contact with Paul, our game designer. We often discuss how to adjust gameplay scenes to fit the narrative: should a paladin fight alone or with others? Does a piece of dialogue work in this game context?

And then I get a lot of feedback from the team on my dialogue: is it clear? Does it grab the player’s attention? Is this character believable or a little too unlikable?

Finally, I often ask François, our co-founder, for help with anything technical. Whenever I have a problem in Ink or encounter a bug I can’t fix, he steps in. The only team I interact with a little less directly is the animation and programming team, because our tasks overlap less often. But overall, there’s a lot of dialogue and cross-functional interaction in the studio.