NICK CARBONARA - GAME DESIGNER & WRITER

Don't Split the Party is a narrative game about keeping your friends from fighting during a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The game's characters alternate between speaking "out-of-character" as themselves and "in-character" as the fantasy characters they portray, mimicking the multi-layered social interactions that take place in a real D&D session. As Brynn, the group's Dungeon Master, it's your job to negotiate the overlap between these two sets of personas in order to help your friends resolve their real-life interpersonal issues.

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Don't Split the Party was praised for its novel premise and emotionally engaging content. The game was well received by journalist Gita Jackson, who praised the game in a Kotaku article a few days after its release online, as well as attendees of the 2019 Game Center Student Showcase, who were invited to play the game and attend a dramatic reading of the game's dialogue. (See the images in the gallery!) The game was also featured in an episode of the Edge Guard gaming podcast, and a let's play video of the game was created by the YouTube channel D-Up Gaming.

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Don't Split the Party was a collaboration between designer/writer Benjamin Bello, artist Snippy Nguyen, composer Lonnie Jordan and myself, as well as numerous voice actors and other contributors listed in the game's credits page.

 

On this project, I was responsible for...

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• Writing character bibles and dialogue in alongside Ben, my co-writer and co-designer

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• Determining schedules, deadlines, and weekly goals in conversation with my collaborators

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• Collaborating with a visual artist to help them create appealing visuals that support the game's narrative

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• Attending voice-over sessions, helping direct voice actors, and helping select voice takes

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• Programming much of the game's functionality using Unity and C#

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• Painstakingly implementing all written dialogue for the game using YarnSpinner, a branching narrative tool for Unity