American Girl World from Relativity Studios
Senior Narrative Designer + Writer
American Girl: World is a F2P story platform published by Mattel & American Girl and developed by our team at Relativity Studios. The app includes branching narrative stories, an expandable dress up closet, and fun interactive activities to keep the player engaged.
As the Lead Narrative Designer and Writer on AGW, I adapted the already popular American Girl novels into stories for a digital space. Through multiple iterations, we focused on making an age-appropriate game that would appeal to players 8-13Y who liked Choices, Episodes, and Disney’s Descendants. We wanted to combine the rich story gameplay of Choices with the tappable actions of Descendants to make a game that was both empowering and rewarding.
I wrote nearly 60,000 words across four characters and worked with the external team at American Girl for make sure to stay consistent with already established character voice, continuity, and attitude.
But above all else — I was the internal brand expert on this project. I knew this brand inside and out to ensure that our product would be up to their standards and inline with their brand voice.
We were a small but mighty team, which required me to wear some additional hats:
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Gameplay Design — along with a Senior Designer, I conceptualized the majority of the gameplay mechanics in the game, including all of the interactivity portions
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Game Economy — helped create and update game economy documentation and worked with external monetization partner during tuning stages
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Art References — sourced and complied reference sheets for 42 characters, 31 environments, 100 story objects, and more than 200 clothing items
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Art Direction — reviewed and commented on characters, environments, and story objects to make sure they matched book descriptions and game needs
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Client Management — participated in meetings with Mattel and traveled to AG headquarters to meet with the American Girl brand team
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Documentation — worked on the GDD, presentations, pitch decks and more
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Sound Design — selected brand-provided music for each character and helping select and place the SFX
