Interactive narrative and player agency is something else that no other media can really capture and was something I wanted to lean into in “Bloodline”. At the time I was on a bit of an immersive sim kick and was inspired by how player choice can make an experience come alive.

The initial goal was to have choices build up and carry forward in an interesting way.

But how to make it interesting exactly? I landed on the idea of choices stacking on top of each other and then building to a high-pressure climax with each choice contributing in some way. The metaphor of playing Jenga (opens new window) fits, each choice affects the next until you are left trying to keep the whole thing from falling over.

For the overall structure I went with some classic Shadowrun objectives of an infiltration and heist with a nice frosting of a massive explosion. So, the objective is to get in, get the data, set the facility generators for overload, and then get out.

For the antagonists I chose Shadowrun corporation “Aztechnology” (opens new window). Among other nefarious activities they are known for their use of blood magic. To tie into a reoccurring theme in Dragonfall, of things not being what they seem, I chose the setting of an office over top more nefarious dealings below.

Caught between the corp and the Shadowrunners were what we called internally, “The Cafe Kids”, who were simply trying to get by and keep their coffee shop afloat by stealing a little power from the facility. The player can choose to help them out or hinder them to gain an advantage. I added them to directly ask the player, “In this dystopian, unequal world where do you come down? Good, evil, a pragmatic gray in between?”. It's interesting to ask fundamental human questions in any story but these kinds of choices worked well with the setting.