Narrative Design on Lady Umbrella
Designed Character Traits and Personalities
Francesca de Angelis (MC) Sheet and the resulting Concept Art
Scriptwrote the dialogues of every character, cinematic and situation according to each personality and lore.
Want to check the Scripts?
Click any of the buttons to read them!
Implemented the Dialogues to every cinematic and the whole game using FMOD and DataTable tools provided by the Programming team and Sound Designers.
Dialogue System designed to launch the sound accordingly to its label and position on the DataTable.
Calling of dialogues through Sequencer Events
Coordinated recording sessions of the dialogues with voice actors to ensure the tone was adequate to each character.
Expanded on the Narrative set on the game initially, searching for creative ways to tell the story.
The City
The city is the last bastion of the Italian Mafia.
In the beginning, they started as the typical Mob, but as time passed, they became more and more powerful. The Second World War hit. At a certain point, a specific Italian Dictator found himself fearing being murdered and, against his beliefs, he hired the Mafia as a Private Military for protection, giving them a power they quickly became addicted to. In the end, the Dictator was killed and the war ended in the next years, but they stood there, now without restraints.
Almost any civilian in the city pays a tithe as a way to keep themselves safe from them. Always silent, almost as if it has already become normal.
Most of the time, the lower steps of the pyramid are assigned to collect debts and loans. In case someone gives any slight appearance of contradiction, they retaliate without hesitation, killing familiars, torturing, and keeping everyone under control based by fear.
The richer areas of the city are constantly getting more and more wealthy, and subsequently they expand on opulence, giving a contrast with the rest of the districts.
Expanding over almost 20km per square, the buildings start to expand upwards, but not in a megalopolis; there are no actual skyscrapers, just blocks of apartments, and then on moving outside of the center, they become more like blocks of houses stacked on each other, no more than 5-story buildings. The farther you go, the fewer apartments and the more individual houses. This reflects the social class living in each district.
Designed the Worldbuilding and the Lore behind the characters to make them deeper.
The World
As timAfter the Second World War, many of the European countries relied on external help to rebuild themselves. Many of the organized crime groups take advantage of the people’s vulnerability to regain stability and power, be it on the Japanese Yakuza, the Russian Bratva, Latino Gangs, or the Italian Mafia.e passes, organized crime permeates into the government, accumulating goods and influence everywhere, ever-evolving violence and cruelty shake almost every corner of the world and the European Commission comes together to find a solution.
The Agency is born. Between layers of facades and through the leadership of a few unknown people, an international assembly of highly capable agents organizes to fight off crime from the inside and the outside.
With the main focus on tactical and technological development, their bet fends off. Small cells of crime start to disappear. Slowly but steadily, The Agency acts as a virus, and crime is rotting from the inside as a consequence.
Vincenzo's Backstory (Main Villain Short Story)
Vincenzo was born in a small village in Italy. People out there didn’t have anything more than what their ancestors gave to them, but for him, that was enough. In those years, illiteracy was the norm, even more so in small towns.
As a child, he never knew his father, so his mother took his role.
Life was harsh in that small town. Everyone ate from what they had cultivated, learned from their elders, and desired for their dearest to be well as they struggled together.
At least, they had each other.
He was happy with that. He felt alive with dirt in his hands, tiredness on his body, and his mother’s smile every time he met her at night, returning from work. She worked not too far, a few kilometres away.
As he grew up, Vincenzo always had dinner done when she arrived home from the things he cultivated among other people.
His mother never talked about his father; she just told him he was “gone”. Her eyes were lost for a few moments whenever she thought about it. He knew the “Great War” happened a few years before his birth, so why ask? It was painful, so he never demanded anything. Her smile was everything he truly had.
As years passed, his mother got progressively quieter and tired. She tried to hide it, but Vin knew. Her smile was forced. Every time. As much as she kept trying to hide it, he knew. He asked for help from the people of the town, but no one knew what to do; they barely knew how to count. He tried everything any apothecary told him, but nothing worked, and he saw his mother slowly descending into an illness that rotted him from the inside, knowing there wasn’t anything he could do.
On a certain day, she didn’t make it home.
Vin asked his neighbours, but they were silent. No one knew, but their eyes, their faces, everything told that they were hiding the truth. No one dared to talk. They saw her the months she was getting worse, but they stood there, as powerless as him.
Then he ran in the dark. That same night, he didn’t stop running for hours, even if his feet bled, his legs trembled, or his breath wasn’t enough; not in a single moment did he dare to stop.
Finally, he arrived at her workplace.
The chemical plant wasn’t big. Dyes were made there. His mother always told him it was safe and how much fun she had with her companions.
Yet there was no one to be seen.
He collapsed at the front door for a few minutes, until a policeman woke him up. Vin asked for his mother, if he knew something.
The man sighed to himself and made him follow.
There she was, unresponsive. Quiet as a silent night atop a hill, resting between the policemen. He mourned all night. He blamed the poor knowledge of the townsman, he blamed the country, until pain was so strong that he even blamed his own mother for not stopping earlier. His only light disappeared, without him being able to say goodbye.
He found something to hate on. The system, the people who were too excited about warring and didn’t care about the ones below. They talked about justice, about fighting back, but only ended up getting wealthier themselves. Hypocrites.
The simple thought of what he had and what they could reach with their money and power poisoned him slowly throughout the next years, as he knew there was nothing he could do. Not that late.
And so on, years passed as he grew silent and alone, as if, since his mother’s passing, the world only grew darker.
One day, a man stepped at his door. It was the policemen he met that night, but there was no uniform to be seen.
“Seems like time didn’t fix any of your problems kid.” – The man said.
Vin looked at him reluctantly. Wondering why he was there.
“Come with me, you want to fight for something and change things, don’t you?” – He smiled.
That’s when, for the first time in years, he felt there was something he could do. The Agency greeted him with a purpose. “To make the world a better place”. He spent years fighting for that purpose, doing everything there was to do. He helped, he accomplished, he fulfilled every order. But something grew inside.
“You are not making everyone’s life safer. You know it. You are opening a way for your superiors to gain control”.
“Every person you think you’re helping will someday be oppressed again by another one”.
“The world won’t ever be safer. Only easier to step on”.
Then, in that mission, he saw his chance. Infiltrated in the last Mafia in his country, he saw what he could accomplish. The Mafia’s power could be used for good. It had the potential.
He had the knowledge of the Agency, and the Mafia had the power to retaliate. And so, he started bribing, making a name, getting closer to the higher ones. He hated them; they were everything wrong with the world, but he could change that. He just needed absolute control, to take over the Mafia, get rid of the boss, and fight back against anyone daring to take over.
For him, it was a change for good. But, doesn’t everyone in that position think the same?
Finally, he ended up becoming what he despised the most.
A hypocrite.