Hooked on You is a Dead by Daylight dating sim developed by Psyop and published by Behavior Interactive.
Welcome to Murderer’s Island. Your companions: four dead-sexy Killers who, underneath their murderous exteriors, just want a little romance. Flirt your way into their hearts, uncovering dark twists along the way. Will you find true love, forge friendships… or get hacked to death? Only you can decide.
I was initially hired for Hooked on You to design the scoring system and all minigames the player could encounter. However, my role was quickly redefined into a narrative focused position where I assisted the creative director with scene structure, story polish, and narrative/art implementation.
My biggest responsibility on the project was most definitely the implimentation process, which went like this:
Step 1. Build the narrative and dialogue on Miro, our digital whiteboard.
Step 2. Transfer the entire narrative to a line by line spreadsheet organized by scene.
Step 3: The spreadsheet would get convereted into code and put into the game engine.
I implemented most of the narrative, minus a few early scenes, down to every line of dialogue or narration. I also integrated all script commands, scene transitions, minigames, and affinity points. Pretty much any in-game event or narrative tick.
I also became responsible for nearly all art integration. I had almost full agency over character placements, emotes, mood backgrounds, and even all the animations, poses, and facial expressions. I was essentially bridging the gap between the written narrative and visual story. I used whatever tools I could in order to convey the emotions and motives of every character. Blocking out the scenes and having control over all the character expressions and animations was a ton of responsibility, but also a lot of fun. I would consult the writers and always check in with the creative director for feedback before pushing my changes.
My first task on the project was to design the minigames!
For scope & theme purposes, all Minigames were based off the “skill-check” QuickTime events players encounter in Dead by Daylight:
Firstly, I had to set up the base minigame functionality and write detailed documentation for the project's engineers so they could implement the mechanic. Next was the fun part where I got to come up with creative designs that would fit within story and style of Hooked on You.
In this minigame you play against Wraith in a cornhole duel of epic proportions! Accurate skill checks would score you a skull-in-one, misses would see your skull bouncing off into the ocean. Points would be written in the sand.
Slice through a lovely hunk of meat for your cannibalistic pals! Accurate skill-checks would reward you with clean cuts, while misses wouldn’t slice through all the way. Every slice of meat would reveal the disgusting, rotted, possibly human, interior of your lunch.
The Spirit takes you stargazing to test your astrology knowledge with a few rounds of a celestial matching-game! Check the center of the dial to reveal the constellation, then stop the spinning arrow on the correct zodiac.
Spin the dial to land of different radio stations. Listen to music, radio chatter, or maybe something you were never meant to hear…
Use the skill-check mechanic to test your luck and reward yourself with the smooch of a murderous psychopath.
Use skill-checks to try and impress your killer friends with your alcoholic prowess! Or miss, and embarrass yourself by spilling booze all over your face. Each successful ‘check’ would see booze drain out of the center dial.
Close your eyes and use the skill check dial to float in the direction of your favorite killer. Each spin will have the killers shout “polo” to help guide you.
My first pass for the minigame designs proved to be a bit too complicated to create within the time we had. We scoped them down to a more modular design that functioned in the same way across the board. They still maintained their individual style and story elements.
The narrative for HoY was initially assembled on Miro, a shared digital whiteboard. This is where we created the branching scene layouts, act structure, and eventually all the dialogue. HoY has three acts that coincide with the events of three in-game days. When I was brought onto the project only Act 1 was assembled on the board. One of my first narrative focused tasks was to help build the branching structures for Act 2 and 3. Much of Act 2's story was already set in stone, so I had the help of some loose guidelines for building its branching scene structure. However, Act 3 wasn't even written yet, so I had to create it from scratch while adjusting for feedback from the creative lead and team of writers. Designing all the different pathing for the multitude of end states in Act 3 was probably the most challenging part of this task.
As I continued implementation related work, the director also tasked me with providing story feedback, which was probably one of my favorite parts about working on the project. Sometimes notes were polish tweaks to small sections of dialogue. Other times it was major adjustments to end states, story-beats, or character interactions. It was nice to feel so included on the narrative team as someone whos main task was implementation focused. Being able to see story changes I made make it into the final product was incredibly rewarding.
Over the course of the game the player can earn positive or negative affinity points as they attempt to romance the island's seductive killers. Obtaining these points determines the direction of character relationships and what kind of ending the player achieves. The writers already had some ideas for where these points could be earned, but my job was to make sure all of them had meaningful placement. Determining how and where these points were acquired was one of my earliest tasks on the project. I also had to set up all the unique variables needed to access secret areas or special endings. Lastly, the most challenging step was to balance the values of affinity variables across the entire game. This included making some killers easier to romance than others, but not to the point where the game felt completely unbalanced. Balancing the point system that determined the direction of the game itself was a process that required constant playtesting and adjustment.