Nine Lives to Ruin a Kingdom — Narrative Card Game

A — WORLD-BUILDING

Before starting the game design, I focused on organizing and defining the overall narrative system and world framework of the project. Using the World-building Map, I outlined the structural relationships and intertwined destinies among gods, humans, and demons. At the same time, I created a Character Mood Board to visually define each main character’s personality, colour palette, and symbolic meaning.

On the narrative side, I integrated the Intro Animation with the Main Game Story to ensure a smooth transition between the two mediums. To make the story more traceable and coherent, I designed a Branching Story Map that clearly marks all key decisions and their outcomes.

The main goal of this stage was to establish a solid foundation for the interactive storytelling system, ensuring the game world has both internal logic and long-term scalability.

B — CHARACTER & RELATIONSHIPS

Early exploration stayed deliberately loose — colour blocks, silhouettes and proportion tests rather than finished designs. Sharp, angular forms read as danger; flowing contours read as allure and hidden strength.

The story turns on three figures. Nüwa issues the divine command but never strikes directly. Daji, a nine-tailed fox in human form, is sent into the Shang court to bring King Zhou down — and begins to waver between obedience and her own will. King Zhou, blinded by pride, resists both the gods and Daji, and destroys himself through his own defiance.

C — ESTABLISHING GAME TONE & STORY STYLE

Not just a story-driven card game — a psychological duel between fate and freedom, divinity and desire. The tone is dark and absurd: the solemnity of epic myth crossed with a cold reading of faith and human nature, carried by black humour and cruel irony.

D — GAME CORE LOOP

Draw a Card → Make a Decision → Change Stats.

Every card is a moral event. Each choice shifts four attributes — Love, Corruption, Divine Favour, Freedom — which decide the branches and endings you reach. Mini-games sit at key decision points to raise the emotional stakes.

E — FIRST PROTOTYPE

In less than two weeks, I completed a quick playable prototype to test the feasibility of the narrative flow and interaction system.

Although the demo had a fairly complete structure — allowing players to experience dialogue choices, branching paths, and the core gameplay loop — user feedback showed only moderate engagement. Players understood the concept but lacked emotional investment in the story.

Through this test, I realised that the core loop lacked strong appeal and rewarding feedback, and that future iterations should focus on making the interaction more dynamic and immersive.

F — PRODUCTION FLOW

I handled the core loop, card system, storytelling visuals, early character concept, and user testing.

The storytelling workflow stayed simple: script and rough storyboards → thumbnails to fix the visual tone → AI for the initial motion → After Effects and TouchDesigner for effects and refinement → sound and voiceover last. Detailed narrative art takes a lot of time, so the storytelling here leans abstract and expressive.

G — CARD DESIGN

Three card types are planned — Fate, Element and Artifact. Fate and Artifact are still conceptual; Element Cards are the only fully implemented system, and they carry the core of combat.

In Taoist philosophy each of the Five Elements has a Yin and a Yang form, so every element here has two personalities, drawn as simple totem-like symbols. Yang Earth is an unbreakable wall, Yin Earth is moist soil that nurtures life. Yang Metal is a rough battle axe; Yin Metal a precise ornamental hairpin. Yang Fire explodes; Yin Fire glows quietly like a ritual flame.

The visuals stay lightweight — easy to read, easy to tell apart, and efficient to produce at this stage.

H — GAME ASSETS

H.1 — NARRATIVE SEQUENCES

H.2 — SYMBOLS & ICONS

H.3 — UI & INTERFACE