Bring Da Beat Back
Junior Game Team Project (Spring 2026)
Bring Da Beat Back is a rhythm-based beat-em-up set in the fictional city of Carmenja, which was taken over by the evil music mafia, Nulltone. You play as a rebellious teenager, Beatrix, along with her robot companion Cube, as you fight your way through the city center, taking down Nulltone's robot enforcers to bring music back to the city.In this project I worked on the Environmental Storytelling, Character Backstories, and Dialogue in order to introduce the game’s story to those who want to learn about it while simultaneously providing the reason for players to care about the game’s combat. On top of that, I created more detailed documentation for other designers and developers to use to maintain the consistency of the game’s world.
Environmental Storytelling
Included here are a few in-game screenshots of some environmental storytelling I created for our game. Because the gameplay is more focused on combat, I had to rely more on environmental storytelling to display the game’s narrative, as there was less focus on dialogue as a whole. These screenshots show the various ways that I show the music mafia, Nulltone, having control over the city through their propaganda, as well as the effects their existence has had on the locals. The third image shows how Nulltone’s takeover has resulted in many music-themed shops having to close due to music being banned, while the fourth image displays graffiti over the Nulltone propaganda as a way of portraying the dissatisfaction of the people in the city at Nulltone. Each of these pieces of environmental storytelling is meant to be subtle ways to show the story that, when combined together, makes the world feel much more in depth.
Character Sheets
Here’s one of the character sheets I made for our game’s protagonist, Beatrix. This character sheet lists out many of Beatrix’s personality traits and other minor details about her character, as well as a summary of her backstory. Although not every detail needed to be included in the game itself, the purpose of all this information is to help the rest of the team keep all aspects of Beatrix consistent across the game, such as her model, dialogue, animations, etc. There is a similar character sheet for her sidekick, Cube, as well as a more basic sheet for the antagonist, Synthslayer.
There was a bit of difficulty I had when it came to some of the finer details of the character. My biggest issue was trying to avoid having characters that felt like they fit too closely to stereotypes so that they would feel distinct from the norm. Likewise, it was also challenging to try and design a character whose personality is so different from my own. What helped me work through these problems was talking with other people who had those personality traits and figuring out what they would do/feel/say, and using that as a baseline to design our game’s characters better.
Dialogue
Included here is a sample of both the protagonist and antagonist dialogues that are actually in the game. This dialogue went through several iterations after getting feedback from both other teammates and professors. These dialogue samples are written to match as closely as possible to the way these characters would actually talk based on their personalities. Similarly, I had to research the kinds of slang that were used during the time period the game is meant to take place in, being the early 2000s, and finding places where that slang would be used by the characters during the game. On top of all that, the dialogue is meant to be a more direct way of telling players who want to know more about the lore the important parts of the story that aren’t shown in the world itself.
On a similar note, the antagonist lines went through even more iterations than the dialogue itself, as it is one of the more important parts of the game and the story. Its purpose is to give the player a sense of accomplishment as they complete objectives by showing the main antagonist slowly being more affected by Beatrix’s music, causing him to start rhyming more. This also leans into the antagonist’s backstory as a former famous musician before becoming the leader of Nulltone, while adding a bit of humor to the game.
Story Structure
Displayed here is simply the basic 5-act story structure that the game is meant to follow. It includes information about the expository events that happen before the game begins, followed by the major gameplay beats that the player would go through and how they are important to the story. The intent of the 5-act story structure is to provide a more in-depth overview of the important events the player should go through so the team can keep track of what areas are most important for gameplay.
I actually had to rewrite the game’s story a few times over the course of development when certain levels or mechanics had to be cut. Even though it was a bit of a shame, it helped me cut the story down to the most critical aspects that needed to be there for the game to make sense.
