Imperium

Imperium is a Sci-Fi Dystopian Narrative Project created in partnership with my friend, Rebekah O’Brien, during our time at VFS. Here, we follow the story of Enoch Clarke, a scientist who creates vessels for Gods and learns that these beings are being used by his company to control society and, together with a unique God, decides to put a stop to them without realizing that soon his battle would become the world’s as they are far more powerful and influential than he imagined.

This story received the Excellence in Storytelling Award at Vancouver Film School and is used as a reference for new students.

Genre:
Sci-Fi

My Roles:
Creative Director
Narrative Designer
Writer

Disclaimer: The images depicted in Imperium are not my own and are used purely to exemplify the mood and general idea for characters and locations.

Responsibilities

  • Created the concept and general idea

  • Crafted the main character with a backstory, character arc and mannerisms

  • Designed and wrote 7 support characters

  • Created descriptions for significant locations in the world and the mythology behind each

  • Created a complete Walkthrough of one of the game's major levels, including Level Layout, beat chart and three branching paths with gaps and twists

  • Wrote the Dialogue for one pivotal scene in the game

Narrative Overview

Story

The story takes place in a not-so-distant future where, after an insurmountable amount of armed conflicts caused by religious intolerance that almost devastated the world, mankind was able to find peace through beings known as G.O.D.s. For the population, these beings were nothing but divine and sacred, literal Gods walking among us. The truth, however, is not so simple. Their origins can be traced back to a massive health conglomerate called OmniCorp. The company is revered as being the one that created the G.O.D. technology to allow these Gods to descend into our world. Using that as an opportunity for profit, OmniCorp creates Omnia, the religion that, through the use of G.O.D.s, helped unify the world's religions under one banner. Unbeknownst to the population, the company uses these divine beings to steer society in whatever direction will benefit them the most.

Imperium was created to be a Third Person Shooter game with three major pillars: Stealth, Action and Dialogue, where players would be able to make the most out of the experience by expressing themselves in each of these pillars.

Goal and Theme

With Imperium, our goal was to create a story about the perceived value of freedom and the sacrifices that come with it. This is a world that appears peaceful on the surface level, but it only takes a single look through its deep secrets to realize how fragile that peace is and the cost that comes with it. Here, companies exploit people's faith to the point of dictating their lives, and the few aware of the truth have almost no power to fight back.

At the end of the day, Imperium is a story about freedom. It's a story about how humanity should look not to deities or humans we deify to determine their path but to themselves.