SHAWN PORTER / NARRATIVE WRITER & WORLDBUILDER
I write character, setting, and player-facing story systems for worlds people can investigate, inhabit, and carry with them. My work spans original interactive prototypes and authored game-world writing, with a focus on atmosphere, motivation, player discovery, and the relationship between story and play.
PROFESSIONAL GAME WORLDBUILDING
Authored and conceptualized for Fight Legends, these pieces connect world premise, character motivation, player progression, and the systems surrounding a developing fighting game.
World premise and social conflict
A setting document that connects resource scarcity, class, interdimensional expansion, the Rift Wars, and the forces shaping its fighters.
“Now, wars are fought with computer code if you are a suit and with blood and bone if you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”
Multiverse Theory · Excerpt
Character origin and motivation
A character introduction tracing Nix’s forced experimentation, escape from the Agency, and personal reason for entering the Fight Legends conflict.
Real-world character adaptation
A piece that blends a real combat athlete’s background with the future history, stakes, and rules of the Fight Legends universe.
Narrative progression and player choice
A player-facing explanation of how character context, regional progression, event choices, escalating AI behavior, and rewards were intended to work together.
PLAYABLE INTERACTIVE MYSTERY
A sci-fi detective prototype built around environmental discovery. Players inspect a crime scene, collect evidence from the body, damaged speaker, and terminal, then use a Caseboard to weigh competing theories and pursue the strongest lead.
I conceived and scripted the full interaction flow, including the scene premise, evidence, use actions, terminal log, theory-selection interface, and completion state. The prototype uses player investigation and inference as the route into its larger mystery.
Play the prototype ↗
IN DEVELOPMENT / POINT AND CLICK NARRATIVE
Story concept · Worldbuilding · Three gray-box scenes · Early puzzle design · Music integration
Case-Zero is an in-development sci-fi point-and-click investigation into creativity, authorship, and the power to decide whose expression counts. When human intention and artificial intelligence shape the same work, where does the musician end and the tool begin? What happens when that distinction carries consequences for someone’s freedom?
A planned r3plic4nt album functions both as the game’s soundtrack and as music within its world. Players encounter the songs as atmosphere and expression before investigating their origins, bringing their own emotional response into a story about artistic legitimacy, identity, and control.
After building The Last Rehearsal, I began Case-Zero in Adventure Game Studio to develop a deeper original adventure world. I built the first three gray-box scenes and a simple puzzle, then paused expansion to establish the story foundation before committing further locations and interactions.
NARRATIVE IN PLAY
On original projects, I work across story, gray-box spaces, puzzle flow, interaction implementation, and music so narrative decisions can be tested through play rather than described only on the page.