World of Bridge: Road to Paris is a cross-platform card game I worked on at Vertical, as the project’s game and narrative designer, from 2019 to 2021. It can be played online here.
The Game
World of Bridge is a serious game we made in partnership with 52 Entertainment and the french contract bridge federation (FFB). Its goal is to teach players of all ages the rules and strategies of the card game of contract bridge, in a more bite-sized, fun and approachable way than traditional methods.
The Design
To do so, we structured the lessons provided by the FFB into game levels full of bouncy yet explanatory animations and an accessible, cartoony art style.
We interspersed the levels with visual novel dialogues, small unlockable rewards, and a light story about the protagonist accompanying their bridge playing friend on a journey.
As the project’s designer since day 1, I was in charge of conceiving the story and characters, and designing the UI layout (both PC & mobile) and unlockable content (achievements & lexicon words).
I also worked with the programmers so that our level scripting tool (Yarn Spinner) could interact with our card game engine.
The Content
Once preproduction was over, I was tasked with writing every level. I used the bridge lessons supplied by the FFB, and turned it into naturally-flowing dialogue between the characters, and clear branching between the different dialog options.
I wrote the characters’ reactions to wrong answers so that it was clear lesson-wise, while staying in-character and avoiding repetitions despite the numerous possible answers to questions.
Some levels also contain various deals (= preset distributions of the 52 cards) the player can freely play (with AI playing for the 3 other NPC bridge players).
I designed and balanced those deals so that they match the lessons they are placed in, requiring the player to use the techniques they have just learned to win the deal.