In addition to being Silverstring Media’s lead writer, Lindsay is an accomplished graphic novelist and works in brand licensing for Among Us. They co-wrote the game I Was A Teenage Exocolonist, and their first graphic novel, Motherlover, debuted this year. They bring this gamut of experience to bringing the world of Greenhearth Necromancer to life: a bustling co-op of disparate neighbours coming together to form a community.
Welcome to the fourth monthly developer log for Greenhearth Necromancer!
Our monthly devlogs will highlight different aspects of Greenhearth and will share insights into its development. As a semi-idle magical gardening sim, there will be much to share as development continues! This month’s entry is a Q&A with our narrative designer, Lindsay Ishihiro.
As you step into the shoes of Echo, our non-binary necromancer who has inherited their Grandmother’s old co-op apartment, there is more to take care of than just the plants that take up residence on your balcony. The Greenhearth Co-Op is a community filled with quirky characters and regular neighbours who you’ll bump into and get to know. There is a community market to barter for goods, and some neighbours will come to you for help, as they did with Rose, your grandmother.
In a world like our own, but with the twist of magic, many things will seem familiar. Your role as a necromancer goes beyond just some simple spells & potions, and it will be up to you to decide how that role fits you.
A community does not grow overnight, so let’s learn more about Greenhearth Necromancer’s narrative…
What is “narrative” design? What does crafting a story for a game look like?
It’s easy to understand what writing is: coming up with the characters, the world, the plot. It’s harder to explain what narrative design is because it exists in conversation with the other disciplines of game development. Narrative design is the unseen waiter that explains the menu, lays out the cutlery, and brings the feast to the table. It controls the way the story is experienced in the context of the entire game — what systems encourage and reward the player for engaging with the story, and how the story supports other systems like level design, art, sound direction, and gameplay.
Writing a story for a game, too, is a different experience than writing in a linear, traditional format. It’s delivered in small pieces of story: cutscenes, conversations with townspeople, even the flavour text on weapons. It’s reactive to the player, and care has to be taken to ensure that it’s experienced in the right order and at the right speed. You can’t lay out a story and tell the player to read it like a novel from beginning to end — they are going to live in the world, and the story is everything they experience when they do. As a craft, it’s more similar to being a DM than an author; you may have an overarching story, but you have to be prepared for the player to spend an hour trying to find a door, or to fall in love with an NPC you intended to only use once.
Who does the player embody in Greenhearth Necromancer, and why did you choose them?
The player character — Echo, by default — is a recently graduated necromancer who has taken over their late grandmother’s apartment. Their grandmother was a powerful greenwitch and a pillar of the local community, a role you struggle to fill as a socially-anxious weirdo who spent the last few years learning how to raise the dead.
Echo is a fun persona to embody because they speak to a lot of relatable themes: feeling directionless after graduation, being an outsider to a new community, and struggling to find motivation when the good fortune and opportunities enjoyed by previous generations have dried up. A lot of the story is about overcoming those feelings and finding meaning in your life.
How is a story told in an idle game? How does the genre shape the narrative?
By necessity, the story of Greenhearth Necromancer has to be told in bite-sized pieces, experienced over the length of the player’s time with the game. The original idea was that the narrative would fit on the back of a single card, with only one round of choices — thankfully, during development, we allowed ourselves a little more room, but not much; the hope is that the player enjoys the narrative parallel to the idle gameplay, not overwhelming it.
Why is a story of a necromancer set during modern times?
Why are there grains of sand on a beach? If magic exists, then let it be in a setting that we can use as a lens to look at our own. I think it’s interesting to wonder how the addition of magic would illuminate some things in our world, letting them be seen and talked about more fully.
How does magic work in this world? How common are magic users?
How magic works is one of the discoveries you’ll make during the game, so I’ll leave that to be explored by players. But, as for the role of magic as you know it, low magic is commonplace. There are no magical powers that would make someone a superhero or, more importantly, a supervillain — just like in our world, that’s what billionaires are for. The spectrum of ability is similar to musical ability: many people have no magical ability, just as many people have a hobbyist appreciation for doing magic, and very rare people (like you and your grandmother) have masterful control of an extremely specialized magical talent.
Who is your favourite character in the game, and what is one of your favourite scenes that they have?
There are five (human) characters that you can befriend, and I do like all of them for different reasons, but one of my favourites is probably Demeter. Demeter is a bubbly influencer who focuses on homesteading content like foraging, cooking, and sewing as a way to find peace in a chaotic, cold world. I simply love every scene they’re in, even the ones where they’re crawling in the bushes looking for mushrooms. Because they’re nonmagical, I think the player will see in them a lot of similarities with how we’ve been alienated from the labour of our own lives, and enjoy going on that journey with them.
Does the story “end” in Greenhearth Necromancer at some point? What does narrative progression look like?
The main arc of the story does end, because everything must — as much as I’d like to keep going, they do turn the lights off in the writers' room eventually. But you can continue to play the game as long as it’s useful to you. Neighbours will still visit, plants will still grow, and the world will be there for as long as you need it to be.
What inspirations did you draw from for the characters, world, and lore of Greenhearth Necromancer?
For the characters, we took inspiration from our own neighbours and the people we see on a daily basis whose lives we barely touch. ‘The guy you always see walking his dog’ became Gulshan, a firefighter near retirement who dotes on his superstar diva magical familiar and secretly wishes he could shine as bright as she does.
The world, too, is very much inspired by our own, just with magic brought to the forefront. I don’t tend to rely on specific works for inspiration, but the relationship between life and death magic will feel familiar to anyone who reads magical fantasy about ‘good and bad magic’ and has ever thought, ‘surely, it’s more complex than that.’
If you could write another story set in the game’s world at any time or place, what would you want to explore?
Necromancy has fallen out of favour in our world, suppressed by those who’d rather see infinite growth and not dwell on its eventual decline. The era where that suppression was happening is one that’s really ripe for the picking — a proper fantasy story with heroes, intrigue, and miraculous feats of magic. During Greenhearth Necromancer, Echo is discovering what was lost when necromancers were forced underground, so it’d be really interesting to explore what really happened and not what Echo partially understands.
What does your writing process look like? Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into games?
Writing for games involves a significant amount of planning, checking, testing, re-checking, approvals from other stakeholders... so the tasty part of writing, the time where you’re actually putting words into a document that will be read by human eyes, is only part of the work. I prefer to do all of my planning up-front, to be able to communicate to everyone the scope of what I’ll be working on, so that when it’s time to simply write, I can do so in a space that’s been clearly defined. I’m a bit of a process wonk; I love a good spreadsheet or Notion database.
As for advice for someone who wants to get into games, and into writing specifically... well, it’s a rough time to be entering the industry. It’s always difficult to find work as a writer, and in games, that’s especially true. Rarely will someone hire an unknown, untested writer, so the best strategy is to make yourself known and tested. Make games with your friends, during game jams, or even on your own. Teach yourself the basics of making a game, like learning Twine or Ink. And when you have something, put it somewhere people can play. The more you look and act like you’ve done this before, the more likely it is that someone will take a chance on you.
Most importantly, make friends with other people in the same boat. Unionize, if you can. If enough of us spit hard enough at this broken industry, the water will rise.
Thanks for reading all about the game design of Greenhearth Necromancer! If you don’t want to miss updates about the game, subscribe to our newsletter and wishlist the game on Steam!