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QUEEN BE

Queen Be is an interactive action mystery cyberpunk retelling of Snow White made with Twine. Designed as a blueprint for a fictitious game's narrative structure, it presents the last chapter of the story, featuring the final confrontation between an android protagonist, Snow, and her archenemy, the Queen, an android of the same model aiming to eliminate all others.

As her quest for vengeance continues, Snow finds the Queen's hearts, her source of power, and has the choice to destroy or absorb them. The more hearts she absorbs, the more her action choices become more violent rather than pacific, which has in turn an impact on the end, in addition to the final decision Snow must make.

One of the particularities of Queen Be lies in the system I built for the confrontation scene, which allows the player to simultaneously move through the room towards the queen, avoiding her sniper bullets, and engage in dialogue with her in the hope of provoking and destabilizing her, thus creating an opportunity to neutralize her.

What I did in this project:

  • Designed the concept and narrative context with my teammates.

  • Designed the interactive structure and wrote a large part of the Twine.

  • Designed a system allowing the player to simultaneously move through the warehouse and engage in dialogue with the Queen.

  • Made a storyboard for a cutscene with a teammate.

  • Structured the story using the 5-act story structure.

  • Designed the map for a location that can be navigated non-linearly.

Authors : Alexandre Gomes Ferreira, Julie Lecomte and Julien Pineault

Final Confrontation System

In the final confrontation with the Queen, the player must manage their movements in space in parallel with dialogue.

The Queen tries to kill Snow with her sniper, so Snow must move between 5 possible hiding spots (Pod 1, Column 1, Pod 2, Column 2, Pod 3) in order to reach the Queen and disarm her. The Queen and Snow engage in a dialogue at the same time and try to provoke each other.

Anytime Snow tries to move between two hiding spots, she can be shot by the Queen, but the links have not been included in the Twine for simplicity. From Column 2 and Pod 3, it is possible to run towards the Queen, but there are only 3 situations in which the Queen will not succeed in shooting Snow at that moment:

  • If she is provoked sufficiently to make her lose her temper;

  • If Snow reveals her knowledge of the character White in order to shock her;

  • If Snow doesn't say anything at all from the beginning to the end and just lets her uneasiness grow.

In order to better represent real-time gameplay, when Snow moves twice in a row without talking, the system will move on to the Queen's next line, as if Snow had simply chosen not to say anything. When the player ends up at the last level of dialogue, they have 4 rounds to move before the Queen falls silent in order to focus, which constitutes an inevitable failure to reach her when Snow tries.

When Snow is hiding behind a pod, it is possible to disconnect the body it contains. If it is done, this clone will not be able to come to the Queen's aid during the final fight.

Mirror Cutscene Storyboard

5-Act Story Structure

Map of the Queen's Quarters

aerial photo of green trees