Henchman Story

Development Info

Features

Role: Writer and Game Director
Genre: Narrative Adventure / Visual Novel
Players: 1
Engine: RenPy (Python)
Platform: PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4/5 Xbox One and Xbox Series S|X
Time on Team: May 2020 – October 2021
  • A branching, interactive narrative with meaningful choices
  • 11 possible endings
  • Roughly 200,000 words of dialogue and narration
  • Full voice acting with over 7000 voiced lines
  • A colorful cast of characters with multiple romance options
  • Sharp superhero satire that revels in the ridiculousness of its setting

Game Overview

Henchman Story is a narrative adventure where you play as a beleaguered henchman working for a bumbling supervillain. It’s thankless work. Week in and week out, you put on your purple spandex and get the crap beaten out of you by much stronger, much cooler people wearing much fancier spandex. But the checks clear, and Lord Bedlam offers healthcare, so a job’s a job, right? Even henchmen have bills to pay, and sometimes, even henchmen can make choices that change everything.

Responsibilities

  • Wrote a branching, interactive story with a high level of player agency and a script of roughly 200,000 words
  • Directed a team of 25+ across all disciplines – including art, programing, audio and voiceover – all working remotely in 8 different countries
  • Managed the voiceover process for roughly 7000 lines of voiced dialogue, including casting, script formatting and working with actors and voice directors
  • Designed and coded the game’s UI
  • Coded the game’s demo and helped with scenario coding, bug fixing and polish
  • Contributed to SFX creation and implementation
  • Voiced two characters: Stan (the protagonist) and Lord Bedlam
  • Worked with our publisher to help the game release simultaneously on PC and all major consoles
  • Ran a successful Kickstarter campaign
  • Scripted and directed 3 original trailers, and collaborated with PR on a release date announcement and launch campaign