GoT - Winterfell

An action-adventure RPG set in a medieval world inspired by Winterfell from Game of Thrones; a murder mystery unfolding within the walls of a Northern keep, where a trusted guard uncovers a conspiracy closer to the throne than expected. Solo-developed, currently in pre-production.

Premise

Set some time after the events of the show, Winterfell casts the player as Rodrik, a guard investigating the murder of a royal messenger. What starts as a straightforward search for a lone culprit unravels into a conspiracy involving stolen horses, a secret correspondence, and a fellow guard, Maeron, who turns out to be far more involved than he lets on. The narrative moves the player through the castle's social layers — stables, marketplace, godswood, crypts — as the mystery closes in.

Why This Project

Game of Thrones is one of my favorite series, and it's never had a proper video game adaptation. I wanted a portfolio project ambitious enough to prove I could design at that scale, not just a level, but a full narrative-driven RPG structure, systems included, and Winterfell was the setting that made the most sense to build around.

Current Progress

The project is currently in a gym-test phase: a testing environment where I'm building and validating individual systems in isolation before assembling them into an actual level. The combat system is tested and functional, simple by design, but solid enough to support a blockout. The pickup system is inventory-less, kept intentionally simple. I'm currently finishing a dialogue system with branching, multiple-choice responses.

Narrative Structure

Alongside the systems, I've mapped out a full 11-step story structure — from a training tutorial through escalating investigation beats to a final confrontation with Maeron in the crypts beneath the castle. It's built to alternate investigation, dialogue, and combat at a pace that keeps tension rising, though the structure is still expected to change as the systems it depends on get built and tested.

Design Deep Dive — Combat & Encounter Scaling

Problem: With a simple combat system, difficulty still needed to escalate meaningfully across the story's combat beats, from a training bout with a recruit to hired blades, guards, and a final boss fight, without adding mechanical complexity the system wasn't built for.

Approach: Rather than introducing new moves or systems, I scaled difficulty through three variables layered onto the same base combat: enemy HP, damage output, and parry probability. Each encounter tunes these three levers to match its narrative weight, a lone thief hits differently than two hired blades ambushing the player, and Maeron's boss fight sits at the top of all three.

Status: Tested and functional at blockout level. It's a deliberately simple approach, but it does the job the story structure needs from it, clear, readable difficulty progression without overengineering a system that's meant to support narrative pacing, not be the game's main draw.

Design Deep Dive — Pickup System

Problem: The story revolves around a handful of narratively-critical objects, the stolen item, the parchment pieces, the seal, not a broad loot pool. A full inventory system with slots, weight, and categories would solve a problem the game doesn't actually have.

Approach: I built a lightweight, inventory-less pickup system: story-relevant items are collected and used directly, without menu management standing between the player and the narrative. It keeps focus on the investigation itself rather than on item logistics.

Status: Functional at blockout level. As a nice-to-have, I'd like to add a small item tray in the bottom-left corner, just enough to give the player visual feedback when something is picked up, without turning it into a full inventory. If Winterfell's scope expands to include broader equipment or consumables down the line, a proper inventory system would be worth building, but for a story built around a small set of quest-critical objects, it would add overhead without adding value.