New Year, New Plot

Happy 2026!

Before jumping into the proper post (and since I was sick last week) I want to briefly say goodbye to last year and share some amazing news. Personally speaking 2025 has been a year of achievements and reencounters. I can’t be more grateful for it. It feels like a proper time to close a chapter and start working towards new goals. I expect 2026 to be a year of construction, and Vessel will be one of the pillars of what I want to achieve. Regarding that, I’m really happy to announce that we are now a team of four. As usual I won’t disclose any names yet, but the code and narrative teams are now bigger!

Adapting the plot to Gemino

At Welcome to Gemino city, we discovered Vessel’s new location. I already presented the most important feats and districts of the city but since there is a new environment, and it is supposed to have more character than the anonymous forest where the original story took place, the plot has been revised. Check it out! 

Revised plot: Spoilers ahead!

After 10 years working as a security member of the Copacabana’s hits & drink club, Lucas is fired. He just made a small but critical mistake, beat the shit out of the son of one really important judge. Who cares if the boy was drunk, violent, and tried to force someone? Quoting Lucas' boss, Miguel, “it’s easier that way, lets hope they forget about the club and you”. A solid plan, except for the fact that they didn’t. That important judge turned out to be the owner of half of the neighbourhood apartment blocks; and you know, misfortune never strikes only once so aside from unemployed Lucas is also homeless.  

With Miguel’s recommendation Lucas heads to Gemino city to work as a security staff member of the Geminia’s History Museum and Archives. Here is where the story begins.

Lucas was expecting some decaying and depressing city but he isn’t prepared to arrive at such a lonely place. He parks at the harbor office and heads to the entrance when he realises that there is literally no one left in the city. He tries to call Miguel and realises that his phone has no signal, therefore Lucas decides to use the office phone. While reaching the phone he hears a scream coming from a security camera and sees a police officer surrounded by strange creatures near his car. After aiding the woman, they both head the offices.

Alex presents herself as the main police officer of the town and exposes the current situation: a cult has taken over the town and streets are extremely dangerous. Only a few people haven't been murdered, converted, or evacuated: Alex, Carlo, Lucia, Jerome, and Eva, who is missing. This survivor group is trying to find the missing child before leaving. Alex also reveals to be Miguel contact in the city.

Inside the harbor offices, an old military fort, Alex and Lucas try to reach Jerome who is preparing the transportation to leave. In order to do that, they need to reach the other side of the building that has been isolated for security reasons. After reaching him, Jerome grants a weapon to Lucas and informs the pair about Carlo and Lucía’s intentions. The couple of academics are exploring the naval cemetery aiming to find Eva kidnapped inside the “Circe’s Palace”, the most recent addition to the harbor.

Alex and Lucas, dividing efforts with Carlo and Lucía, head to the museum. After leaving the harbor they get inside the underground city where Alex starts to feel ill. Investigating a little bit they find out that someone has been placing ancient runes and ritual artifacts over the place that influence on the locals. Lucas destroys those to make Alex feel better. In order to progress to the botanical garden they need to unlock the mall entrance.

Exploring the tunnels to achieve this, Alex and Lucas find Lucía unconscious. They carry the academic into a safe spot at the mall where Lucas and Alex decide to look for some medical supplies to help her. While looking for those, a giant monster appears. There is a hard fight but with both efforts Alex and Lucas make keep the beast under control. During the fight Lucas notices that the beast has a knife that isn’t using. He steals it and uses it against the monster. After wounding him the beast ran away.

After attending Lucía and their own injuries, Lucía explains that Carlo was a cultist all along. The expedition to the cruise was a pretext to kidnap her but she escaped. In order to get her back Carlo transformed himself into the monster that Lucas and Alex just fighted. Lucía also explains that Carlo was hoping that Alex headed to the ship since the cult brought Eva to the museum to sacrifice her.

After some discussion, and since Lucía can’t make it alone back to the harbor, Alex and Lucas split efforts. Alex will escort Lucía back to safety since she already has no ammo and it’s not as good as fighting as Lucas. He will cross the botanical garden and rescue Eva from the museum. Before splitting ways, Lucía tells Lucas that the knife that he stole from Carlo is important since it was the one used to transform him into a monster and therefore it has been embedded with a magic that can destroy him.

Once Lucas reaches the botanical garden he heads to the museum. The path is longer than expected due to the monsters and several sinkings that forced him to take a longer route. At the very entrance of the museum Carlo appears. 

There is a huge, bloody, and visceral fight but Lucas kills Carlo and enters the museum. At the entrance the reception phone starts ringing and when Lucas answers Jerome tells him how to unlock the access of the subterranean museum, the temple,  and where to find more ammo and supplies. Lucas gives him his personal number to get better assistance.

After fulfilling Jerome's instructions, Lucas descends into the temple. He finds Eva tied to an altar surrounded by cultists and monsters worshipping her. After killing all of them, Lucía and Alex appear in the room from another tunnel and explain that Jerome helped them to reach there safely. Alex treats Lucas' injuries while Lucía unties Eva. Lucas's phone receives a call from Jerome but before being able to answer it, he loses his senses.

Lucas wakes up tied to the altar like Eva was a few moments before. Alex, Lucía, and Eva reveal themselves as the priestesses of C’Lna’ls cult. They sacrifice Lucas as a vessel to host C’Lnal’s and make an avatar of the elder god on earth.

About the changes

There are a couple of things that are interesting about this rewriting. The first one is that even if the location changed the main plot is almost the same. Despite that, this new story has more pace and it’s easier to visualize and imagine. The second interesting thing is that this one actually helps to design the game. Since Vessel is a narrative driven single player experience we are designing it like an amusement park ride. Meaning that we start defining time sections where we want the player to feel in a certain way, and then we build the rest of the experience around it.

Sectioning the game from the plot 

Following the prior philosophy we drafted this first approach. It’s (as usual) very likely to be modified, i.e. the Carlo sections are probably too long, Helping Lucía is probably shorter than it needs to be. Anyway, this first draft is already useful to spot potential demos (gameplay sections of about 30 minutes that are evocative and representative enough to sell the game).

Lucas gameplay sections time framed

As you can see in the graph, we identified three possible sections. While the three of them has potential we decided to go with Demo A for the following reasons:

1. Narrative speaking is the introduction of the game so we don’t need to provide information unnaturally.

2. The tutorial can also be introduced naturally.

3. It allows us to work on a part of the actual game instead of some custom and special product.

4. The harbor location allows us to play with the light and we find it more evocative than the other two areas. 

5. It has a clear and contained goal.

6. It allows us to build all the major systems of the game and worry about the companion (which is one of the unknowns of the project) later.

   
   

What do you think?

I literally can’t wait to see everything start falling in place. But now I want your feedback! Leave me a comment with your impressions of this new plot, and tell me: Do you agree with the chosen demo? Please rate this post, share with friends (or enemies if you hated it), and consider supporting on Ko-fi!