Cameryn Tuliao
I'm a narrative designer with a game design background, based in South Essex, England. I'm an IG50 winner 2024, a Narrative Department alumni and a BAFTA YGD alumni. I graduated from Aberty University with First Class Honours in 2023 for Game Design and Production.This is my Narrative Design Portfolio. If you wish to look at my Game Design skills, please re-direct yourself to my Game Design Portfolio.
Desert Angels
Desert Angels is a third-person, story-driven exploration game set in a desert scrapyard. There's a generator buried in the scrapyard that can restore power to your village's water purification system, and save your people. Uncover the scrapyard's memories — or blast those memories to pieces — to find it.Genre: Walking Sim, Adventure
Roles: Narrative Designer
Team: 5 Members
Development: 1 year
Desert Angels: Relics Compendium
Item descriptions for the discoverable relics in Desert Angels, including the blackout poetry that appeared when the player destroyed a relic instead of interacting with it.
Net Carbon
An educational platformer game about carbon capture storage, and how to save energy around the house. It was made for young children, and was showcased in COP 26; Glasgow, Scotland.Genre: Education, 2D Platformer
Roles: Narrative Designer, Game Designer
Team: 4 members
Development: 6 weeks
Net Carbon: Educational Choices
A narrative document that showcases how educational information was presented to a young audience based on the choices they made in the game.
Self-made Therapy
A 5-10 minute interactive fiction created in Videotome about self-hate, healing and self-love.Genre: Interactive Fiction
Role: Solo Development
Development: 1 month
Merchant Barks: SpreadSheet
A spreadsheet of barks about a merchant who was a past adventurer.
Desert Angels
Genre: Walking Sim, Adventure
Engine: Unity
Roles: Narrative Designer, Additional Writer, QA
Team: 5 members
Development: 1 year
Desert Angels is a third-person, story-driven exploration game set in a desert scrapyard. There's a generator buried in the scrapyard that can restore power to your village's water purification system, and save your people. Uncover the scrapyard's memories — or blast those memories to pieces — to find it.
Responsibilities:- Create item descriptions for the relics compendium found by the player which further explores the world and their connection to the characters.
- Write black out poetry as an extension for the item descriptions. This is shown to the player when the player blows up a relic.
- Playtest the game with every new build to check for bugs and errors, focusing on areas such as gameplay, narrative and user experience.
- Showcased the game throughout multiple events such as Game Dev Local Expo, GameDev Lisbon and Develop Brighton 2025 at Brilliant Indie Treasures.
Narrative Design Breakdown
A full sample of what the item description can be found on this page.This section is to break down the premise of blackout poetry that were used when players destroyed relics in their playthrough.
The idea of blackout poetry came from examining a theme of the game, Memory. More specifically, the returning question: What gets to be remembered? What gets to be forgotten?I proposed two different compendiums, one showcasing the full item description if it's interacted with--another showcasing something else if the player destroys the relic. The main developer approved of the idea as it worked with the message of the game, and gave me the task to create the blackout poetry as I already had created item descriptions.The blackout poetry came with two revisions, with the samples showcasing the finalised version that appeared in the game. I gave myself three self-imposed rules to fit with nature of "forgetting":
Hide all the names of the characters.
It must have a story within the blackout so it's not random.
All location names must be hidden too (including something generic as desert).
Since discord was the main source of communication, I took advantage of the spoilers function to mimic the blackout needed for the poetry. This way I was able to quickly edit and see what the description looked like before it was implemented. This ideation process allowed me to do multiple revisions quickly as I received real-time feedback from the team.
The item description shows when the player interacted with the relic and "remembered."
The first attempt at black out poetry. Feedback was given that I should be more aggressive with the blackout, but they could see the story I was envisioning.
The second attempt of blackout poetry. Feedback approved of the aggressive blackout, and the story told. No further revisions needed.
Self-made Therapy
Genre: Interactive Fiction
Engine: VideoTome
Roles: Solo Developer
Development: 1 month
Created as a project under Limit Break Mentorship 2025, Self-Made Therapy is a game made to explore the presentation of a story especially in a restrictive engine such as Videotome. Self-Made Therapy is an interactive fiction game focused on self-hate, healing and the passage of time.
Things I learnt during development
Videotome and basic HTML
Better understanding of pacing, and how short text can create impactful moments
A better understanding in presentation from text formats, images and audio.
Narrative Design Breakdown
This section is to explore the idea and the premise of Self-Made Therapy. The game was created in videotome, a minimal narrative engine for making linear text based games. This version of videotome has no choices or branching narrative. Additionally, you can present the text three ways: left, right and centre.Due to the restrictions of videotome, I wanted to focus on a small scope. With this in mind, I initially thought of a discussion between the Devil, God, and a suicidal person. The Devil was on the left, God was on the right, and the person was in the middle. The God and The Devil was trying to give the person a reason to live as suicides made the soul fall to Limbo instead of Heaven or Hell.I realised however, this idea needed the player to make a choice so I scrapped it. Scrapping it however, led me to Self-Made Therapy. A game about a suicidal teenager, who was visited by their future to give them another reason to live.
To keep dialogue readable, the present version (the teenager) would always remain on the left side, with the future alway on the right side. The narration would be in the centre to help visualise the difference between speech and thought.
All of the spoken dialogue is in various shades of green to indicate that they're the same person but just different parts of their life. The darker the shade, the worse their life was, the lighter the shade, the better their life was.
Something I wanted to focus on that's not presented often in narratives of healing is how sometimes when you get better, things will feel worse. Recovery and healing is a messy process, and I wanted the present version to experience that.
I wanted to explore that messy element of recovery through the change of images and pacing of the text. Switching the background in back to back text to show the progression of their mental health, for better or for worse.
Romace
Genre: Visual Novel, Romance
Engine: Renpy
Role: Narrative Designer, Programmer
Team: 3 members
Development: 8 months
Asexuality was never an easy thing for Eunice to communicate to others especially with her friends, potential partners and family. However, life slowly goes on and as new relationships develop, Eunice must find the courage to be true to herself, and to the others around her.
Romace is a visual novel game that explores the topic of asexuality and the difficulties of being asexual in today's modern society. It tackles aspects of asexuality rarely represented in media such as the impact of aphobia, the struggles for asexual men, and how asexuality can affect the dating life. It was created as my final year project for my game design course at Abertay.The theme of asexuality and the difficulties of asexuality was specifically chosen with the queer audience in mind. As an asexual developer, it was important to me to shed light towards lesser known aspects of asexuality, and help other asexual people feel represented in video games. This goal was achieved when the game was published as several asexual folks privately reached out to the team saying how "They felt seen with the struggles Eunice (the main character) was facing."
Narrative Designer Responsibilities:
Research different accounts of asexuality and the asexual struggle.
Develop all of the characters, and collaborate with the art team to show their personality through their art sprites.
Research how other games handle asexuality.
Plan out the story with nodes and flowcharts such as Twine and Miro.
Write and implement the entire game onto Renpy.
Design different mechanics to improve player interactivity.
Set up meetings with the team to discuss where everyone was on the timeline.
Maintain the GitHub, used as a version control, for the development of the game.
Net Carbon
Genre: Platformer, Education
Engine: Unity
Roles: Narrative Designer, Game Designer
Team: 4 members
Development: 7 weeks
Live your life. Capture carbon. Store it into the ground. An educational game about Carbon Capture Storage, made in collaboration with Abertay University, and SSE Thermal.
Net Carbon is an educational game about the carbon capture storage pipeline and how to save energy around the house. The main target audience were young children around primary school ages (5 years old to 12 years old). The game was a client project created for SSE Thermal, and was made under the supervision of Abertay University. Additionally, it was also hosted at COP 26 in 2021, Glasgow Scotland.The game had the opportunity to be presented in the Abertay booth for a science fair made for nearby primary schools. Multiple students came to play the game, and some had engaging discussions with me (the person manning the booth) about the environmental facts shown in the game.
Game Designer Responsibilities:
Design and iterate with the other designer on how the mini-games would work, and how they could explain the carbon capture storage pipeline.
Discuss with SSE Thermal on the carbon capture storage pipeline and how to improve the minigames to reflect the pipeline as closely as possible.
Develop the onboarding for the minigames to allow the player to understand the instructions, and purpose of the game within a first glance. (Inspiration for this was games such as WarioWare and Mario Party.)
Write QA black box and white box test for the playtesters before the COP 26 release.
Narrative Designer Responsibilities:
Research environmental facts that were interesting enough to catch a child's attention, but were still connected to household chores/objects.
Communicate with SSE Thermal on a weekly basis to discuss my research, and my attempts to condense the information for young children.
Iterate on the changes and feedback given by the SSE Thermal team, such as when the information was too dense.
Create the headings for the information short, snappy and ideally with alliteration to grab the children's attention.
High Card Heist
TTRPG System: Custom card system
Role: Solo Developer
Development: 3 months
Created for the PocketQuest Jam 2024, High Card Heist is a TTRPG game that uses a custom system that only needs 2 decks of the standard 52 playing cards. It’s made for 1 Game Master, and 2-4 players with sessions lasting around 2 hours of gameplay. The premise of the game is a group of thieves are attempting to steal from a vault that the players create themselves.
The game is best described as an RPG, RNG experience. Everything from the vault, GM’s obstacles, and player stats are determined by the luck of the cards. The system also includes another mechanic where the players can sacrifice their stats to boost their skills in order to succeed in an action against the GM. I’ve included two examples of plays to showcase two mechanics most common in the game.
Game Designer Responsibilities:- Research games, themes and tropes used in the Heist genre for mechanic and design reasons.
- Design and develop all the mechanics and how the luck of playing cards along with player numbers can affect the gameplay.
- Constant iteration with the system through play testing and gathering feedback to make sure everything is balanced.
- Communicating to both the artists and layout designer to keep track of everything happening in the pipeline.
Narrative Designer Responsibilities:- Research games, themes and tropes used in the Heist genre for narrative reasons.
- Develop the narrative pull to the game and intertwining the roleplay aspect of the game with the different mechanics.
- Create different narrative prompts for the GM to assist them with the play session, especially if they are new to GM-ing and the Heist Genre.
- Write all the rules, systems within the rulebook so that it’s easy to understand.
The Duke's Sister
Genre: Visual Novel, Romance
Engine: Renpy
Role: Narrative Designer, Programmer
Team: 2 members
Development: 1 month
When Amara married Prince Amir for her stepfather’s sake, she didn’t expect to be left to die with her dear husband across the country losing a civil war. She also didn’t expect her final moments to be spent with Avery Ly, an old friend and the cold Duke of the North.So when Amara wakes up on the day her stepfather is to introduce her to Prince Amir, she knows she was sent back in time. Taking this second chance to live her own life, Amara vows to be with the person she truly loves; Evelyn Ly, the Duke’s sister.Can Amara find her happy ending? Or will the future repeat itself?
The Duke’s Sister is a GL OtomeIsekai visual novel, and a submission for the Josei Jam 2024. It was inspired by Fantasy Romance Manhwas (Korean comics), taking the typical tropes such as the 'The Duke of the North' and 'Going back in time' and giving it a 'Girl's love' twist. One of those twists for example, is having the female love interest having a secret identity. Duke Avery Ly is secretly Evelyn Ly.
Responsibilities:- Design and create the characters, drawing in inspirations from tropes and existing romance manhwa
- Collaborated with the plot, direction and theme of the visual novel.
- Wrote the visual novel, and implemented it into Renpy.
StarTales
Genre: Visual Novel, Puzzle
Engine: Unity
Role: Narrative Designer, Game Designer
Team: 4 members
Development: 2 weeks
In a night of reminiscing, connect the stars to retell the story of how the band StarTales came to be...
StarTales is a short visual novel game with a puzzle minigame that recounts the story about how a group of highschool students became a local band. The game was created for the Narrative Driven Jam. The Jam's theme was Warm Feelings with additional themes of puzzles and diegetic music.
Game Designer Responsibilities:- Design the different mechanics for the game.
- Design the different puzzles and how it works with the story.
- These puzzles were simple, connect-the-dots minigames using star constellation.
- The minigames helped bookend the arc, and also act as the transition to the next story arc.
Narrative Designer Responsibilities:- Create a narrative document that has information about the overall plot, story arcs and conflicts in the story.
- Create and develop two female characters.
- Worked with another writer (who is in charge of the male characters) to ensure that we're on the same page regarding the plot, and character development.
- Write the script for the entire story, including the introduction and epilogue of the game.
Projects
Self-Made Therapy
A 5-10 minute interactive fiction created in Videotome about self-hate, healing and self-love.Genre: Interactive Fiction
Role: Solo Development
Development: 1 month
The Duke's Sister
The Duke’s Sister is a GL OtomeIsekai visual novel and a submission for the Josei Jam 2024.Genre: Visual Novel, Romance
Roles: Writer, Narrative Designer
Team: 2 members
Development: 1 month
StarTales
StarTales is a short visual novel with puzzle minigames that recounts the story about how a group of highschool students became a local band.Genre: Visual Novel, Puzzle
Roles: Narrative Designer, Game Designer
Team: 4 members
Development: 2 weeks
Romace
A short visual novel game about two asexuals figuring out how to handle family expectations, dating insecurities and being true to themselves.Roles: Narrative Designer
Team: 3 members
Development: 8 months
Short Stories
Flash Fiction Feb
A short story on time loops, love and saving the world based on a prompt for Flash Fiction Feb.
Narrative Samples
If you prefer to look at sample pdf please click this button.
Playable Samples
Self-Made Therapy (5 minute Interactive Fiction)
A 5-10 minute interactive fiction created in Videotome about self-hate, healing and self-love.
Written Samples
Desert Angels: Relics Compendium
Item descriptions for the discoverable relics in Desert Angels, including the blackout poetry that appeared when the player destroyed a relic instead of interacting with it.
Net Carbon: Educational Choices
A narrative document that showcases how educational information was presented to a young audience based on the choices they made in the game.
Dialogue System
Dialogue system created for the Advanced Storylling Sprint by Kim MacAskill.
Character Profiles
Two page character profile created for the Advanced Storytelling Sprint by Kim MacAskill. The character is the playable character for an adventure, life-sim game.
Merchant Barks: SpreadSheet
A spreadsheet of barks about a merchant who was a past adventurer.
Smart Getaway: Script Excerise
A street-smart lady tries to evade the mob after stealing something valuable from them. (2 pages)
Games
These games are commericial projects that I've worked on. If you want to look at further works, please check out my projects page.
Desert Angels
Desert Angels is a third-person, story-driven exploration game set in a desert scrapyard. There's a generator buried in the scrapyard that can restore power to your village's water purification system, and save your people. Uncover the scrapyard's memories — or blast those memories to pieces — to find it.Genre: Walking Sim, Adventure
Roles: Narrative Designer
Team: 5 Members
Development: 1 year
Net Carbon
An educational platformer game about carbon capture storage, and how to save energy around the house. It was made for young children, and was showcased in COP 26; Glasgow, Scotland.Genre: Education, 2D Platformer
Roles: Narrative Designer, Game Designer
Team: 4 members
Development: 6 weeks
High Card Heist
A TTRPG game that uses a custom system of 52 playing cards deck about heisting a vault. It takes 2 hours to play between a GM and 2-4 players. It’s best described as an RPG, RNG experience, as every mechanic is based on the luck of the cards.Role: Solo Developer
Development: 2 months
About
My name is Cameryn Tuliao. I'm a non-binary game developer with a background of narrative design and game design.If you want to see my focused portfolio on game design, click here.In my spare time, I like to read Korean manhwa and webnovels, go to the gym and play video games. My favourite genres are roguelikes, resource managers, and RPGs.
Testimonials
Cameryn was one of the most helpful and friendly people I have met in the gamedev community. They were always open to partake in a conversation and shine a positive light, but it didn't end there. Cameryn was usually one of the first people to reach out and highlight other people's strengths and wins, and it was uplifting on all levels. On top of that, the amount of effort and heart they put into their work is unmatched and it shows in everything they produced. Cameryn is the ideal member of any game or narrative design team!- Mario Mergola. The Narrative Department
Awards
IG50 Design & Narrative Winner (2024)
BAFTA Young Game Designer, Game Concept award (2015)