Narrative Design Consultancy

At Tea-Powered Games we help people tell better interactive stories, in new and interesting ways. We like telling STORIES THAT EXIST HAND-IN-HAND WITH GAMEPLAY, rather than ones that are layered over the top. We enjoy convincing dialogue, subverting expectations in storytelling, and having a chat over a nice cup of tea.


We work with the best studios to make their games even better, taking on SCRIPT-WRITING, EDITING, STORY AND WORLD CONCEPTING, NARRATIVE TROUBLESHOOTING and fully fledged NARRATIVE DESIGN. But we also make our own games (such as Dialogue: A Writer’s Story and Elemental Flow), so you can rest assured we know the process like the back of our hands!

Game Design and Development

Maybe you have a brilliant narrative game, but are short on the development skills to bring it to life. We can help there too! SPECIALISING IN UNITY DEVELOPMENT, we help build a coherent visual design for games, from useful and visually pleasing USER INTERFACES and smooth, engaging TEXT DEPLOYMENT, to seamless USER EXPERIENCE. Our skills in creating narrative games come as a bonus, guiding the narrative to work with your game as it is developed.


Did we mention that we have plenty of experience SMOOTHING THE WORKFLOW FROM TEXT TO GAME? If you’re not sure how to get from a script in Ink or text in a spreadsheet to dialogue in your game, we can help with that.


We know the narrative experience doesn’t end at the words. We can bring all the skills we put to use in our own work to ensure your stories are told in only the way games can. 

Prototyping

Need help getting your narrative game off the ground? We have years of experience getting a game FROM CONCEPT TO PLAYABLE BUILD, whether that means a nicely formatted Twine game or a fresh Unity build. Under one roof, you get a combination of PROGRAMMING, EARLY ASSETS, WRITING, VISUAL DESIGN, GAME DESIGN and NARRATIVE DESIGN (because one ‘design’ is never enough). 


We’ll work with you to quickly and efficiently build something REPRESENTATIVE AND PLAYABLE, so you can get on with testing, iterating, pitching and generally getting your vision out into the world.

We’re big fans of flexibility, and can design bespoke options based on the needs of each game. Here are the types of things we typically do, as a starting point.

Every project is unique, but we still follow a few steps no matter what the project. This should give you an idea of how our process tends to go.

We want to talk to you about your needs, what you can afford, and work out a plan that’s best for your game. We offer free consultations, so if you want to find out what we could do for your game, send us a message, email ( team@teapoweredgames.co.uk ) or tweet ( @teapoweredteam ).

Download our information package here!

Our Clients

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Testimonials

“At Spirit AI, we engaged Tea-Powered on multiple occasions to help us build projects in Unity, for which they provided coding, art, and UI design. Their work was consistently solidly made, on time and on budget. They were also completely lovely to work with: friendly and responsive, great at communicating clearly and incorporating our feedback, and eager to help us achieve our vision for the projects. Recommended!”

– Emily Short (Spirit AI)



“We had a wonderful experience working with Tea Powered Games. Their unique expertise in interactive narrative games was a perfect match for our project. We were very open to their input and collaboration, and Destina and Flo have gone above and beyond simply building the game mechanics.
They gave us constructive feedback on our gameplay outline that helped us improve comprehension of the story. They are clear and effective communicators and have been flexible and accommodating with timings. Overall, Hero’s Guide will be all the better not only for the underlying framework they’ve created for us – but also the fine tuning, suggestions and craft Tea Powered Games brought to the table.”

– Tea Creature Studios (Hero’s Guide to Gardening)



“After getting a small game dev grant, I was looking for a designer to help me out with the user interface for a narrative game prototype. Tea Powered Games was excellent about explaining exactly what they could do given the money I had. Flo created a set of UI assets that mimicked a stylized texting app, and Destina answered all my questions about implementing the assets in Unity. Both were communicative, professional, and helpful. Now my prototype looks and feels much better, which will help me as I submit to contests, showcases, and further funding opportunities!”

– Elizabeth Ballou (A Thousand Cuts)



“I commissioned Tea-Powered Games to do the UI work on We Are Not All Alone Unhappy. They were prompt, professional, and creative: I described my general vision and received three different UI mockups which helped me choose a direction and further refine the project. Iteration work was quick and only needed in several minor places. I’ve recommended them to colleagues and would be happy to use Tea-Powered’s services in the future.”

– Cat Manning (We Are Not All Alone Unhappy)