The concept for the Normal Station video game was born out of a novelette I published with Kaptain Viciorious Grimoire in 2017 of the same name. The inspiration for the setting and story came from my living in the Normal Station neighborhood of Memphis, TN while attending the University of Memphis, the descendant of the game’s college, West Tennessee Normal School. This sleepy little neighborhood has an exciting and intriguing history that I delved deeply into while developing the storyline.

But the game does not all take place in this small neighborhood, but explores a variety of locations in and around Memphis, including a reportedly haunted stretch of river, (potentially: a Victorian Mansion, bopping blues and jazz music halls, and the iconic Scottish Rite Masonic Temple). They are all locations I have personally visited, though 90-100 years after the events of the game.

The gameplay focuses on exploring locations to uncover clues, interacting in dialogues with both friendly and hostile NPCs, and sneaking by or fighting foes.

• Exploration - Each level has hidden secrets and clues that the player can use to uncover more about the mysteries. New areas of levels and realizations of character are revealed to the player by finding hidden keys, locked-away documents, and secret doors throughout each level. By making the different game assets interactable the player must sift through information to determine the next steps they must take.
• Dialogues - The cast of characters includes hostile, neutral, helpful, and Follower NPCs. By selecting certain dialogue options the player will have to determine who to trust and who to fear. Some characters will try to trick the player into going into dangerous areas while others are indifferent to Jeanne’s situation. However, there are also a number of helpful NPCs that include hint-givers, merchants, and Followers. The Follower NPCs are willing to join her on her journey to unravel the mystery if she chooses the correct dialogue options to sway them.
• Sneaking - Every enemy in the game cannot be defeated in combat, but many instead must be tricked to move or look away from Jeanne’s path so she can proceed. By implementing a varied proximity range for different enemies, the player is never sure how far they must stay away in order to sneak by. In the early stages of the game, the enemies have smaller sight ranges than at later stages, there might only be one way to sneak past them.
• Fighting - If sneaking fails, there is always combat. At the onset of the game, Jeanne has no combat abilities and is simply returned to her cell in the Sanitarium. She must then find the guard’s locker to retrieve her items which have been taken from her after capture. However, as she begins to recognize that she has mutant powers, Jeanne becomes a formidable fighter. Aided by NPCs with combat abilities, Jeanne and her party are able to combat even the most dangerous of foes by the end of the game. Each of the different Followers has a certain set of skills they bring to the battlefield, some doing massive damage while others are skilled at buffing allies and debuffing enemies.

Game Flow Summary