Bodfish
Designer · Developer · Composer
A narrative game adapted from a short story written by my father — built so it feels like playing a film.
The story behind the story
Bodfish began as a short story written by my father. Adapting it into a game is a father-and-son collaboration: he wrote the world, and I'm building the way you move through it — the branching narrative, the mechanics, and the music.
The design pillar is simple and stubborn: it should feel like playing a film. There are no cutscenes. Every scene is expressed through a purpose-built mechanic — a quiet conversation becomes a driving game — so the player transitions fluidly between story moments and gameplay, and never stops playing the film.
At heart it's a choose-your-own-adventure: a branching story designed for a roughly three-hour full release. I'm de-risking it the way I'd de-risk any product — with a playable prologue proof of concept before committing to the full build.
Scenes from the prologue
How it's built
- Branching narrative design — a choose-your-own-adventure structure where choices ripple through the story.
- A mechanic per scene — each story beat gets its own bespoke gameplay, designed so interaction carries the storytelling.
- Rapid prototyping with Claude Code — testing scene mechanics in playable form before polishing them.
- Original score — I'm composing the music scene by scene, alongside the mechanics, so the two grow up together.
What's next
Currently building: the playable prologue — proving the no-cutscenes pillar scene by scene ahead of the full release.