A few of my game testers were big fans of the Fallout series, so during some downtime I decided to create a new location and story in the Fallout universe. I decided to keep the story setting in the United States, as I didn’t want to create a narrative dissonance with to the access to firearms. After researching the extensive lore of Fallout and examining locations, I decided to set the game in Florida due to it’s interesting locations and unique wildlife.
I designed the world, NPCs and plot based on the narrative format of existing Fallout titles but wanted to include missions that were more engaging than simple fetch quests and a less linear main plot. I also wanted to incorporate the settlement building of Fallout 4, while removing the annoyance of having to return constantly to defend them against raiders. The players started the game in their vault, which became their main base. Other settlements the players would encounter could be investigated to identify their current defensive and economical strengths, which they could then help the settlers to improve upon. They would only be in direct communication which these settlements once they had learned, built and set up these systems. NPC’s could also be sent between these settlements as required, and could be instructed to learn new abilities and complete certain tasks for the community, enabling the players to make these settlements self-sufficient.