Going Postal
“Going Postal” is a single player quest line for Fallout 4 where the player travels across the Commonwealth, delivering mail. The Lone Survivor finds a dead postman on the steps of the Museum of Freedom in Concord. On the body is a manifest and a letter. The letter is the last on the manifest and the recipient is close by. Thus begins their new life as a postman.
Role
Narrative & Quest Designer
Game Engine
Fallout 4 Creation Kit
Platform
PC
Development Time
2 Months, 2020
Team Size
1 Designer
Going Postal Playthrough
Screenshots
Map Design
Environmental Storytelling
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Goals of the environment:
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To tell each character’s story through letters and possessions.
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Give background on characters that the player needs to find themselves.
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Reward explorer player types as much as social player types in a narrative way.
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Major Goals for individual space
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What was the space before?
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Peggie’s House - Peggie’s family home in Concord.
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Diamond City Post Office - A post office near Fenway Park.
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Half-Way House - A hotel with a pristine history in Scollay Square.
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What happened after the bombs detonated?
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Peggie’s House - The roof collapsed in on itself, killing her parents on impact.
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Diamond City Post Office - Very little changed. Windows blew out and clutter gathered in the space, but it’s still a post office.
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Half-Way House - The upper floors collapsed, the elevator fell apart, rooms caved in.
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How did the space change?
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Peggie’s House - The upper floor is a tomb for Peggie’s parents. That space is closed and fallen into disuse. The rest of the house remained frozen in time.
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Diamond City Post Office - Still in use, but the sorting room became an impromptu living area for Ford.
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Half-Way House - With the years, the accessible rooms fell into further disrepair, with dangerous holes in the floors and rotting walls that give glimpses into other rooms.
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How did the characters deal with the aftermath?
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Peggie - Leaned heavily into drinking and smoking to cope with the loss of her parents and Ford ending their engagement. Her joys came from writing letters to her brother, Floyd, in the Navy.
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Ford - Started the post office up again. Threw himself into work to avoid addressing any other issues he may have.
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Lincoln - Left the raider group he was with and sobered up. Used his new lease on life in order to help other people in his previous position.
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How did the characters make the space their own?
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Peggie’s House - The space was already her own. She has changed very little, with less inclination to hide certain habits.
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Diamond City Post Office - Ford turned the mail sorting room into an apartment where he toiled away and wrote letters that he sent out daily to Peggie.
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Half-Way House - Lincoln spent significant time transforming the old hotel into a rehab facility/ half-way house for former raiders. The constant attacks from roaming groups that he upset made the process much slower than he’d like.
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Bedrooms
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A private space in the real world that people can relate to.
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An informative space for the major NPC narratives.
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Where they keep personal items.
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Read and write letters to significant people.
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Hidden habits or past secrets.
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Bedroom in Going Postal
Various Bedrooms in Going Postal
Lincoln's Bedroom
Peggie's House
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Goals of the space
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Designed to give more information about Peggie as a character.
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Letters both open and hidden tell about her past.
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Possessions in the space fill in the gaps in knowledge that Peggie doesn’t tell the player.
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Inside Peggie's House with voiced dialogue lines
Map of Peggie's House
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
Inside the Peggie's House
Post Office
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Grounded in reality.
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Show off how a building could still maintain functionality in the face of destruction.
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Arranged in such a way that the player gets cut off from the rest of the space until they earn the right to enter into Ford’s living space.
Inside the Post Office with voiced dialogue lines
Map of Post Office
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
Inside the Diamond City Post Office
Half-Way House
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Designed to be significantly different in function than it was before the war.
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Furniture and boxes arranged in such a way to feel like a small battle zone.
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Lincoln’s bedroom evolved to hint at his raider past as well as his connections to people that the player could find in the Commonwealth.
Half-Way House Lincoln Bedroom with voiced dialogue lines
Map of Half-way House
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
The Half-Way House
Bunker Hill
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Subverted the idea of the market being a safe place.
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Corpses of Dodge and Angus staged like a murder.
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Hints of racism against ghouls in the area.
Bunker Hill in game
Map of Bunker Hill
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
The Bunker Hill
Feeling Like the Postman
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For player immersion, a fake costume perk was created that the player applies whenever they wear any part of any postman outfit.
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This allowed the player to experience alternate dialogue associated with their appearance.
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Getting feedback for the choice to wear the postman uniform throughout the main quest is something that players found enjoyable.
Postman Costume Detection - costume specific perks
Becoming the Postman
Becoming the Postman in game
Learning Through Notes
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Filled gaps in information through notes.
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Gave the player the option to get more information about character history.
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Explorer player types are rewarded with further information about the lore of the world and character background information.
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Created featured item pop-outs for players to get the letter information from quest notes without having to open them from inventory.
Finding a Note in game
Obtaining a letter in game
Letters in game
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
Character Casting & Voiced Lines
Casting Sheet
Dialogue Sheets
Post Mortem
What Went Well ?
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Generating dialogue and iteration: created over 300 lines of NPC dialogue for players to engage in for robust social interactions.
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Costume Perks: dissected how Silver Shroud was done in the base game and was able to recreate the same effect, creating dynamic reactions to wearing the postman uniform.
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Creative Notes: Wrote 2-6 notes per main character to create a larger narrative without relying on an unmanageable amount of voiced dialogue.
What Went Wrong ?
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Scope: Voicing over 300 lines of dialogue cut into other aspects of the project that needed to be addressed during aesthetics.
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Global Variables: Something learned on the fly during this project for costume management that took time to research and use properly early on.
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Explorable Spaces Accessed Too Early: The player could access the upper area of the Half-Way House before getting the proper quest stage, creating cognitive dissonance when hostile NPCs spawn in the space.
What I Learned ?
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Maximize the value of each dialogue line so fewer need to be recorded and implemented.
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Quest related dialogue should give all necessary information for the next quest stage. Extra information can be off the main path.
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Experiment more with scripting to create more robust world interactions and non-linear quest advancement.
