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By: Alyssa N. Umbal, Calista Alex, Gracie Gu, Jung-Yeon (JY) Lee
Course: IAT 438 User Experience Design

Description: Square Enix games have always had the ability to personally involve players into their narrative-driven games and make the user believe they are the character through empowering the user to make decisions, travel around, and become friends with Non-Playable Characters (NPCs). Once certain events happen to the character, the user also feels more emotionally involved. Once this gaming experience ends, players are left with a strong sense of connection to these characters, but have a persisting feeling of wanting more.

Square Enix Verse is a framework to host post-game content that is not accessible within gameplay of each of their narrative-driven Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPGs). This framework focuses on nurturing the attachment that players have with the characters and the game and to provide them with more opportunities to stay connected to the characters and the world they have come to love.

Using the game "NieR: Automata" to illustrate the framework, this digital experience provides content using horizontal scrolling to deliver an immersive and deliberate storytelling experience. The interconnected content builds a storyline—starting with the introduction to the character— and progresses from concept to design, followed by the presentation of the character in colour, and finally offering more in-depth perspectives from the development team of the game.