NIGHTDIVE STUDIOS
System Shock
An employee manual from a corporation you would never want to work for.
I wrote and designed a long-form PC game manual that also works as a TriOptimum employee indoctrination document. Practical information and fictional corporate culture share the same voice, structure and visual language.
The assignment
Create an old-school game manual that feels as though it belongs inside System Shock’s world.
The approach
Treat the document as corporate communication from TriOptimum. Its welcome letter, social hierarchy and instructions communicate the organization’s character while explaining the game.
The result
A designed narrative artifact: something a player can use, read and recognize as part of the fiction.
Selected pages from my manual. The banner above is official game promotional artwork.
Selected manual pages
06 IMAGES / SELECT TO ENLARGECover and visual identity for the TriOptimum employee manual.
An in-world guide to neural modification, privileges and peripherals.
Weapon and grenade iconography with technical descriptions.
The fictional corporation’s social structure and institutions.
The six gates of inquiry, presented as an institutional safety system.
A fictional model of simulated emotional development.