Designing Karma Game: A Case Study in Story, Systems & Wearing Too Many Hats
Karma Game, www.versebuilding.com
When you’re building a game from scratch, you don’t just wear one hat — you wear all of them, often at the same time. In my time at VERSE in the Karma Team, I wore these hats : Narrative Designer, Game Designer, Artist, UX/UI and Unity Developer.
This article is part design documentation, part case study, and part confessional about juggling hats while building Karma Game, a Buddhist parable-inspired RPG where the player journeys through the six realms of karma in dreamlike adventures.
What happens when you try to merge Buddhist parables, psychology, and modern game design into a playful, spiritual RPG?
The Karma Game is my attempt to answer that question.
It’s not just a game — it’s a prototype of a new way to experience wisdom, practice reflection, and gamify prosocial behavior.
And to make it happen, I’ve worn a lot of hats:
- Narrative Designer — crafting the core story, parables, dialouge trees and characters.
- Game Designer — building quests, mechanics, and systems.
- Artist & Visual Designer — shaping characters, environments, and prototype assets, UX prototype for playtesting.
- Unity Developer — assembling it all into a working game loop (currently WIP).
The secret weapon? AI-driven iteration — from story drafts and dialogue to sprites, soundscapes, and even UX scaffolding. This case study documents not just the game itself, but the design philosophy and process behind it. AI-accelerated workflows from story drafts to NPC sprites, from children’s book-style parables to in-game reflection cards, AI became my co-designer — giving me speed, breadth, and endless iterations while I kept steering the vision.
Part 1: The Narrative Core — Wearing the Storyteller’s Hat
Every RPG lives and dies by its story. For our Karma Game, the story isn’t just a backdrop — it is the mechanic.
As a narrative designer, I ensured that complex buddhism stories & parables be translated into simpler game systems and characters that would help the game achieve its primary goal of imparting pro-social behavior through buddhist teachings and stories. In our established workflow, my colleague Angela would give me info regarding the teachings that are to be taught each quest and I would design the story, narration, questions, choices, NPCs, artifacts, karma bar balancing and other game related elements.
My job was to design the core narrative flow of who the protagonist is and how they are visiting the 6 realms, what are these realms- what kind of tone, atmosphere and characters would each realm have(for MVP, I have worked only towards the 1st realm- Hungry Ghost). Apart from the cut scenes and conversations, I have primarily worked on the opening scene parable narration(visuals too) and on the character design of the protagonist, primary NPCS(quest-giving) and the main guide/mentor- the inititator of things- the cat.
The Pre-requisite
The general player journey in terms of the order in which the player would be visiting the 6 realms was outlined and it was decided that the human world would be the default/core world of the story, where the protagonist would go to different realms and come back. The different realms would also look like a different representation of the human world(map) almost as if someone saw the same world wearing different sunglasses(these different sunglasses would signify different realms) within different times.
The Core Parable
At the heart of the game is a parable-like story, inspired by Zen Shorts, The Mountains of Tibet, and the life of the Buddha himself.
The core idea is that the player starts in the Human Realm, drifts into dreams (instigated by the Cat on the orders of The Great King of Endings), and explores the 6 realms- Hungry Ghost, Animal, Hell, Demi-God, and God realms. Each realm embodies a human struggle:
- Hungry Ghosts → craving & addiction
- Animals → instinct & ignorance
- Hell → anger & suffering
- Demi-Gods → envy & competition
- Gods → pleasure & impermanence
- Humans → balance & reflection
The player begins as an ordinary man — busy, ambitious, always running, never pausing. One night, a black cat spirit appears and pulls him into a dream journey through the Six Realms of Karma. Each realm is a metaphorical stage of human suffering and growth: Hungry Ghosts, Animals, Hell, Humans, Demi-Gods, and Gods.
The player playing as the protagonist has to undergo different quests within each realm the meet NPCs which are relevant to the realm and undergo quests and learnings that are centric to that specific realm. Through these quests and a series of making choices their karmic score increases/decreases and they learn Buddhist teaching and concepts that help them overcome the specific realm.
This cycle is more than lore — it’s UX as narrative. By mapping each realm to a psychological state, I framed the player’s journey as both an RPG and a mirror of everyday life. This was achieved by means of ‘Reflection Cards’ and ‘The Flower of Karma’. To ensure players record their key revelations to their life events, an AI assisted journaling system was also designed.
The Psychology Behind It
- Narrative Transportation Theory (Green & Brock, 2000): players engage deeper when transported into story worlds. I leaned into parable-like narration — think Zen Shorts or Mountains of Tibet — to lower cognitive load and invite immersion.
- Framing Effect: opening the game as a children’s story frames everything that follows as allegory, giving players permission to reflect instead of just “solve.” The same information when presented in a different way can change our judgement and consequently our behavior.
UX Note: By starting as a fable, the game eases players into philosophical play without overwhelming them with systems.
- ‘Close Encounters with Addiction’
To understand the Hungry Ghost Realm and how is it translated to modern times on a deeper level, this book helped me create a story that would be relevant to present times, in an attempt to make it more contextual, relatable and adaptable to the player’s own life
- Frisson Research for Narrative Design
Frisson happens when:
- Anticipation → a buildup of emotion (curiosity, longing, tension)
- Contrast → unexpected truth or beauty breaks that tension
- Meaning resolution → everything suddenly makes sense emotionally
- Self–other connection → empathy expands outward
I used these four triggers to write the Hungry Ghost story so that every key moment has a “chill-worthy” beat — a miniature awakening.
The UX design challenge here was clarity. How do you translate something as abstract as craving or envy into NPCs, quests, and interactions that a player can understand instantly? My approach: make each realm a living allegory, filled with characters whose suffering is relatable.
The Opening Cutscene
The idea was to create a children’s storybook style opening scene where we successfully introduce the protagonist, the guide and the context. The story should be such that it is relatable to a child as well as an adult and old people while not loosing it’s essence.
The cutscene begins with introducing the protagonist, connecting his journey to Buddha’s, leading to moment of sympathy generation for the protagonist, describing how the guide and protagonist meet for the first time and how that sparks into the beginning of a new adventure after consulting the king. It then shows the initiation of the spiritual adventure by transitioning the story context into placing the player in the first level of the game, i.e. the Hungry Ghost Realm.
Narrative Design for Quest #1
The basics of cravings for the Hungry Ghost Realm were explored and the true understanding of the Hungry Ghost Realm was realised, followed by picking a theme that would be representative of cravings and addiction that aren’t entirely substance-based, but rather due to inner emotions.
After shortlisting the core theme of the Quest #1, I dived deeper into imagining what could be the narrative outline that would be the most impactful and after a series of iterations, I settled on the base story that would be relatable to people of all age groups- something that’s contextual to a child as well as an adult-
Once the basic narrative outline was locked with the significance set to represent cravings caused by relational trauma and missed opportunities, it was time to bring in some chills using Frisson
After defining the Aha moments, it was time to make the narrative flow screen by screen as if the player was playing the game
Why it works
This story taps into:
- Intergenerational trauma theory — unresolved emotional wounds repeating in family lines.
- Attachment repair — empathy built by reframing neglect through compassion.
- Frisson activation — realization moments where players feel truth through emotional resonance, not exposition.
Part 2: Quest & System Design — Wearing the Game Designer’s Hat
With the narrative bones in place, I swapped hats. Now I wasn’t just telling a story — I was building systems that make the players believe it and live it.
Each quest was structured to teach a prosocial lesson through mechanics and storytelling, not exposition.
The Quest Design
The first realm to visit was the ‘Hungry Ghost’ Realm. The HG realm was outlined to have 3 major quest points:
- Hungry Ghost Tycoon: compulsively making clay dolls from dirt and then crushing them by hand, believing a growling cat is a monster forcing him. The player must uncover the truth → teaching about cravings and fear.
2. Quarreling Ghost Family: fighting over scraps until the player listens to each member’s side of the story and assigns them roles to cooperate → teaching perspective & understanding point of views.
3. The Diseased Tribe: help those in need emphasizing on Tonglen — breathe in suffering of others, breathe out relief — as both ritual and mechanic → teaching compassion & community.
Quest #1 Design
For the MVP, the scope was decided to focus on the 1st quest of the hungry tycoon ghost, translating into teaching the player about cravings, fear and compassion and forcing the protagonist to reflect on a similar situation in their ongoing life.
- The player meets a Hungry Ghost obsessed with making clay doll figurines and then crushing them with their hand, convinced a “black monster” will hurt him if he stops.
- Through exploration and dialogue, the player discovers the “monster” is just a harmless cat.
- Resolution comes not through combat, but through compassionate engagement — helping the ghost face his fear, the protagonist realizes he too needs to face the fear in his real life, which is forcing him to become workaholic through addiction.
The Systems I Built
- Karma Bar (instead of health): Every dialogue choice (harsh, neutral, compassionate) nudges the bar left or right. UX-wise, this uses operant conditioning — choices feel impactful because they reshape your “moral HP”; apart from choices there would be other things that also affect the karma bar- doing side quests, conversations with NPCs, picking up trash and reviving environment, doing optional humming and breath-work on altars and so on.
2. The Flower of Karma: Each completed quest lights up a petal with a virtue (Contentment, Awareness, Patience, Balance, Humility, Impermanence). A progression system that’s spiritual, not just statistical. It gives us an overview of the values we have learnt in the game and also gives perspective of how much more does the player need to learn/progress in order to completly revive the flower.
3. Reflection Cards: At the end of each quest, players receive short verses (Dhammapada, Diamond Sutra) rephrased for real life. These serve as cognitive reframing devices — turning gameplay into lived wisdom. These cards are stored in collections within the game and can be viewed again at any given point.
4. Journaling AI Assistant: Imagine Harry Potter’s Pen but this one is going to be your best AI buddy which will ask you questions to help you reflect deeper into your learnings, if you are at a loss of words or confused what to write this buddy will help you reflect on your life events, mental processes and focus on general mental wellbeing.
5. Humming Mechanic: Instead of fighting, players “hum” to calm NPCs, heal themselves, or restore balance. A meditative replacement for combat. It has been gamified to make the player hum at a certain tone in-order to successfully complete the humming as a mechanic.
6. Altars & Offerings: Environmental interactions where offerings shift karma or world states. These were non-narrative driven mechanics that act as a means of side quests and healing within the game.
Frisson into Game Design
In an attempt to give the real chills to the player and make the experience more impactful and memorable, I decided to incorporate Frisson beyond just narrative design, but rather as game systems that help achieve the kinda thrills that mark the experience beyond just the story
Psychology in Play
- Choice Architecture: By offering compassionate, neutral, and harsh replies, I tapped into Kahneman’s System 1 vs System 2 thinking. Players often default to System 1 (impulsive), but the Karma Bar makes them pause → nudging reflection.
2. Ripple Effect Design: Each NPC arc demonstrates that small actions (dialogue choices) ripple outward — reinforcing kindness as design, not just text.
UX Note: This makes Karma Game a moral sandbox — but instead of punishing “wrong” answers, it rewards reflection.
Part 3: Art & World building — Wearing the Artist’s and Designer’s Hat
I’ll be honest: I’m not a sensei illustrator. But with AI as my brush and my given artistic skills, I became one.
What I Created
- Characters: Iterated until the Tycoon Ghost looked both pitiful and eerie, with swollen belly, a briefcase, and distinct characteristics.
- Environments: Barren caves, riverside altars, cosmic wheels of karma — all generated, composited, and refined into a 2.5D painterly aesthetic.
- Sprite Animations: Back-view walk cycles, idle loops, dirt-eating motions — sliced from generated videos into sprite sheets.
- UI/UX: karma bar as light/dark gradient, lotus petals as progress, parchment-style reflection cards.
How AI became my partner in crime
- Sora / ChatGPT: rapid iterations for environment concepts and final assets, characters, different view angles for characters(for 2D animation), animation videos and walk-cycle videos. Generated mockups for cutscenes in the style of children’s storybooks (Stillwater-like parable feel).
- After-effects: for breaking down walk cycles into individual photoshop frames for correction.
- Photoshop : for cleanup, slicing, consistency and sprite sheets.
- Unity import pipeline: transparent backgrounds, 2.5D placement, parallax layers.
This workflow let me move 10x faster, keeping the focus on UX and symbolic coherence rather than technical polish.
UX/Art Psychology
- Dual Coding Theory (Paivio): According to Paivio, there are two ways a person could expand on learned material: verbal associations and imagery. Dual-coding theory postulates that both sensory imagery and verbal information is used to represent information. In Karma Game, by blending storybook visuals with text reflection cards and narrative voice-over, I supported both visual and verbal processing → for deeper memory retention.
- Gestalt Simplicity: Also known as the Law of Prägnanz or “good figure,” is the fundamental Gestalt principle stating that the human mind naturally interprets complex or ambiguous stimuli as the simplest, most stable, and most coherent possible form to facilitate understanding and recognition. Instead of focusing on intricate details, the brain prioritizes perceiving recognizable patterns and organized wholes, reducing chaos into organized systems for efficient processing. In Karma game, I have kept silhouettes clean and distinct readable forms for sprites, ensuring clarity in 2.5D space.
UX Note: Storybook art wasn’t just a style choice — it was a cognitive accessibility decision. It lowers intimidation, inviting both gamers and non-gamers into the experience.
Part 4: Building the Prototype — Wearing the Developer’s Hat (WIP)
Here’s where the rubber meets the road — turning dreams and prompts into code.
Current Implementation
- Camera: 2.5D side-view with Cinemachine. Fixed orthographic size to prevent cutoff.
- Environment Blockouts: Whitebox geometry → swapped with painted textures to test player flow.
- Dialogue System: Branching text choices tied to Karma Bar logic.
- UI: Lotus Karma Bar + Reflection Card templates wired into gameplay.
- Early altar mechanics (offerings trigger effects).
Technical Workflow
- Prototype environments in Unity Tilemap + simple meshes.
- Layer backgrounds for parallax scrolling.
- Plug sprite sheets into Animator Controller.
- Implement Karma as a float (–100 → +100) mapped to bar fill.
Key UX consideration: frictionless immersion. The design avoids clutter — minimal UI, intuitive interactions, and an emphasis on atmosphere.
The plan is to move from this first quest prototype → a vertical slice covering one full realm → eventually to all six.
UX Psychology in Implementation
- Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi): Each realm loop (Quest → Choice → Reflection) is scoped to ~15 minutes, creating bite-sized “flow episodes.”
- Cognitive Closure: Ending each quest with a Reflection Card gives psychological closure → reinforcing learning without fatigue.
UX Note: By designing short narrative loops, the prototype is playable in one sitting, making user testing easier and feedback cleaner.
AI as My Co-Designer
This project wouldn’t exist at this speed without AI.
- Story & Dialogue: Iterated parables and verses in hours.
- Visuals: Generated hundreds of variations until NPCs clicked.
- Animations: Used video-to-sprite workflows to build walk cycles and idle loops.
- Audio: Experimented with AI character voices, chants and hums for meditative mechanics.
AI wasn’t my replacement — it was my idea amplifier. Instead of one sketch, I got ten. Instead of staring at a blank canvas, I sculpted from abundance.
UX Note: AI made iteration playful. It turned design into meditation: generate, reflect, refine, release. It helped me quickly gain knowledge and understand complex buddhist texts in very less time which helped make the narrative more impactful.
🎤 Where We Are Now
We’re about to unveil Level 1 (Hungry Ghost Realm) — complete with:
- A Dirt-Eating Ghost NPC.
- Dialogue choices tied to Karma Bar.
- Reflection cards to close the loop.
- Flower of Karma functionality.
Players are already playtesting, filling out forms, and giving feedback. Next stop: expanding Unity builds, polishing mechanics, and growing the lotus petal by petal.
Closing Reflection
Building Karma Game has been like living the game itself: craving ideas, letting go of dead ends, reflecting on your own mental processes and returning to compassion for the player’s journey.
The hats were many — Narrative Designer, Game Designer, Artist, Unity Developer — but the through-line was always the same:
How do I make players feel both seen and changed by play? How can this knowledge be carried on to their everyday lives?
But the real design lesson is this: with AI, you can test, iterate, and bring ideas to life at lightning speed. The craft then lies in weaving those fragments into a cohesive UX journey that resonates both in play and in life.
The project is still work in progress, currently focusing on Unity implementation of the first quest. But already, the Karma Game is proving one thing:
Games can be parables. And parables can be playable.
Because in the end, game design — like karma — is just cause and effect. What we create today ripples outward tomorrow.
Some visuals of Work in Progress
Here’s a Figma prototype for our 1st playtest:
Here’s a link to feedback form for the 1st playtest:
Team Members:
Product Management: Ethan
Game Design: Abhilasha, Ethan
Narrative Design: Abhilasha, Angela
Art/Design: Abhilasha
UX/UI: Mukund, Shaish, Abhilasha
Unity Developer: Abhilasha
Mentor/Guide : Ben Simon Thomas
Company : Verse