Design a Fan Game Without Breaking Canon

Gary Whittaker

🎲 Designing a Narrative Game That Doesn’t Break Canon

How to build immersive, mystery-driven fan fiction games inside beloved universes like Harry Potter—without rewriting history

💬 Hook

Creating a game inside a world like Harry Potter can be thrilling—until you run into the fear of “breaking canon.” But you don’t need to retcon the Battle of Hogwarts or invent a secret child of Dumbledore to tell a great story. You just need to know where the canon ends, where the gaps are, and how to write within the magic that’s already there.

This article gives you a simple system for building fan-driven narrative games that stay true to canon while unlocking deep character arcs, layered mysteries, and meaningful choices.

🧠 What Is a Narrative Game?

Let’s define the format you’ve seen me develop:

A narrative game is a story experience—played at the table or online—where players act out characters, follow a guided mystery, and make choices that affect how things unfold. It’s like fan fiction you perform together.

Unlike trivia or action-based games, narrative games are:

  • Emotion-first

  • Driven by relationships, secrets, or choices

  • Often mystery-based (who’s lying, who’s hiding something, what really happened?)

  • Ideal for fan universes because they feel like side stories, not rewrites

📏 5 Rules for Canon-Friendly Game Design

1. Set It After the Known Story Ends

In Harry Potter, the safest place to build is after 2017, when the canon timeline ends (post–Cursed Child).
In your case: 2025 is perfect. It’s open, believable, and still close enough for legacy characters to matter.

2. Keep the Main Cast Off-Stage or Backgrounded

Let Harry, Hermione, and Ron stay legendary. Mention them, maybe use a letter or ghost story—but don’t center the mystery on them unless it’s purely interpretive.

This avoids:

  • Lore conflicts

  • Character misrepresentation

  • Tone shifts that upset long-time fans

3. Make the Stakes Personal

Instead of “save the world,” try:

  • Save someone’s reputation

  • Protect a secret

  • Discover the truth before it’s buried

The smaller the stakes, the bigger the tension feels to players.

4. Use Unfinished Threads or Forgotten Magic

Examples:

  • A Marauder’s Map prototype

  • An object left behind by the founders

  • A spell only half-recorded

  • A ghost’s unresolved past

  • A magical consequence from 50 years ago that’s just now resurfacing

These give you freedom to expand, without inventing new lore.

5. Build for Player Morality and Perspective

Give each player a secret goal, tension, or conflicting value system—so the story unfolds based on who they are, not what dice they roll.

In the Hogwarts 2025 game I built, for example:

  • One parent wants their daughter to return home

  • Another wants her to stay at the school

  • The daughter believes she has a magical destiny—if only she can prove it

  • A godmother must choose who to protect

This is narrative-first gameplay, and it works in any setting.

🧱 Game Structure Template (Canon-Safe)

Here’s a simple, reusable template for designing your own canon-safe narrative game:

Game Phase Purpose Canon-Safe Design Tip
Round 1: Arrival Set the tone, reveal relationships Use Hogwarts staff to introduce danger or uncertainty
Rounds 2–5: Discovery Add layers, introduce clues, raise suspicion Use safe artifacts, rooms, or ghost memories
Rounds 6–8: Conflict Personal agendas clash Use legacy fears (e.g. anti-Muggle sentiment) to justify tension
Round 9: Crisis A magical event or consequence Make the past reappear—unfinished spell, memory, or curse
Round 10: Choice Players must decide something that can’t be undone Let them disagree—and let the ending reflect their path

🪞 How This Ties into Jack Righteous Development

Creating this game wasn't just about Hogwarts—it was a test run for something bigger. I’m developing the Jack Righteous Universe to include:

  • Books

  • Music

  • Interactive narratives

  • Live performance/game hybrid formats

This first game let me test:

  • Character arcs

  • Deceiver mechanics

  • Moral ambiguity

  • Faith-based and mythic themes in a familiar sandbox

The next versions will move fully into Jack’s world—but everything I’m learning here applies.

💬 How Are You Building Yours?

Are you working on a game set in a fandom universe?
Trying to write a mystery or interactive fiction that doesn’t mess up the timeline?

👉 Drop a comment below:

  • What rules or tricks do you use to stay canon-safe?

  • What mistakes have you seen other creators make?

This series is about getting better together—because respecting canon shouldn’t stop you from creating something genius.

📚 Previous Articles in This Series

1️⃣ Fan Fiction Game Worldbuilding: A Jack Righteous Case Study
2️⃣ What Hogwarts Looks Like in 2025 for Fan Creators
3️⃣ The Marauders’ Legacy: Hidden Lore for Story Creators
4️⃣ The Anti-Muggle Underground – A New Threat with Old Roots
5️⃣ Hogwarts Staff & Allies in 2025 Fan Stories
6️⃣ Mapping Hogwarts – Secret Spaces, Magical Threats, and Lore-Friendly Clues
7️⃣ Magical Objects for Fan Fiction: Canon-Friendly Guide
8️⃣ Why Muggles Might Visit Hogwarts in 2025

📚 Coming Next: Preparing for Play – Writing Scenes, Roles, and Character Sheets for Mystery-Based Games

Now that you know how to stay canon-safe, let’s look at the actual build: scenes, rounds, story prompts, and player-facing materials that make the experience immersive and repeatable.

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