How to deliver a compelling narrative

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

I have a game that is inspired by other horror games, but only I want to make a backstory to the game, which explains how the thing that chasing after you is actually here and what its meant to do (besides kill players)
There is a town that is abandoned, I want to explain how a mess of screw-ups or just oversights made the town unhospitable, and why some players (NPC) still reside there.
I want to give a story on how a returning war vet came back to his little small town to see the only house on the main road destroyed, with what looks like massive holes in the structural support.
I want to give a real-sounding narrative on how the town and the surrounding areas became the misfortune of cooperate greed and bad management of the town and the surrounding resources.

I want the player to be able to connect the dots between narrative a and narrative b, I want the core gameplay loop to be the main grabber of new players, but the underlying story of what the creature chasing the players and the just horrible environment that the players are stuck in. I want the whole player base of my game to come together to figure out what the heck happened here. I want a sense of adventure that no games of this sort of genre have (horror/adventure). Most games just say something along the lines of 'it happened out of nowhere or something, I donā€™t like that, it seems like a lazy way to deliver an overall good game, or maybe thatā€™s just me. I want to learn how I got in every predicament in any game, whether the story behind it is false or not (in horror type of games)

I was planning on leaving little pieces of paper scattered around the place, but just typing out what I want is already long enough, so I donā€™t think that these pieces of paper will be adequate. Is there any other ideas? I donā€™t want to make a story mode, too much time. I want this story to be like a side plot, kind of like how side quests are in other games, not necessary, but fun to complete. Do you have any ideas?

Thank you for coming to my tedtalk

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#2

Some world war like tap recordings signs and books are good

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#3

If some NPCs still reside in this town, why would there be papers scattered around when the citizens are there? They all must have personal stories to tell about the war veteran? You can probably make small dialogue between each citizen. Like Citizen 1 has a story about how the war veteran did this, but Citizen 4 heard about how the war veteran did that.

Scattering papers is common throughout horror games, it may be time-consuming for the player & confusing in a way to connect everything.

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#4

because its only one npc, its the in-game merchant, although that npc technically that npc isnā€™t alive, but thatā€™s a story for another time.

I could make more npcs that are still around the town for one reason or another, the war vet is gonna be stuck inside a cave trying to escape the in-game villain, I guess?

#5

Are there outskirts/small locations around the town? Adding some NPCs in them would be realistic as the town is abandoned & (assuming the NPCs are sane) no one wants to be there.
If the in-game merchant is a ghost (iā€™m assuming ?), you can integrate some type of ā€œghost presenceā€ that gives a brief story about veteran.

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#6

Have a map that shows the world and that town being labelled as a ghost town
Have the buildings of the town be graffitied over.
Main hall and corporate buildings being targeted graffiti.
Have the buildings of the town be run down.

Show locations relevant to the story of what happened.
Bring the player to location important to what went down. Locations where riots occurred or office holders made decisions.
Show the players the lives of the NPCS, why they live in such a horrible place, their day to day thoughts.

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#7

you assumed right, basically what is coming after you at night is the merchant at day. The ghost presence sounds cool, might add that.

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