GWSIG Tutorial Outline

International Game Developers Association

|| Game Writers SIG || Current Initiatives ||

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Tutorial Outline

Shortcuts:

GDC Submission Format

• Deadline for Submission July 25th 2004
• We should probably get a draft complete by June 25th 2004

Provisional assignment of sections:

Part 1: What is game writing?
1a: What is Game Writing? [Mary DeMarle]
1b: What isn't Game Writing? [Sande Chen]

Part 2: Narrative Design [Chris Bateman]

Part 3: Game Writer Techniques
3a: Dialogue [Coray Seifert]
3b: Cinematics [Mary DeMarle]

Part 4: Fitting the writer into game projects
4a: Documentation [Coray Seifert]
4b: Working as a Team [Richard Dansky]

Part 5: Working with Intellectual Property [Sande Chen]

Part 6: The Business of Game Writing [Mary DeMarle]

Conclusion [Richard Dansky]

Tutorial Outline for GDC

Game Writing 101

Essentially, this would take large chunks of the White Paper and combine them with practical technical advice. The split would be 70-30 Craft/Business

• Part 1: What is game writing? [Sande Chen???]

o Definition
o What we write

 Stories
 Dialogues
 Cinematic scripts
 Documentation

o What isn’t game writing

 Differences from

• Movies
• Fiction
• Other writing types

• Part 2: Narrative Design: the boundary between game design and storytelling [SpiralLobster]

o Game goals versus Narrative goals
o Narrative Structures for games

 Linear (with Cut Scenes or Imbedded)
 Commentary
 Episodic (choices of level)
 Parallel (with convergence at 'checkpoints')
 Threaded (with convergence at Act boundaries)
 Open world with secondary structure (linear, episodic, parallel or threaded)
 Fully Dynamic (Dynamic Characters, Dynamic Narrative)

o Exercise: Match Concept Document to Narrative Structure
o Funneling and Breadcrumbing: Keeping the Player on Track
o Narrative Design Documents

 Situation, Development, Resolution
 Narrative progress structure
 Providing high level options a.k.a. why the best ideas are never chosen
 Integrating game play elements with narrative elements

o Exercise: Narrative Design Overview (1 paragraph) - team exercise, presented to the tutorial, critiqued and polished.

• Part 3: Game Writer Techniques

3a: Dialogue [Coray???]
o Making it sound good
o Tricks of the trade
o What is it used for?
o Sample Dialogue team exercise – Presented to the tutorial, critiqued, and polished
3b: Cinematics [Mary DeMarle]
o What are cinematics and cut scenes?
o Using the film vocabulary
o Differences between gameplay and cinematics
o Sample Cinematic team exercise – Presented to the tutorial, critiqued, and polished

• Part 4: Fitting the writer into game projects [Richard Dansky???] -SpiralLobster: I split this from 'What is game writing?'

o Documentation

 It’s not all stories and dialogue
 Manuals, voice notes, and the other necessities

o Working with a team

 You’re not flying solo
 Integrating your work with others
 Where lines get drawn

• Part 5: Working with Intellectual Property [???]

o Different types of IP
o Advantages and disadvantages of existing IP
o Staying within the limits
o IP Owner Approval

• Part 6: The Business of Game Writing [Mary DeMarle]

o “So You Want To Be A Writer”
o Finding a gig
o How much to charge?
o Establishing deliverables

• Conclusion [Richard Dansky???]

o Getting into the industry
o Staying there

 Networking
 The IGDA Writers’ Sig

o Writing good games

Material from old Game Stories not used:

o Unique demands of game stories possibly covered in the opening section

o “beats”, “climaxes” and “reverses” I simply do not use these formalised approaches - Mike Moorcock always asserted that the best way to learn writing was to study it 'in situ' and I find these attempts to formalise narrative skills rather artificial and restricting. I'm not against someone else teaching this method if they wish!

o World building I'd happily cover this, but it doesn't fit here

Cut Bits

Game Stories [SpiralLobster --> Switched to Narrative Design]

SpiralLobster: I would like to take parts of this section, but I'd like to address it as 'Narrative Design'. I'd like to go over the process starting with the design concept, and then leading to an initial narrative design, then looking at breaking it down into stages, and how the narrative design relates to the script. This would lead a lot of this section 'hanging', so we might need a seperate section. I'll try and add a possible restructure later this week or early next week. [See bottom of page]

o Unique demands of game stories
o Story structure
o “beats”, “climaxes” and “reverses”
o Story vs. mission/objective
o Presentation and documentation
o World building
o Short game story pitch (1 paragraph) – team exercise – Presented to the tutorial, critiqued, and polished.

Comments [Hide comments/form]

SpiralLobster: This is looking good - I'm having difficult processing it because there's so much in there! I take it we are primarily focussing on people with no experience whatsoever? Or just providing a 'broad spectrum' approach that will work for new game writers, new writers interested in being game writers, and experienced writers wanting an adaptation course? I'm just not sure if we won't have more people who are new to game writing and not new to writing - it's hard to judge. -- cache2-bagu.server.ntli.net (2004-05-22 07:40:15)

My feeling was that we needed a broad-spectrum curriculum for this, and one that started with the basics. Besides the white paper, I'm not sure the basics of game writing have ever actually been laid out in one place for folks, and one of the goals of this tutorial is to help establish a common vocabulary and frame of reference for what we're doing. So, I figured better to build things from the ground up and touch on as much as possible at least a little bit - this starts the conversation, and gives us something to build on for the next year's more focused seminars.

So, even experienced writers who are new to game writing can probably get a fair bit out of this, and new writers can certainly derive some useful information. And if nothing else, team exercises are the best networking tool in the industry :-) -- 7.redstorm.com (2004-05-24 09:12:55)

SpiralLobster: What would you like done as the next step? If multiple people are to present this, do we want to divide up the seperate sections to different people? I find it hard to comment on the whole set collectively at the moment, but if I was assigned a section (even provisionally) I could weigh it up more usefully.