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Writing for video games can include everything
from coming up with an original story to figuring out twenty
different versions of "I've been shot!" It's a demanding
task, combining elements of roleplaying writing, scriptwriting,
and imitating the Voynich Manuscript. I've been lucky enough
to work on titles ranging from Rainbow Six 3
to Far Cry, and each time the experience is
different – different games demand different approaches,
content, and levels of input. The only constant is that you're
trying to make your writing one part of a cohesive game experience
for the player – part of making sure the player has fun.
Please bear in mind that I can't tell you everything that
I'm working on, or even what I'm doing sometimes on projects
that have been announced. I will, however, provide updates
as soon as I can on projects that are newly released from
under their veil of secrecy. And yes, that means there are
things I'm working on - lots of things I'm working on - that
either I can't officially claim a credit on, or which can't
be talked about...yet.
Video Game News:
Video Game Credits (Announced Games):
Writing About Game Writing
As part of the initiatives for the IGDA
Game Writers' Special Interest Group, I'm one of the co-authors
of a book on video game writing published by Charles River
Media. The book, entitled Game
Writing: Narrative Skills for Video Games, features
authors including James
Swallow, Andrew S. Walsh (X3: Reunion),
Ernest
Adams, Rhianna Pratchett (Heavenly Sword),
Ed Kuehnel (Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude) and
more.
The second book from the SIG, Professional
Techniqes for Video Game Writing, is now out. Edited
by Wendy
Despain, it's available online and at better bookstores
everywhere. My contribution was a chapter on script doctoring.
You can read one
of the more glowing reviews here. The third book
in the sequence, Writing For Video Game Genres: From FPS
to RPG, is now
available for pre-order.
GDC Austin (formerly the Game Writers'
Conference)
I'm a member of the Advisory Board of
the GDC
Austin game writing track for the second year running.
Working with Susan O'Connor, Dana Fos, Lev Chapelsky and Mark
Terrano, we're currently at work trying to put together this
year's track to follow up on last year's extremely successful
show. This year, we've more than doubled the size of the writers'
track, and our keynote speaker will be noted science fiction
author and futurist Bruce Sterling. Other speakers include
Joshua Mosquiera (Relic),
Tim Willits (Id), Eric
Lindstrom (Crystal Dynamics) and many, many more.
You can find out more about the conference here.
E3
I spoke at E3 2006
as part of a panel on "Perfecting the mix of story, character
development, and interactivity" with such notables as
David Jaffe (God of War), Marc Laidlaw (Half-Life
and Half-Life 2) and David Cage (Indigo Prophecy).
You can read Gamasutra's take on the talk here.
GDC
2009 will feature the third year of
the Game Writers' Roundtable, moderated by myself, and possibly
an egg timer and a cricket bat. It will also feature a panel
on "The Dating Game" - or why we have date movies but not
date games - that's a spinoff of a workgroup at Project Horseshoe.
Panelists will include Steve Meretzky, Wendy Despain, Dustin
Clingman, and myself.
2008 marked the successful return of the Game Writers' Roundtable,
which ran three sessions and had attendees including Rhianna
Pratchett (Mirror's Edge) and the inimitable Yahtzee Croshaw.
The show also hosted the annual meeting of the IGDA Writers'
SIG, chaired by the aforementioned Ms. Despain.
I participated in two sessions (OK, four if you count the
fact that they had me run the round table 3 times) at GDC
2007. First off, I spoke as part of the Interactive
Story Boot Camp, organized by scriptwriter David Freeman
and featuring such luminaries as Hal Barwood. It was one of
the all-day tutorials at the start of the conference, and
my topic was techniques for building choice into games. The
slides from the presentation will be made available for download
shortly. I also moderated a roundtable
discussion on techniques for game writers, one of those practical
things that's near and dear to my heart. The three sessions
attracted well over a hundred people, with great discussion
of the practical, professional, and technical issues facing
game writers today.
In 2004, I gave a talk at the annual Game Developers' Conference
on creating believable stories for realistic video games.
The powerpoint presentation from that talk is available here.
The talk, entitled Island Thunder and Raven Shield:
Creating Believable Stories for Realistic Games, was
a product of my realization (via video game reviews that said
"this could never happen!" to stuff I'd pretty much
taken right out of the newspapers) that what is realistic
isn't always believable in a game, and that the audience has
been trained to expect certain things that you dare not contradict.
The presentation was a blueprint for navigating this tightrope,
and for giving the writer tools for producing solid storylines
for realistic games that wouldn't break the audience's suspension
of disbelief.
IGDA
For several years, I had the honor of
serving as one of the executives of the IGDA's Game Writers
Special Interest Group. The group functions to serve as a
resource for video game writers, and to promote the craft
of game writing. You can find more, including the group's
white paper on the basics of game writing, on the SIG's
website and the well-received and Frontline-nominated
Game
Writing: Narrative Skills for Video Games. While
I'm no longer one of the executives, I continue to support
and participate in the group as it moves forward.
Project Horseshoe
In 2006, I was one of the attendees
of the initial Project
Horseshoe, a small conference on game design hosted
by the legendary Fat
Man deepinthehearta Texas. (Scorpions, no. Drunk
squirrels, yes. It was Texas.) I spent the conference working
as part of a small team tackling issues of the legitimacy
of games as media form, and deeply enjoyed the experience.
Being in a room with that many big brains, many of whom were
responsible for games I've known, loved, and spent countless
hours on over the years, was one of the highlights of my career
in games thus far.
And to prove I was there, here's
a picture of me playing "Hey, That's My Fish!"
Needless to say, I went back
in 2007 and 2008, though the incriminating photos
have yet to surface. I think.
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