PART 2
Writing for Games

INTRODUCTION

The word “games” is a convenient shorthand term for a wider field of interactive entertainment that can take many forms. Currently, we see a huge business for videogames as defined primarily by platform (PC, consoles, mobile devices, etc.) and genres (First Person Shooter, Role-Playing Game, Massively Multi-player On-Line Game, casual, puzzle, adventure, etc.). Yet there are so many other possibilities, such as interactive fiction, true mass-market games on Facebook with millions upon millions of players, interactive series on the Web, and attempts to create genuine interactive drama rather than being bound by the constraints of “game” expectations.

The development of electronic games draws heavily on the millennia-old interest in passing one’s time at games of chance (rolling the dice, tossing coins), skill (sports), or strategy (chess, go, backgammon, poker). The earliest electronic offerings refected simple skill-based games: Pong and arcade shooters. As the field of videogames matured and the technology advanced, savvy players began to demand more satisfaction from the stories that provided the rationale behind increasingly complex games that combined elements of chance, skill, and strategy with the additional aspect of making the player a character within the game. Videogames have become a blend—often an awkward blend at war with itself—of gameplay and storytelling.

At the same time, interactive writing is in its infancy. As with animation writing, it draws from an ancient history of audiovisual storytelling, but with a modern twist—the player is no longer a passive viewer/listener. The player’s actions are vital components in how digital storytelling and games work. This extra twist is what differentiates the craft of writing for games from any other form of writing. It requires an entirely new way of looking at and thinking about how “story,” in the traditional linear way we understand it, can be integrated into a nonlinear form that demands active participation in how that story will be expressed.

In this half of the book, five authors share a range of expertise, experience, and knowledge about this ever-changing, ever-mutating field of interactive entertainment. In addition, there is a section on the newly developing area of serious games, in which the familiar formats of videogames are used not to entertain, but to instruct, teach, or inform the “players” on real-world subjects—every-thing from Army field training to dealing with world hunger to helping kids fight cancer cells.

We will cover topics such as these:

• Basics of game design
• The nature of interactivity
• Tools and terminology
• Script and proposal formatting
• Linear vs. nonlinear narrative
• Simulation stories
• Design and writing of serious games
• Breaking into videogame writing

If you find that the contributors’ chapters spark your interest in learning more, you can delve more deeply into the books listed here. Let’s meet the authors.

Terry Borst, Story and Simulations for Serious Games: Tale from the Trenches (ISBN-13: 978-0-240-80788-1)

Terry Borst is a Writers Guild of America member with screenwriting credits in feature films, episodic television, and videogames, including the award-winning Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV. He has also taught screenwriting and multimedia design at UCLA, USC, the College of Santa Fe, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Moorpark College, and various conferences and workshops. Borst and co-writer Nick Iuppa contributed Chapters 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23. You can learn more about Terry Borst by going to www.terryborst.com.

Timothy Garrand, Writing for Multimedia and the Web (ISBN-13: 978-0-240-80822-2)

Timothy Garrand is currently a principal user experience architect with TandemSeven. TandemSeven designs, architects, and builds world-class applications and portals.

Garrand brings nearly 20 years of usability and user interface design experience with special expertise in rich Internet application design, content development, and content strategy. Garrand’s experience spans multiple industries, with an emphasis on financial services, consumer products, educational media, and publishing. Garrand has worked on more than a hundred Web and multimedia programs for major companies such as Houghton Mifflin, Pearson Education, Reed Elsevier, Rockland Trust, Fleet Bank, Hartford Life, the State of Massachusetts, Citibank, Giant Eagle, JPMorgan Chase, Career Education Corporation, Chubb Insurance, Standard Chartered Bank, and Fidelity Investments.

Before joining TandemSeven, Garrand worked as an independent consultant, senior interactive architect for the agency Immersant, and he served as owner-operator of his own company, InterWrite, which specialized in information architecture, content strategy, and online design educational multimedia.

Garrand is a frequent speaker at conferences and professional gatherings and occasionally teaches a course on interactive writing for the University of Massachusetts.

Timothy Garrand contributed Chapters 13, 16, 17, and 18. You can learn more about Timothy Garrand by going to www.interwrite.com/book/index.html.

Nick Iuppa, Story and Simulations for Serious Games: Tale from the Trenches (ISBN-13: 978-0-240-80788-1)

Nick Iuppa is an award-winning designer of instructional media and game-based training. He has held creative positions for world-renowned entertainment companies such as MGM, Walt Disney Productions and Paramount Pictures and served as a training executive at Silicon Valley giants Hewlett Packard and Apple Computer. Nick also spent 10 years as Vice President and head of Instructional Media Development at Bank of America. He has more recently headed The Iuppa Creative Group, a team of experienced instructional designers, writers and serious game producers who first came together as The Paramount Pictures Simulation Group in 1997. After successfully designing and building leadership-training simulations for the DoD and the US Army, the team has gone on to do instructional and game design on two large projects for the US Fire Service. Additionally, IA has designed a course in Becoming American, a framework for teaching civic literacy to immigrants (for Retention Education), and designed learning packages in creativity, music and math skills for Leap Frog. They have also created entertainment and instructional games for Walt Disney Company, Worlds of Wonder, and Electronic Arts. The Iuppa Creative Group is currently involved in developing confidential and proprietary learning systems for a number of clients. Nick holds a BA in Communication Arts from the University of Notre Dame and an MA in Psychology of Communication from Stanford University. He and co-writer Terry Borst contributed Chapters 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23. You can learn more about Nick Iuppa by going to www.nickiuppa.com.

Christy Marx, Writing for Animation, Comics and Games (ISBN-13: 978-0-240-80582-5)

Christy Marx’s eclectic career includes writing for animation (television and film), live-action (television and film), comic books, graphic novels, manga, videogames, and educational books. She began her work in videogames by designing award-winning adventure games for Sierra On-Line: Conquests of Camelot: King Arthur and the Search for the Grail and Conquests of the Longbow: the Legend of Robin Hood. She has done writing and narrative design for games in the PC, console, and MMOG categories and most recently spent two and a half years creating an original storyworld for an MMOG in development. Her related activities include panels, lectures, workshops, and seminars for all three fields of writing. In her spare time, she herds cats.

She contributed Chapters 10, 15, and 26 to this book. You can learn more about Christy Marx by going to www.christymarx.com.

Carolyn Handler Miller, Digital Storytelling: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment (ISBN-13: 978-0-240-80959-5)

Carolyn Handler Miller is one of the pioneering writers in the field of nonlinear entertainment. As an award-winning Hollywood screenwriter, she brings a unique perspective to the craft of digital storytelling. She has worked as a writer, writer-content designer, or consultant on more than four dozen new media projects. Her work as a digital storyteller includes not only videogames but projects for the Web, interactive TV, smart toys, and transmedia entertainment, as well as innovative educational, informational, and promotional endeavors. In addition, she teaches courses in interactive narrative for the University of New Mexico.

She contributed Chapters 11, 12, 14, 24, and 25 to this book. You can learn more about Carolyn Handler Miller by going to www.carolynmiller.com.