CHAPTER 10
Writing vs. Design

 

 

Christy Marx

 

I am frequently asked how one goes about becoming a game designer, because people still tend to think that designer means the same as writer of the game. To add to the confusion, the two are often combined. However, as game production becomes more specialized, so do these two roles. Given the scope and complexity of writing for videogames, it’s important to understand the difference between design and writing. If you want to work as a writer, you need to understand how these two roles differ and what a designer does, so that you’ll know when you’re being asked to be a writer or to go an extra step toward being a designer. To get some of the confusion out of the way, let’s deal first with the issue of being a game designer.

THE GAME DESIGNER

The role of game designer has evolved considerably since I began work as a designer. As explained earlier, the first designers were programmers for the simple reason that they were the only ones who knew how to design. As the games business grew and games became more complex, the role of designer became more of an entity unto itself. Back then (at least at Sierra On-Line), it seemed as though anyone who could come up with good ideas for a game and put them down in a reasonably coherent manner could be hired to design. It was more about having the creative vision and enough technical skill to know what could or could not be done within the existing programming and animation capabilities.

Today, the position of designer has become a more technical job. The designer must have the overall vision of the game, must understand the mechanics and fundamentals of game design, must have a very good grasp of what makes a game fun, is expected to know programming and art tools, and (in most cases) is expected to be a writer. Boiling it all down, it is the job of the designer to ensure that the game is entertaining, interactive, and functional. Bad design will kill a game faster than you can blink.

© 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-240-81343-1.00001-7

As game development teams grew larger, other designer roles were born. At the very top there may be a creative director who oversees all aspects of creating the game, but at a higher level rather than in terms of the hands-on details. There can be other high-level director jobs for the individual in charge of an entire department, such as the art director, the audio director, the technical director, and the design director. The use of such titles or positions varies from company to company.

The designer at the top of the totem pole with the highest level of responsibility for actually making the game is usually called the lead designer, who might be the same as the design director. There can be one overall lead designer in charge of the project, along with other leads of individual departments, such as the lead system designer, the lead world designer, and so on, who answer to the lead designer. Next on the rung would be a senior designer. Below that level the roles generally default to the type of position, such as systems designer, tool designer, level designer, world designer, and so on.

World building designers and level designers do essentially the same thing— they craft and create the virtual terrain to make sure the player has the best possible game experience while playing through it. A level designer possesses a combination of design, art, architectural, and programming skills.

Additionally, there can be quest designers (creating quests/missions, dialogue, and so on) and content designers (often a rather technical job involving programmatic scripting to make events or scenes happen in the world, as well as other tasks). Although both of these jobs could potentially involve creative writing, they aren’t writing jobs per se.

The more recent addition of a position called narrative designer (or sometimes story designer) is for the writer/designer in charge of working out how story will be integrated into the game and delivered to the player. The narrative designer may or may not do the actual writing and might be the one who hires and works with the game writers.

The best way to understand what companies think any kind of game designer is, is to look at the skill requirements in job listings for designers. Many Web sites list designer jobs. The best place to go is Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra. com), a site that is intensely useful for all things related to game development and features plenty of job listings. High-tech headhunters have Web sites looking to fill the positions for the companies. The game companies often have job listings on their own Web sites.

For those who are interested specifically in being a game designer, looking at these lists of requirements will tell you exactly where you stand and what you need to acquire (experience, skills, education, and so forth) in order to qualify. Today, some colleges teach courses in game design, so there is at least a starting point now that didn’t exist years ago.

You’ll notice that 99 percent of these job listings will include “a passion for games” as one of the requirements. If you get an interview, you can be sure they’ll test you for your knowledge of, and experience with, playing games. If you go after a job with Company A, make sure to play as many games as you can that Company A makes. Feel free to rave about the games to the person interviewing you. If you think the games suck, you’d better find something else to be positive and enthusiastic about (though one wonders why you’d want to work there anyway if you don’t like the company’s games).

No one will hire you right out of the gate to be a lead or senior designer. The most likely path to become the top person designing a game is to find an entry-level job and work your way up. Some people recommend finding any kind of entry-level job—for example, as a game tester (QA, for “quality assurance”). Other people contest this. The advice is all over the place. From what I’ve been able to distil, it depends on three big factors: the internal attitude of the company (will the company’s managers promote from within, or do they look down on lowly game testers?), how good you are at proving you can do design work, and luck.

DESIGNER OR WRITER

The rest of these chapters will deal with being a writer for games, rather than a game designer. There will be additional information about game design in this chapter, because it can be intertwined with the writing discussion. It’s so intertwined that it can be hard at times to sort out where writing ends and design begins, but you need to be able to sort that out because you should be paid differently if you are doing design work in addition to writing, and you should receive a proper credit for it in the game credits.

Possible credits for your work could be writer, story writer, scenario writer, scriptwriter, dialogue writer, story designer, narrative designer, writer/designer, or something else invented on the spot. These titles aren’t yet standardized.

This is extremely simplified, but my take is that the line between the two rests on whether or not you are asked to create the interactive elements. For example, on one game I was hired to write a story and character bible; however, it was a martial arts fighting game, so none of the backstory or biographies affected the actual game design or the gameplay. This material added background and favor, but it created nothing interactive.

In contrast, on another game I was hired not only to create the world bible and biographies, but I also had to come up with the backstory, game story, overall quest, the story-related subquests, how the story would be expressed from the beginning of the game through all the quests to the end, plus write cutscenes and dialogue. I didn’t design the combat system or the magic-using system or the interface, but the game story and quests are at the heart of the interactivity of the game, so that is design work all the same.

If you’re hired as a writer and are asked to create new elements that are definitely generating interactivity in the game, you should discuss with the client whether or not this should be considered as some form of design work.

This doesn’t extend to writing dialogue. It’s true that dialogue is interactive, but if you didn’t create the interactive elements that generated the dialogue, it isn’t design work.

VIDEOGAMES AND HOLLY WOOD

There’s much traffic between Hollywood and the games business. Movies, TV series, and animation are turned into games, whereas games are turned mostly into movies, but could easily become TV series and animation as well. One announced project was an MMOG and Syfy channel series created in tandem.

Words that mean one thing in Hollywood can mean something extremely different in games. The most important of these is development.

In Hollywood, development is mainly a writing process. It’s about acquiring a concept (script, book, newspaper article, or whatever), hiring or acquiring a scriptwriter, getting it written and rewritten, while possibly attaching creative elements such as a director or star actor to help ensure it will get made. Once development—meaning the script—is finished, the project is either killed or is greenlit. If it gets a green light, the movie or show can go into preproduction, and finally, with luck, into actual production. A studio or an executive or whoever has the power can take credit for “developing” the project.

In games, development is the process of making the game. The development team (the developers, or devs for short) consists of the people creating every aspect of the game design and game assets. That includes the producers, designers, programmers, artists, animators, composer, sound editor, QA, and so on. Game development begins with the initial concept for the game and continues until the game is done and shipped.

Another term that can cause confusion is scripting. In Hollywood, everyone knows what a scriptwriter is—the person who writes the TV or movie script. In games, however, a “scripter” or a “scripting” job refers to writing code using software such as Python or Lua, programming languages commonly used in game development. If you’re a writer looking for writing jobs in the games business, be careful not to get snagged by jobs looking for scripters or people able to do scripting. It’s a programming job, not a writing job.

Another term to avoid is world building or world builder. It’s a term that sounds useful for a writer, but in games it’s a technical term for the work of a level designer who creates the geography/architecture for a level or region in the game.

Using a hyphenated term to describe oneself is another area where games depart from standard Hollywood terminology. I have done both game design and game writing, so for years I referred to myself as a writer-designer (or designer-writer). I was so accustomed to the use of hyphenates in Hollywood, it never occurred to me that people in games would have a negative reaction to the usage. In film or TV, if someone is a writer- director, writer-actor, or writer-producer, it’s well understood that this person can do either or both of these jobs, not necessarily at the same time. Oddly enough, though, there seems to be more acceptance in the games business of the term designer/writer or writer/designer when a slash is used instead of a hyphen.

In general, the belief is that the combined terms confuse the issue and leave game people unsure whether you want to write or you want to design; or worse, they’ll worry about hiring you as a writer, and you’ll end up trying to meddle with design when they don’t want you to. Most games people think it’s essential to have two separate résumés: one purely for the game writing work, and one purely for game design work (if you do both).

Terminology

The terms below are a tiny fraction of the huge vocabulary that surrounds the process of making games. I’ve subjectively grabbed a batch of the terms that I think are useful for a writer to know, especially if you’re not already familiar with games.

The first few definitions pertain more specifically to terms that a writer absolutely needs to know. The rest of the definitions relate more to playing games in general.

Writer-specifc terms

ASSETS

Any digital file that makes up part of the game—such as art, animation, code, sound, music, voice recording, text dialogue, or whatever. If you write dialogue for a game, each piece of dialogue is an asset.

CINEMATIC

A noninteractive scene that is part of the game story and is rendered in real time by the game engine. It’s a scene that the player can only watch, but cannot affect (other than to skip over it). A cinematic can be used to convey a key story point, give the player an extra “pat on the back” for completing some important section of the game, create atmosphere, provide clues to the player about what to do next, and so on. See also Cutscene. The two terms, cinematic and cutscene, are used interchangeably, however, and most people no longer make a distinction between them.

COMMENTING OUT (USING ; OR //)

Putting a semicolon (;) or double backslashes (//) in front of a line indicates you are “commenting” or “commenting out” that specific line as a piece of information, rather than writing a line of script or a line of code. When a line is commented out, it tells a programmer (and the program itself) that this is information only, and not something to be acted upon. It’s used to make a note of explanation or other information about the piece of code or script that immediately follows it.

CUTSCENE

A noninteractive, prerendered scene written for the game, the same as a cinematic in purpose. A cutscene, however, might use art assets beyond what the game itself can provide. For example, a cutscene could be shot with live actors, or it might use a higher resolution of animation. The two terms, cinematic and cutscene, are used interchangeably, however, and most people no longer make a distinction between them.

DELIVERABLES

A term commonly used to refer to game assets that have to be delivered to meet a milestone (a game development deadline). In the case of a game writer, deliverables would be such things as a story treatment, a quest, dialogue for a particular character, or some other specific chunk of writing.

DESIGN DOCUMENT

This can vary from company to company, but ideally a design document contains the design specifics for every aspect of a game: examples include story outline, explanation of the interface, world-building description, character biographies, lists of important NPCs, and indications of all the interactive elements and what they are and how they work. In short, it is the complete blueprint for the game.

FMV (FULL-MOTION VIDEO)

Prerendered video (animation or live action) done in broadcast-quality resolution (thirty frames per second) and played like a minimovie. Note that as game platforms continue to advance in their ability to render high-quality animation, there may no longer be a need for FMVs. They have been used primarily as opening trailers for the beginning of the game to set up the story, situation, or environment, or for cutscenes.

MILESTONES

Game schedules work to milestones rather than deadlines. A milestone is a date by which a certain chunk of the game design must be done, or the assets created, or code implemented, and so on. For a writer, chunks of game writing will be assigned as milestones.

WALKTHROUGH

A written description of how to follow one or more paths through a game. A walkthrough generally tells the player how to get to locations, how to find the necessary NPCs, what to do there, and other details that help the player find his way through the game.

Game-development and Game-Playing terms

AGGRO, AGGRO RADIUS (AGGRO = AGGRESSION)

Aggro refers to how likely it is that a mob (see definition below) or object in the game will attack your avatar (see definition below). If the mob has high aggro, it’s more likely to attack you. Your own level as a player can also affect this—for example, a higher-level mob will tend to have more aggro toward you if you’re a lower level, while a very-low-level mob may completely ignore you if you’re a much higher level than it. Aggro radius is the size of the area around the mob that your avatar must enter in order to trigger the aggressive action. You might be able to run right into or through some mobs without triggering an aggro response, but other mobs might attack you when you’re yards away.

AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE)

In computer science, AI is a computer system that is programmed to “think” like a human, to reason, to learn, and to perform cognitive functions that mimic human intelligence. In games, AI is more loosely used to refer to the level of intelligence programmed into the computer-controlled NPCs and other objects to determine how they’ll respond to the player or to other objects in the game. The AI given to the human characters in The Sims, for example, is much higher than a role-playing game’s AI for a minor NPC who needs to have only a specific and limited set of things to say or do.

ATTRIBUTES

Used mostly in role-playing games to refer to the vital statistics that a player can control and improve for their avatar, such as strength, agility, speed, stealth, spirit, and so on.

AVATAR

The avatar is the player’s character in the game and is always controlled by the player. There are games in which a player can control more than one character, but the player has only one avatar. The secondary characters are NPCs, even though the player controls them. The avatar may be a specific character that is created for the player (such as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider), or a character the player builds from scratch and assigns a unique name, as in RPGs and MMOGs.

Note that although the term “avatar” has been around for a long time, some companies may use other terminology, such as “player character” or “hero character.” (See also Toon.)

BETA TESTING

Stages of game testing in which people outside the company (meaning potential customers) are invited to test the game shortly before it is officially released. There is first a closed beta which allows a limited pool of players, followed by an open beta that allows a larger pool of players to put the game through its paces. The idea is to find as many bugs (see below) as possible and fix them before the game is released, and to look for weaknesses in the game-play that can be improved. It can also build a loyal customer base and give the game good word of mouth (you hope).

BOSS

A boss is a mob that is a higher level than the others around it (the “boss” of the lower level mobs), thus posing a greater challenge to the player. A boss is usually the last one the player fights, as the payoff for getting past all the lower mobs. (See also Elite.)

BUFF

A spell or other effect cast in the game that benefits the player’s avatar, usually for some limited period of time. For example, an avatar might get a boost in strength or an increase in agility or stamina, or might gain an ability, such as turning invisible, and so on.

BUG

An error in the code or other assets that causes a game to work incorrectly.

DEATHMATCH

A player-vs.-player mode of combat that occurs in the multiuser versions of a first-person shooter. In deathmatch mode, a player can respawn (reappear) in the game either immediately after dying or after a very short delay.

DPS (DAMAGE PER SECOND)

A common stat that indicates how much damage your avatar or avatar’s weapon/spell can do to mobs or other players, and vice versa.

DUNGEONS

In game usage, this refers to special spaces set aside for dangerous exploration and combat—often, but not always, underground. It typically indicates a large and complex space with lots of room for the player to get into trouble, rather than a single room or simple cave. “Dungeon crawlers” are games built entirely around large, multilevel dungeons where all the action takes place.

ELEGANT

If you hear a programmer refer to something as elegant, he means that it’s a beautifully written piece of code that is clear, clean, easy to understand, well commented, and works with minimal problems.

ELITE

A boss mob or NPC that is high level, extra-powerful, and difficult to battle. It can also refer to a dungeon or quest in which such bosses or NPCs are found.

EMOTES

Typed commands that cause the avatar to perform some emoting action, such as waving, dancing, cheering, flirting, bowing, blowing a kiss, slapping, and so on.

EXPLOIT

A bug in the game or a loophole in the game design that allows a player to exploit the flaw in some way that wasn’t anticipated, isn’t necessarily desirable, and is advantageous to the player, giving him an unfair advantage over other players. For example, a player might discover a bug that allows him to get unlimited numbers of some item and sell them, thus becoming very rich very quickly in a way that wasn’t intended and unbalances the game’s economy.

FEATURE

To put it simply, the features are the actions you’re able to do in a game via the interface. Being able to save a game at any point is a feature. Being able to craft or manufacture something in a game is a feature. Being able to customize the appearance of your avatar is a feature. There’s an old joke among programmers: “It’s not a bug—it’s a feature!” This is another way of saying: “It’s not really broken—we meant it to work badly like that.” The joke is sometimes applied to bad design decisions. Another aspect of feature is “feature creep,” which refers to new features being added to a game after the initial game design is done because they seem like a cool idea, but which can seriously mess up the budget and schedule. Adding a feature means adding code, art, and possibly other assets, so a good producer or game designer needs to keep feature creep under control.

FRAG

Killing another player, most commonly used in the deathmatch mode of FPS games.

GRIEFERS

People who play multiuser games for the purpose of interfering with or taking unfair advantage of other players. They cause grief, hence “griefers.”

GUI (GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE)

The Mac operating system was the first to use GUI (pronounced “gooey”) when it created graphic elements on the screen (symbols, icons, drop-down dialogue boxes, and so on) that could be clicked on in order to perform a program action, rather than having to type in text instructions to tell the program what you wanted to do. This was a revolution in interface design because it made interacting with programs friendlier and easier (or that’s the theory). Now GUI (such as Windows) is the standard.

HIT POINTS (HP)

A mathematical value that represents how much damage the player’s character can take before dying.

INSTANCE, INSTANCING

This applies to MMOGs in which there can be hundreds to thousands of players sharing the same game locations or zones, so special locations will be set aside to be instances. This means that many copies of the location can exist on the same server, so that one particular group of players can enter that version of the location and carry out a quest or mission without the intrusion of any other players. Basically, an instance is your own private universe for your group of players. Simultaneously, any number of groups can be playing the same quest or mission within their own versions of that location. For example, a particular dungeon can be set aside to be an instance. As soon as the player or party of players enters the dungeon, they are in a unique version of it that is accessible only to them and not to any other players. Instancing is often used to avoid overcrowding in significant quest areas so that players get a quality experience for that quest. There is much debate among designers over the use of instancing, and what constitutes too much or too little.

INTERFACE

The software and hardware controls used by the player to interact with the game. The hardware part of the interface can be a keyboard, mouse, console controller, joystick, and so forth. The software part of the interface can be icons, symbols, or other input areas on the screen that are used to play the game.

INTUITIVE

Game designers use this word a lot when discussing the design of the game interface. Every designer strives to make the game interface and design as intuitive as possible—meaning extremely easy and natural for the player to understand and use. The idea is that the player intuitively understands what something does or how it works, rather than having to be trained in how to use it or having to read a manual.

LEVELS, LEVELING UP

Level is a dual-purpose term that can refer to a zone (region or location) of the game (for example, a desert, a range of mountains, a swamp, a dungeon, a city, an entire country, a neighborhood, or even the single floor of a huge building structure). It can also refer to the levels achieved by the player when she has racked up a certain number of experience points (or similar stat). The player then “levels up” (usually a numeric level, such as going from level 40 to level 41) and gains enhancements, such as increased strength, spirit, stamina, or other abilities.

LEVEL DESIGNER

Again, there can be variance in this job description, but basically a level designer is responsible for using art and programming tools to create a geographic region or zone for the game, including the design, placement, and functions of flora, fauna, terrain, architecture, NPCs, and mobs.

MOB (MOBILE OR MOBILE OBJECT)

A mob is any NPC or other humanoid, creature, monster, or object that is mobile within the game and is controlled by the computer. More commonly, it refers to mobile objects that can move around and attack or chase the player, rather than an NPC who interacts socially with the player or gives out information, such as a quest giver.

NPC (NONPLAYER CHARACTER)

An NPC is any other game character that is not an avatar. NPCs are usually controlled by the computer, but there can be NPCs, such as a squad of soldiers or a set of quest companions, that are controlled by the player.

NERF

Means to weaken the abilities of a character class or other game object that is considered too powerful. For example, World of Warcraft players who feel that the Paladin class is too powerful will ask the devs to “nerf the Pallies.” In order to have a weakening or negative affect on them, this would mean having to change the underlying rules that govern what that character class can do.

PATCH

In general computer terms, a patch is a software update that is meant to fix bugs or other problems with an earlier version of the software. In games, the patch would not only fix bugs, but might include changes to the game-play (nerfs, buffs, new features, and so on) and new graphics, new sound, or new music to go along with new features. One example of a patch to improve gameplay would be adding the ability to have changing weather, such as a rainstorm, in a game region.

POLYGONS

What cells are to the human body, polygons are to 3D digital art. A single 3D character or building can be made up of thousands of polygons, which are tiny individual shapes that ft together to create the whole object. The more polygons, the more detailed and the better the resolution of the art, but also the greater the demands on the processing power of the hardware and software.

POWER-UP

A game item or commodity that can be acquired that gives the player’s character an advantage over other players or against mobs. These items often have a limited usage or limited time.

PVE (PLAYER VS. ENVIRONMENT)

An MMOG option where the player is primarily playing against the game environment and the NPCs and mobs in it, rather than against other players (unless the player specifically chooses to do so). It’s considered a safer form of gameplay because the player can enjoy the game without constantly having to worry about being jumped by some other player.

PVP (PLAYER VS. PLAYER)

An MMOG option where the player is always playing against other live players in the game environment, as well as with the NPCs and mobs in it.

QA (QUALITY ASSURANCE)

The process of testing a game (by playing and playing and playing it) to find bugs so they can be fixed before the game ships. Most companies have a lead QA person who runs a team of QA testers.

REPLAYABILITY

A game that contains enough entertainment value and variability that the player will play it two or more times to see what the alternative game experience is. The Sims has infinite replayability. A strongly linear game with little difference in how it plays out from one time to the next has low replayability quality.

SPAWNING

When a mob or monster or NPC suddenly appears in the game world, it has “spawned”—that is, the game engine has caused the entity to appear in a designated spot to carry out its function.

SIDE-SCROLLERS

Games that use 2D graphics so that the background scenery has to scroll from side to side (or top to bottom) as the player moves his avatar.

SPAWN CAMPING

The practice some players use in order to keep killing over and over again (for loot or experience) by first killing the mob then sitting and waiting at that spot for the mob to respawn, then doing it all over again.

STATS (STATISTICS)

Stats are vital to every sort of game, whether they’re an obvious part of the interface (such as RPG character and weapon stats) or a hidden part of the game (underlying code). In RPGs in particular, the player is constantly trying to improve the stats of her characters—stats governing characteristics such as strength, speed, agility, stamina, spirit, and so forth. Stats also apply to what damage or effect an attack, weapon, spell, or other effect will have on the player, other players, NPCs, and mobs.

STRAFE

In combat, moving the avatar from side to side (often while using a weapon) rather than moving forward and then turning. It’s a technique for dodging attacks.

TOON

Slang word for an avatar, used mainly by people playing MMOGs.

TRIGGER, FLAG, HOOK

These are all programming terms that indicate a piece of code that checks for specific conditions and activates the correct response depending on those conditions. The response can be an action (fight, run away, give something to the player, and so on) and/or it might be a piece of dialogue. For example, if the player clicks on an NPC that’s a dwarf, the NPC code might check to see what character class the avatar is, what level the avatar has achieved, whether or not the avatar is shown as friendly or hostile to the NPCs character class, what the avatar is carrying in inventory, or any other number of variables. Thus, the NPC might respond one way if the avatar is a hostile, low-level warrior (“Get lost, bud”), and a very different way if the avatar is a friendly, high-level dwarf (“Hail, friend—here’s some gold to help you out”).

Mobs and some NPCs may have a trigger radius around them, meaning a set distance around them which the avatar must enter before an action or response is set into motion.

TWINKING

Done when a higher-level player helps a lower-level player rise more quickly in levels and experience than would be possible in normal play, usually by providing the lower-level player with money or useful game objects (such as money, weapons, gear, or armor). Also used when a player with a high-level avatar gives money or better-than-usual items to a lower-level avatar used by the same player.

WAYPOINTS

In the virtual terrain, these are specific points that are used to determine the movements of NPCs or other moving objects (which are coded to move from one waypoint to another, or within a set of waypoints). Another example might be satellites positioned in space in order to serve as waypoints (spatial and navigational guidance) for the player in a spaceship so she can figure out how to get from one star system to another.

XP (EXPERIENCE POINTS)

The points an avatar gains by accomplishing missions/quests, killing, exploring new locations, and so on. These points are used to determine when the avatar will level up.

FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN

Before getting into writing specifics, such as script formats (see Chapter 15), let’s take a look at the larger issues that affect writing for games. These issues have to do with the nature of interactivity and the peculiar demands of videogames. Although many of these issues are the responsibility of the designer, a game company will want to have a writer who understands how this type of writing differs from the linear modes of writing. In order to understand that, we’ll need to address some fundamental issues of game design.

Linear vs. Nonlinear

The biggest learning curve for someone entering games with a background in writing for linear media (books, movies, TV) is how to think of story and dialogue in a nonlinear way. That is, how do you convey story or allow a character to grow and change, or allow a story to unfold, when you can’t entirely control the sequence in which the player will experience the story elements? As a writer, I’m all about putting as much storytelling into a game as I can. As a designer, my mantra is empower the player. The trick is to find a way to both empower the player and infuse the game with story and character development.

There’s a constant tension between storytelling and interactivity. Storytelling, in the traditional linear sense, depends upon a specific sequence of events. This sequence includes a beginning, a middle, and an end. The writer controls how the reader/viewer will experience this sequence, and the sequence leads to only one conclusion. Thus, the writer determines the structure of the story.

Note that linear storytelling can be nonlinear in the chronological sense, such as using flashbacks, fash-forwards, telling the story backward (from end to beginning), or showing events out of chronological sequence (Pulp Fiction being an excellent example).

However, in games, what we mean by nonlinear is that it is the player—not the writer—who has significant control over when and how and in what order she experiences those events. Furthermore, the input of the player can potentially be significant in the direction or resolution of the story.

For example, in both of my adventure games, I offered the player options that were moral choices. In Conquests of Camelot, the player’s avatar was King Arthur. Along the way, Arthur was put into situations where he could either rescue or decide not to rescue three of his knights, including Lancelot. If the player let his knights die, he could still complete the game, but when he placed his hands on the Holy Grail (the object of his quest), he was found not worthy and was burned to dust, rather than taking the Grail home in triumph.

In Conquests of the Longbow, the player’s avatar was Robin Hood. On numerous occasions throughout the game, Robin Hood had various options for dealing with NPCs—which could include killing, helping, bribing, convincing by talking, and so forth. The options chosen by the player, along with various other actions during the game story, determined which of four endings the player would get—ranging from the best result (a full pardon from King Richard plus the restoration of his title as earl and the hand of Maid Marian) to the worst result (being hanged as a good-for-nothing robber).

The essence of games is interactivity, which means putting the player in control as much as possible. There is still structure and there are still rules, but they are designed to give the player as much freedom as the structure can allow. Videogames can be nonlinear and interactive and still have a basic three-act structure. More about this later under Game Structure.

It’s easy to see how a linear story (Figure 10.1) can progress from one story node to another, with later story nodes able to build on or make reference to earlier story nodes.

In a completely nonlinear story (Figure 10.2), each story node has to stand alone and be self-sufficient without depending on the other story nodes or making reference to them in a specific sequence.

Figure 10.1 A simple linear storyline.

Figure 10.2 A non-linear storyline.

Most games will fall somewhere between these two extremes, as other examples will show.

Basically, what it gets down to is this: the more interactivity (player freedom) the game allows, the less linear story the writer can tell. You can visualize it as a seesaw, with story at one end and interactivity at the other. A game that is weighted heavily with story is light in interactivity. If heavy in interactivity, the game will be light in story. Trying to balance the two issues so the seesaw is horizontal isn’t necessarily the right answer. The type of game will determine where on this seesaw scale the game will fall.

Many console games have quite linear stories threading through them, and the interactivity is mainly about the combat system and what/whom the player gets to fight along the way. PC games demand a higher level of true interactivity, with the player able to command a wider range of choices. MMOGs demand a high level of choice. Because they are ongoing, these games provide an additional design challenge in how to keep thousands of players hooked on the game world, the story, and the quests for months and years on end. MMOGs in particular are more about creating a compelling environment—the game world—and the activities in which the player can take part within that environment.

Some games are designed specifically for the hard-core gamers, in which case the design emphasis is definitely on gameplay at the expense of story. Hardcore gamers aren’t known for caring about story. Other games look to attract a wider market of players who like a more rewarding story experience or want something more out of a game than twitching their thumbs on a controller.

When writing for games, you’ll encounter many variations of this design mind-set, and you’ll often feel that story must take a backseat to gameplay. How much story or character development is woven into a game will be up to the attitudes and preferences of the designer or producer—which leaves you, the writer, with the task of balancing your writing input with the requirements of the game design.

GAME STRUCTURE

Game structure is a huge subject. To fully understand it would require reading a book entirely about game design, but if you’re hired to write a game story or text for missions/quests or dialogue for the NPCs, you’ll need to understand the structure of the game in order to do a good job of it.

Understand that “game structure” is my own wording, and other game designers may have any number of words or terms to cover this. To me, the structure of the game is its underlying architecture, which determines how linear or nonlinear it is, and what parameters are used to create or control the nonlin-earity. I would further divide this term into two major components: gameplay structure and story structure.

Story Structure

Although all games have at least a beginning, a middle, and an end, a game that contains story structure should fall under the basic three-act structure of drama—Act 1: setup (exposition), Act 2: conflict (complications), and Act 3: resolution. The three-act structure is about the development of emotional response in a story, the building of dramatic tension, and the final release of that tension in the resolution. Games that contain these elements have story structure. Games that lack any of these elements consist entirely of gameplay structure.

An example of a game consisting only of gameplay structure is a casual game such as Tetris, which is about manipulating colored blocks as they fall from the top to the bottom of the screen. It has a beginning with the starting positions of the colored blocks, a middle as the player must deal with the new blocks descending, and the end when the player either wins or loses the game. What it doesn’t have is story.

Myst was about 95 percent gameplay (the puzzles) and 5 percent story. I’d put most MMOGs at about 90 percent gameplay, 10 percent story (though not story that the player can truly affect). The story-driven action game Max Payne is about 50”“50. My adventure games probably fall somewhere around 60 percent story to 40 percent gameplay structure (in other words, in these games, the story dictated the gameplay slightly more than the gameplay dictated the story).

Setting aside games that don’t depend on story (such as puzzles, cards, chess, sports, sims), every game requires some kind of Act 1 story setup. There must be at least minimal backstory about how the current situation, world, or conflict came to be; information about the avatar or character that the player will be playing (if applicable), or about the general race or class to which the avatar belongs; and what the current situation is that faces the player at the start of the game, which includes some sense of what the player is meant to achieve.

Along the way, there need to be the Act 2 complications that affect either the gameplay or the story, or ideally a combination of both. A more-story-driven game might even have an inciting incident. In drama, an inciting incident (or catalyst) is usually the turning point between Act 1 and Act 2, and is the event that starts the forces of conflict in motion.

Max Payne had a good example of that. The setup of the first game is that Payne’s family has been killed by crazed drug users. At the beginning of the game, Payne is an undercover cop who is out to find and stop those killers, as well as to find the source of the drug. Very quickly, however, he finds himself framed for the murder of his partner, and is on the run from the law while on the hunt for the criminals. This is a classic inciting incident. It ups the ante and reshapes his goals. Now Payne must not only find the killers and stop the drug trade, he must clear his name while on the run. The game storyline throws various other turning points and conflicts in his way as Payne’s search leads him from location to location (each location being a “level”), and from NPC to NPC.

Conflict doesn’t just mean physical conflict. Top-notch TV writer Stephen J. Cannell has an online advice column (http://www.writerswrite.com/screenwriting) in which he also mentions “social conflict, emotional conflict, spiritual conflict, cultural conflict, internal conflict, relationship conflict, psychological confict.”

Finally, games with story require an Act 3 resolution. The hero wins or fails, achieves the quest or not, finds the killers or dies. Those resolutions may vary (more than one or two endings for a game), but there has to be a resolution. If the player wins, that resolution needs to be a satisfying payoff for the effort she has put into the game. The satisfaction level will depend on how thoroughly the player has gotten involved in the story and the characters, and how the player is rewarded for that involvement.

To be most effective, the three-act structure should be applied to individual scenes or sequences, to entire levels, to entire missions, and finally to the overall game story. In other words, the game should have a large three-act structure, but should also have numerous mini-three-act structures within it.

Resolution is a sticky problem for MMOGs. An MMOG can have the usual amount of setup, but is more about presenting the player with an ongoing world and leveling up within that world than it is with creating a through-line of story complications. There can be references to the background story, but it’s extremely difficult for an MMOG player to impact an MMOG world in a significant way along with many thousands of other players doing the same things. All the same, the levels need to add up to something once the player reaches the top level. In World of Warcraft, for example, there is a climactic scene for level 60 players and a big quest to pay off reaching that level. It’s a resolution of sorts, but not a true resolution because the game doesn’t end there. There must be new material, new quests, and higher levels to achieve, or it will feel as though the game has reached a dead end.

Game Parameters

So we begin with the assumption that a game with story will have something akin to a three-act structure. The next big question in how to implement that story structure will be to work out the parameters of the gameplay structure.

“Parameters” is my own terminology. It’s not an official game design word, and there can be any number of ways of expressing this part of game structure. The important thing is to understand the underlying concept of game parameters. Those parameters have a major impact on how, when, and where story can be injected into gameplay, or how the story elements will be carried out.

If game structure is the architecture, then parameters are the walls, floors, ceiling, doors, windows, and pertinent fittings. For example, if the room is a bathroom, it may or may not have a window, but it will have enclosing walls, floor, ceiling, and a door as the basic structure parameters. It will also have a sink, toilet, tub, and fixtures for running water as the basic interactivity parameters.

Parameters for a game structure control where a player can go, when she can go there, and what she can do there. A sandbox game has fairly wide-open parameters, allowing the player to go nearly anywhere at any time. A more linear console FPS game might have more-restrictive parameters that determine where the player can go and when and what she can do there. Sometimes two or more parameters work together to control or guide the player. Some parameters will apply mostly to gameplay, some will apply more to story, and many will apply to both.

Here are some examples of typical parameters:

• Zone (location, region, terrain)
• Time or phase
• Player level
• Acquisition of game objects
• Acquisition of a quest
• Predetermined events

Zone

Note that “zone” is only one word that might be used for the concept of a restrained area, and each game company could use a word of its own, such as region or level. The concept is the same. A zone could potentially be a single room, an instanced dungeon, or an entire geographic region. Using a zone to strictly control a player’s movements means that the player is restricted to that zone until the right conditions are met to move on to the next zone. In Conquests of Camelot, Arthur’s castle was one zone. It consisted of various rooms, corridors, garden, and the main gate with portcullis. Arthur had several tasks (subquests) to complete before he could safely leave through the main gate. Once outside Camelot, there were other geographic zones available that could be visited in any order and that required various local subquests to be completed (Figure 10.3).

Once the subquests for all the zones in England were completed, it opened up the ability for Arthur to get on a ship and travel to the Middle East, where the next zone was the town of Gaza, then a desert to be crossed, and finally the zone of Jerusalem. Because we didn’t have the ability to make the game terrain endless, we had to build in restricting parameters. There was a safe path through the desert, but players who wandered off in other directions died of thirst.

Figure 10.3 The various zones for the England portion of Conquests of Camelot

If a zone is inside a building, the parameters will consist of doors that are either locked or can be opened only under the right circumstances, or other ways to get in and out. If the exterior geography or terrain is wide open, the player must eventually be blocked by something—whether it’s an ocean, a sheer cliff, impassable mountains, a locked tunnel, monsters that can’t be defeated, or severe conditions that block the player from going in that direction.

Zones don’t have to be entirely restrictive. Certainly in MMOGs, the player has the freedom to travel extensively through various zones, but those zones will have mobs and other conditions of varying difficulty. In beginner zones, the mobs are low level and easy to defeat by any player, so those zones are fairly safe to wander around in. Other zones increase in difficulty. If a beginning player wanders into a zone populated with higher-level mobs, the player tends to get killed in short order. Players are quick to figure this out, and the zone boundaries become as effective as impassable mountain ranges. This is where two parameters (zone, player’s level) work together to guide where the player should go or not go.

Zones are defined by appearance, theme, surface textures, color palettes, sounds, music, and other elements that help set the visual and audio boundaries for that locale. Those elements can potentially relate to story parameters— for example, a dark, forbidding atmosphere, unsettling sounds, and creepy music set the stage for certain types of quests or story elements. A haunted, misty forest will create a different mood for a quest than would a bright, sun-filled valley of flowers. As a writer, you want to mesh what you’re writing with the look and feel of the zone in which it will take place, as well as understanding the parameters of the zone.

Time or Phase

In some games, the parameter might be time based or defined as a “phase” or similar term. In Conquests of the Longbow, I divided the gameplay and story elements into “days.” The player was free to wander around Sherwood Forest and various other locations, so the zones were only a partial restriction. A set number of quests and events were programmed to occur each day in varying zones. They could be done in any order, but the day didn’t end until they had been done (Figure 10.4). Then there was a nighttime cutscene that wrapped up the events of the day, depending on how they had gone. The game progressed this way through day after day, night after night, until reaching the resolution.

For another game, we divided a large, sweeping overall story into five phases, which were defined by evolving story elements, plus the player’s level in which he advanced from the pilot of a single fighter spacecraft to squadron leader and up the ranks to Admiral of the Fleet. As the player advanced in rank, the story elements for each phase increased in scope and complexity to keep pace with his greater ability to have an effect on the gameplay. This meant that missions written for phase 1 had to work for someone who could operate only a single fighter as part of the space battles, but missions written for phase 4 had to work for someone who had advanced to commander of a group of battleships. However, missions also had to be written for every rank below commander, because there was always the chance that the player had failed or had chosen not to advance in rank.

Figure 10.4 Story structure divided into day and night components.

Some games also introduce a timer that requires the player to complete a quest, task, or set of actions within a specific amount of time, such as having to kill some number of mobs within fifteen minutes. Usually such timers will be limited in use, applied to a single quest or small section of the game. Some players like the extra pressure of having the clock ticking down as they try to do something; other players prefer to do things at their own pace. And of course, some sports games use timers to mimic the playing times of the real games, as in football and basketball.

Player Level

As touched upon above, games such as RPGs and MMOGs advance the player by levels that govern his stats and abilities, what sort of weapons he can use, what sort of armor he can wear, and so forth. Some aspects of story and game-play might be unavailable to a player depending upon his level. That level might be numerical, or it might be expressed in some games as a rank (squad leader, captain, admiral). The player-level parameter often works in conjunction with a zone parameter, as already mentioned.

Player Race, Faction, or Class

There can be any number of terms for this, and it applies to RPGs in which the player selects a particular race, faction, class, or type of avatar—such as Elf, Orc, Human, Dwarf, Gnome, Terran, Martian, or whatever. Within that larger race or class, there are usually subcategories for what type of that race or faction the avatar will be—for example, Warrior, Priest, Merchant, Rogue, Thief, Paladin, Explorer, Trader, and so on. The game engine can track the faction or race to which the avatar belongs.

Both parameters could be used to determine who gets to do a certain quest. There might be quests written that are offered to a Human or Elf, but not offered to an Orc or Troll, and vice versa; or quests that are offered to a Warrior but not a Rogue. If not every player gets to do every quest, it can obviously affect whether the player sees any story elements tied to those quests.

Zones can also be restricted to certain class or faction types. In the Earth & Beyond MMOG, there were three factions, and each faction had certain planets that only their members could visit in order to access special trainers for that faction. The effect this had on writing dialogue is that for those faction-only sites, dialogue had to cover only the one faction. In other sites in the game, dialogue had to take into account which of the three factions the player belonged to, and alternate dialogues had to be provided.

Acquisition of Game Objects

A smaller parameter that could affect story or gameplay structure would be requiring the player to acquire or win certain game objects before the next step of the game can unfold. An example would be requiring the player to acquire a cloak of invisibility before being able to sneak into a prison and free a prisoner. Freeing the prisoner could both set up the next stage of gameplay and reveal key story elements.

Acquisition of a Quest

A type of parameter is to require the player to be on a specific quest before other game elements become available. For example, a player takes a quest to enter a fortified area. Taking the quest triggers the appearance of an NPC who provides the means for the player to get in.

An example of a combination of the two types of acquisition parameters working together would be a key that the player can find and acquire only after she has taken a mission to get through a certain door. Once she has that key, she can unlock the door to access a new level of the game.

Predetermined Events

A game could be structured around predetermined events that will always happen as the player progresses through the game. These are usually going to be cinematics or cutscenes that drive the story forward, rather than being game-play elements. Max Payne has a cutscene in which Max is knocked out, has a nightmare about his slain family, and wakes up in a new situation that he has to deal with. The scene provides a transition from one gameplay and story level to another, as well as adding to the emotional story content of the game.

Figure 10.5 Example of a structure organized by predetermined events.

In Conquests of the Longbow, I had key scenes or moments that happened on various days in which Robin would have to encounter Maid Marian. The first one was a rescue to bring the two together, whereas other scenes included both story and gameplay elements with the purpose of making the player feel connected to Marian so that in one of the major predetermined events—Marian is sentenced to burn as a witch—the player would feel compelled to save her, which in turn had additional major story and gameplay effects. It was a secondary thread running in parallel to the primary body of the gameplay and game story (which was to raise enough ransom to free King Richard from captivity). A writer would think of it as a subplot, but those predetermined events shaped both story and game elements.

A predetermined-event parameter indicates a more linear or story-driven game structure (Figure 10.5), and can be combined with other parameters.

MORE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Next up are some additional topics that deal with other key aspects of being a game writer. The following topics are covered:

• What if . . .
• Variables and flexibility
• Gradients
• Choice
• The interface
• Immersion
• The player’s mind-set

What If . . .

When a writer sits down to create a linear work, there is a constant process of asking “What if . . .” Creating our characters involves asking endless questions. We ask what if we use this or that type of character, what if this character were female instead of male, what if they have this trait or that trait, is old or young, have this set of beliefs, live here or live there, and on and on. What if my character leaves her cell phone uncharged when she’s about to get into danger? What if my character says no instead of yes to a proposition? What if I give the character a child to protect? What if there is an ex-wife or ex-husband in the mix?

There are the countless what-ifs as we create the plot and the locations, determine the sequence of events, decide how those events will play out, and pick the one ending that feels right out of all the possible endings.

The nonlinear writer goes through the same process of asking the what-if questions—with the key difference that she doesn’t necessarily have to pick only one answer. Instead of, “What if Robin Hood has to get inside Nottingham?” having only one answer, the game writer may have to cover several what-if answers: what if he tries to enter as himself? (he dies); what if he tries to enter disguised as a foolish merchant? (he gets to trick the Sheriff out of money); what if he enters disguised as a beggar? (he can enter safely and explore the town); what if he enters disguised as a monk? (he gets the corrupt Abbot drunk and steals a precious ring from him); what if he enters as a one-eyed yeoman? (he enters the archery contest and wins the golden arrow); what if he never enters at all? (Maid Marian dies for lack of a rescue).

Now, all of those things could happen in a linear story, but in order to empower the player, a game needs to make them all available as options that the player has to (a) discover, (b) choose to act upon (or not), (c) choose how to act upon them (Robin wants Merchant’s clothes—does he kill, threaten, or bribe the Merchant to get the clothes), and (d) carry out the action (which could succeed or fail).

This is also expressed as “if this, then this . . .” because each of the what-if decisions requires a subsequent game response. For example, If Robin decides to bribe the Merchant, then we have dialogue between the two, money leaves Robin’s purse, there’s an animation of the Merchant removing his clothes, animation of the Merchant leaving, and the Merchant’s clothes appear in Robin’s inventory as a usable item. If Robin decides to threaten the Merchant, then we have animation of Robin aiming an arrow at the Merchant, a different set of dialogue between them, animation of the Merchant disrobing and leaving in anger, and the Merchant’s clothes appear in Robin’s inventory as a usable item. And so forth.

Other what-ifs can deal with story consequences. What if Robin simply kills the Merchant for his clothes? If he kills the Merchant, then the Merchant doesn’t appear during the trial at the end of the game to testify in Robin’s behalf, with his absence thus reducing Robin’s chances of winning a pardon. What if Robin threatens the Merchant? If the Merchant appears at the trial, but has only bad things to say, then he has a negative effect on the ending. What if Robin bribes the Merchant instead? Then the Merchant will appear at the trial with good things to say, which will benefit Robin.

Granted, most of these are design decisions you might not be called upon to make as a writer, but being able to think in terms of what-if variables and the “if this, then this” connections are key components to nonlinear thinking.

Besides which, you will be called upon to base what you write upon such what-ifs, which brings us to the subject of variables and flexibility.

Variables and Flexibility

Every one of the options (the various disguises) for getting into Nottingham is a variable. Each method for dealing with the NPCs is a variable. Additional variables might include where they occur in the game sequence (for example, before or after Marian is sentenced to be burned as a witch), or other events that affect using the disguise (for example, whether or not the Sheriff has seen Robin in that disguise before). For example, if Robin uses the merchant disguise to trick the Sheriff out of money, what if Robin tries to enter Nottingham a second time using the same disguise? What if Robin uses the merchant disguise once, but doesn’t interact with the Sheriff? Does he get a second chance to enter in that disguise and trick the Sheriff?

You can expect to be asked to write story components or dialogue that takes into account the numerous variables in the game. To be a game writer, you need the mental skills to keep masses of interrelated details in your head. You need to be well organized and detail oriented.

Another important quality for a game writer to have is flexibility. A game writer must also be ready, able, and willing to make sudden, sweeping changes to the story and writing if technical requirements or last-minute changes in game design take place. A change in one part of a game might affect variables in other parts of the game. The game writer must be able to follow the cascade of potential effects, catch any problems, and compensate for them. This requires having the overall structure of the game in your mind, from a large overview down to the small details. You might be the main person who can know whether pulling out a particular thread will unravel a large part of the game tapestry. This is a critical ability for a game writer to have.

Most often when significant changes are made to a game story, it’s due to time or budget considerations. On one console RPG, I wrote a large, complex story full of secondary quests in several different geographic areas, with allowance for the player to return to those areas more than once with some variability in the story. For reasons of both time and budget (because in games, time = money, the same as in TV and film), we had to cut one large chunk out of the story to eliminate returning to one region. Although returning to that region didn’t require new art assets, it did require significant programming work, which in turn affected how long it would take the programmers to complete the game. Fortunately, the story was modular enough that it was possible to remove that chunk and still make the overall story work, but I had to run through the entire range of variables that would be affected by the deletion and make sure they were accounted for during the rest of the game. Regarding the change, a number of questions needed to be asked: how did it affect the overall story quest; how did it affect other secondary quests; where there signifcant objects the player needed to get there; how did it affect the behaviors or use of NPCs; and how did it affect NPC dialogue, which might refer to it or be dependent on it?

Gradients

Good game design incorporates the use of gradients, in which the player is presented with easy tasks in the beginning, then tasks that become increasingly more difficult and complex as the game progresses. The idea is to give the player a lot of wins at the beginning in order to encourage her and keep her playing. This allows the player to become adept at the interface on a gradual basis, rather than trying to master too much all at once. A player who is given a batch of fairly quick and easy tasks at the start will feel empowered and more motivated to master the next level.

If you’re writing quests or dialogue for them, you’ll want to have an understanding of where they fall in the design gradient, so that you can have that in the back of your mind as you write. This may not have a significant impact on what you write, but it deepens your knowledge, which is always beneficial. It’s not that you want to talk down to a player who is at the start of a game, but you do want to make sure the information you need to get across is clearly explained or stated for someone who isn’t familiar yet with how the game works.

Choice

Boiling interactivity down to its essentials, it’s about choice. In linear writing, the writer is making all the choices. In games, the player makes the choices from whatever options the designer and writer make available. The options made available to the player may be restricted by how much of the game budget and schedule can be spent on creating the extra assets to go along with those options. If every choice offered to the player requires a significant amount of new animation and programming, that will affect how many choices can be offered. This is where game design and story choices have to strike a balance between what you’d like to offer and what you can realistically afford to offer.

Choice empowers the player. And the choice must be a real choice, or else the player will feel cheated. As Spock said in the James Blish Star Trek novel, “A difference that makes no difference is no difference.”

Getting back to Robin Hood’s disguises, there is a different consequence for each choice in how to get the Merchant’s clothes (killing, threatening, bribing). If there were no difference in the consequences, it would make no real difference which option the player chose. If killing the Merchant yields the same result as bribing him, there’s no reason for the player to care about the choices.

Looking at a simplified example, let’s set up a situation in which a player has to choose between taking one of two corridors. In this example, we see that whether the player chooses to go left or go right makes no difference, so having two corridors to choose from is a fake choice (Figure 10.6).

However, if there is something significant to be experienced or found in one corridor that affects the rest of the gameplay, those choices become real choices. Ideally, the player will be “pushed” (given some hint or guidance earlier) as to which corridor to take. For example, the player may have been told ahead of time to watch out for the corridor to his left because it’s dangerous, they’re guarding something there, whereas the corridor to his right is safe. But the player is looking for something that is being guarded, so this is a hint that what he’s looking for could be in that corridor. The player has been presented with genuine choices (Figure 10.7)—take the safe path and risk passing up something useful, or take the dangerous path and get a valuable object that leads to the next step of gameplay. Notice also that although the player arrives at the same end location either way, you effectively have two different paths of action to track: one with the object and one without the object.

Figure 10.6 Example of a fake choice.

Figure 10.7 In this example, the choices are meaningful because they affect gameplay.

As game producer Ellen Guon Beeman sagely puts it, “Players want to win.” Writers should think about that before they create a lot of alternative content that is seen only if the player continues down a losing branch.

Choice has a profound effect on linearity and storytelling. The greater the player’s freedom of choice, the more the writer has to account for the variables created by allowing those choices. In the most linear storytelling form of games, such as many console games, the “choices” are nonchoices from a storytelling point of view, and are mainly gameplaying choices, such as battle strategy, type of weapon or spell to use, how to fight types of mobs, and so on. In an adventure- or action-oriented game with a distinct storyline, the choices should affect how the story plays out as well as what the gameplay elements will be. In a sandbox or MMO game, the player has enormous choice in a range of activities and gameplay, but there may be little to no storytelling impacted by those choices.

The Interface

Although a writer will have no control over the design of the game’s interface, I consider it vital to understand how important the interface is, for two reasons: (a) a bad interface is almost guaranteed to doom a game, and (b) the interface dictates precisely how story and dialogue are implemented in the game.

Much of what I wrote about the evolution of games dealt with the changes in game interfaces. There’s a significant difference in writing for a game that has a minimal interface (Myst); compared to writing for a console game with an interface that can contain many on-screen elements, but are all controlled by a limited set of buttons; compared to writing for a PC-game interface, which can allow a wide range of actions using keyboard and mouse or other devices.

Interface is where the rubber meets the road. Think about the interface for driving a car. What are the essential parts of that interface? You must have a wheel to steer, a pedal to make it move, a pedal to make it stop, something that controls the gears, and a set of tires. That’s about it. The essence of controlling that car—speed, direction, avoiding obstacles, and reaching the goal—is dependent on those five basic interface elements. Everything else—such as speedometer, oil gauge, heater, air conditioner, windshield, radio, rearview mirror, side mirrors, adjustable seat, seat belts, and so on—provide nice extra features that make the experience more enjoyable or safe while not being essential to the fundamental interface.

So it is when designing a game. There are interface components that are absolute necessities, and there are the extra features that further enhance the gameplay. One of the designer’s main responsibilities is designing a good, clean, intuitive interface and balancing the essential gameplay needs with the additional features (Figures 10.8, 10.9). The needs of the game and the requirements of the gameplay will dictate the interface, and the interface will be the only means you as a writer have of providing story or character interactions to the player.

Figure 10.8 This screenshot from World of Warcraft shows an interface at the beginning level that conveys important gameplay information at a glance, yet is intuitive and easy to use. Note how only a few options are given to the player at first. © World of Warcraft^® provided courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

Figure 10.9 This screenshot from World of Warcraft shows an interface at level 80 where the options have grown in complexity and variety, yet remain easy to master because they were presented in a reasonable gradient from simple to complex. © World of Warcraft^® provided courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

In Conquests of Camelot, the player had word riddles to solve, and I could do that because my interface included the player’s being able to type in words that the game engine could parse. In Conquests of the Longbow, I had a specific set of mouse-click icons I had to use, and no text-typing input, which eliminated doing a puzzle such as a riddle. Then we look at the MMOG, which has keyboard input only for chatting with other players or for using emotes, but nothing that affects the gameplay. For most PC and online games, the mouse click is the vital hardware interface—whereas, in console games, it is mashing the buttons on the controller that is the vital hardware interface. Yet both methods can have a wide range of effects depending on how they interact with the game interface on the screen.

The interface elements on the screen fall into two categories:

• Those that are under the control of the player—such as deciding the direction in which to go, moving the camera around, selecting a battle mode, picking a weapon or spell to use, putting on or taking off armor, getting and buying and selling objects, and so on.
• Those that are controlled by the game—such as which NPCs or objects will be clickable, and what that clickable action will be. Examples include a “talk,” “buy/sell/trade,” or “quest giver” icon for an NPC; a “fght” icon for a mob that can be targeted; an “open” icon for a treasure chest; a “ magnifying glass” icon for an object that can be looked at in more detail; and so forth.

Study the many types of interfaces that exist in a variety of games. Study the use of icons and symbols in conjunction with mouse clicks or button mashing. Study how, when, and where the interface allows the player to make a story choice or interact with an NPC in action or in dialogue. Imagine how you would try to convey story elements using the interfaces you encounter.

Immersion

Good designers and writers strive to create a game world, story, and gameplay that are so well meshed that the player can easily feel immersed in that virtual reality. Achieving immersion for the player means finding a way to disguise the obvious game mechanics and make them organic parts of the game world. This can be tricky when the player needs to learn to “Hold down button 1” to achieve a particular move. Anything that reminds a player that he is only playing a game is something that destroys the player’s immersion in that game-world reality. Some players dislike traditional cutscenes because during a cutscene, control of the game is taken away from the player, an obvious reminder that this is a game rather than an alternate reality.

Most of the issues of creating immersion are the designer’s responsibility, but as a writer, you should always look for the ways you can contribute to creating immersion. Is there some way to convey a particular piece of training to make it sound more “real” and less gamelike? Can training be seamlessly integrated into a series of easy initial quests rather than being a stark tutorial? Is there a way to convey a particular piece of story element without putting it into a cutscene? Can the cutscene be interactive instead of noninteractive?

Immersion is also about word choices, tone of language, avoiding anachronisms, and setting a consistent story mood or theme that meshes with the overall game world.

The Player’s Mind-set

To write well for games, it’s helpful to play enough games to have a sense of what the mind-set is of a person who plays the type of game you want to work on. If you want to write console games, you need to understand what a console player expects. If you want to write MMOGs, you need to play one or more MMOGs to understand that mind-set. This isn’t an absolute necessity for someone who wants to be hired purely as a writer, but it improves your ability to deliver something that fits the gamer mind-set.

For those who have played a lot of games already, this may be a no-brainer, but when I began, I knew nothing about games at all. The first thing I did upon being hired by Sierra On-Line (today known as Sierra Entertainment) was to sit down and play all of the games that Sierra had produced. I wanted to become familiar with how their games worked, but also to tap into the mind-set of a typical Sierra player. I needed to meet—and hopefully exceed—that typical player’s expectations. Playing a lot of games also helped me decide which design flaws I wanted to avoid. If something annoyed me as a player, I assumed it would annoy other players.

Being a person of logical mind, I tended to write dialogue and text responses in the order I figured a player would try. My mentors quickly pointed out that I was being too linear. I thought I understood their guidance, and I reworked my scripts trying to take that into account.

But I didn’t have the One True Revelation until we had Conquests of Camelot about halfway done (the entire England chunk of the game) and took it to a convention to let random people bang away at it. I spent the afternoon watching how players interacted with the game, how they tackled the puzzles, how they approached dealing with the NPCs. By the end of the day, I had the One True Revelation. I finally got it.

The One True Revelation is this: players are the Forces of Chaos. They will do anything in any order, whether it makes sense or not. They use trial and error rather than figure out your clever clues. They throw logic out the window.

Therefore, I share this with you, the potential game writer: expect anything and write accordingly, and always remember—players are the Forces of Chaos.