Danny Homan’s Post

Without writers you have... - A unilateral MMO - A game with no story - A game with no direction - Zero emotional connections - A game with nothing to keep your audience's attention It is heartbreaking to see the video game industry's willingness to use writers to cut costs. In the grand scheme of history, video games are brand new. Writers, however, are not. If video games somehow fail to survive into the 22nd century, I can promise you writers will still be there. Anybody can write, but not everybody can write well. I might be pursuing a BA in Creative Writing, but I'll be the first to tell you that it does not take a degree to have a creative imagination and world build. Companies who are willing to sacrifice 75% of their writing team while saving 90% of their team educated in the STEM-fields will find themselves falling ever behind their competition. BioWare is among one of the latest companies to release their core writing team. While there is surely more to the story than I know about, trust me when I say it was not the graphics, the combat, the marketing, or the FPS that brought me back to Mass Effect and Dragon Age time and time again. It was the incredible worlds that your writers weaved. While every position in the video game industry brings something to the table, it is your creators that connect your entire ideology with your audience. Never forget that. #videogames #creativewriting #creativewriter #videogamedevelopment #bioware #masseffect #creative #xbox #playstation #PC #writing #writer #dragonage #worldbuilding

Back to discussing narrative design in this week's blog.

While one can read a book (or watch a movie/show) infinite times, its design is oriented for one to do it only once. The "plot twist" is used up. The cliff-hanger is resolved. Video games can also be designed this way, but the expectation is that one can play them again. This property, in the game design jargon, is called replayability. Why do we care about replayability? There are expectations from the players: most associate $ with hours of gameplay. And playing again is a good way to increase hours of gameplay. And also from those who produce games: it is so costly to generate content that creating branches that players never see is a waste of time and money. I'm not saying we have to force players to replay our games. It's all good with a play-through being self-conclusive and the player not wanting to play more. What matters most to me is the arrow in the other direction: what happens when the player wants to explore our story through another path. This is where most game writers fail. The reason is simple: doing a good job requires thinking like a game designer and not just a writer. One of the most common problems is that the player has to re-read a lot of the same text to go through alternative paths in the story. No options are provided to facilitate this (skip text, shortcuts, etc). This demotivates the player, leaving much content unseen, and a negative feeling about something that, if better designed, could have been a great experience. It is the responsibility of the writer to ensure that the narrative design favors replayability. This includes working with programmers and game designers so that the necessary features for this are developed. It's not an easy job. But nobody said it was easy, right? Tomorrow I will write about a technique to address this that I've been thinking about for several years. And I hope we can figure out more solutions, because it's an open problem. Is this something you've experienced as a player? What other problems do you identify that a writer might have to ensure the replayability of their stories? Do you have any interesting examples of how a game resolved replayability? #gamedev #gamewriting #writer #writers #writerscommunity

One of the ways our narrative design work helps create a different world is through different character relations. Such as moving from the overemphasis on the singular hero, to ensembles, to communities. There are many ways to design this. I use different approaches in my games, and am excited and curious to see how others do it too. Here is an article by Hannah Nicklin talking about how they designed for multiple heroes in their Saltsea Chronicles game. "We therefore aim to shape a game where the player is: > Not invited to inhabit, alter, and reveal the inner landscape of a single character and a world solely shaped by that character's morals, journey, and experiences. > Is invited to shape the conditions through which the community of the crew navigates. In nudging their journey down different paths, the player will discover how the individuals in the community change how they relate to one another and to the world around them. Characters are shaped by the different iterations of their society, and they shape it in turn with their actions." Article: https://lnkd.in/gNWE7kvr And feel free to share what approaches you've used, or are keen to! :) #narrativedesign #gamewriting #emancipatorydesign #screenwriting #pluriversedesign #ensemble

There are lots of different ways to draw your audience into an interactive story. #storytelling #writing #games #interactivity https://lnkd.in/eWjWNDN3

Hey everyone! Today’s post I’d like to discuss writing, both creatively and it’s use and importance in games with narratives. Good stories are always a big draw to a game for me, and one thing I’d like to look to include in any games I make myself in the future. In games with a narrative as a driving force, good writing is the difference between making or breaking a game. Of course, good gameplay can do it’s best to soften the blow of poor writing, although it may make it somewhat painful to sit through. Some of my favourite games of all time are heavily driven by story, although I personally find myself more drawn to RPGs in general so story is often prevalent. An example of one of my favourite games is Persona 3, which easily sits as my favourite game of all time. The story is one that I find myself thinking about at least once every couple of weeks! This level of impact is something I’d like to make with my own stories and games myself one day, although I understand aiming for such a goal is a very tough challenge. Another game that has some excellent storytelling that had me hooked throughout is a game called Octopath Traveler. Now I’ve only finished Octopath Traveler 1 so far, but the game once again had me hooked. The diversity between the stories of the characters offers an interesting balance of different tales that are very likely to draw in anyone who plays the game. Having a game with stories that are approachable by all is also something I’d like to strive for, as a game and story anyone can enjoy is certainly a good thing indeed! My question for you is, what story based games have you played and loved? Are there any stories that you still find yourself thinking about from time to time? Or are you not a fan of games with story and prefer going for games where the draw is all in the gameplay? I’d love to hear your thoughts! #games #gamedev #gamedevelopment #storytelling #writing #creativewriting

yay! An article I've written on playtesting for innovation has just been published in the "Game Developer" Magazine. It's about how we can facilitate more innovation in games, but also applies to films, TV shows, novels, plays, anything in life! Thank you to Steve Dee for being my helpful reader, and to Marigold Bartlett for the ace illustrations. New games, and a new world! Link to article: https://lnkd.in/gZHVBhDB #gamedevelopment #gamedesign #feedbackdesign #emancipatorydesign #screenwriting #writing

and it was exhausting I'm going to quote Aureus, creator of Roadwarden, who put it very clearly in an interview: "I prefer to avoid a lot of preparation before writing, and instead discover and explore as I go—and that’s terrible for video games. I wrote quite a large chunk of the game having only a few vague concepts in mind, and that did wonders when it came to throwing new hooks at the player or adding more mysteries to the world. And as time went on, the more the stories in the game felt detached and nonsensical, with no end in sight. I had to tell myself to stop and tie things together. I spent months updating not just the script, but also the code, the illustrations, and the game systems. And then, indeed, work went much faster. Using my previous experience and the clear goal in sight, I started adapting old areas, writing [about] new settlements in a much shorter time, and adding more answers than questions. The game had its skeleton, I just had to add the flesh to it. And it was boring. Since I already knew what specific characters ought to do for the story, I just wanted to be done with them and get back to planning new, weird things. In other words, I got better results the more I worked against my nature. And it was exhausting." I think that in one way or another, all creative disciplines have this situation, but in video games, at least for me, it's brutal. Especially because it can last for years if the video game is big enough. This resonates a lot because I'm currently in that moment with Dance of the Spirits: things are taking shape, but it takes a brutal effort to get through the boring parts. And well, not everything can be fun and games. To not end it in a sad note: If you're in this situation, get together with other people, play your game with them, a little praise/feedback helps move things forward. #gamedevelopment #gamedesign #writingtips #writing

Creating a narrative-driven game comes with a lot of worldbuilding, including rules, logic and characters that need to be established. 📖✍️ For my 3rd year game at BUAS, "Alice through the Fey Realm", based on Lewis Carroll´s work "Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there", the logic of the game world seemed to have been completely twisted and turned on its head. Translating this to a game is a challenge...how far can you allow your creativity to take you? To get the team aligned, it is advised to set up a worldbuilding document that entails an overview of the narrative setting that you are trying to create. I´ll share a quick overview of what I would advise to establish as well as my documentation for the game . Keep in mind that it is a living document! Changes occur all the time that might resolve in seeing you stitch your narrative back together in an entirely unexpected way - it is as frustrating as it is magical! ✨ 1. Characters - What characters exist in your game world? What are their personalities, their quirks, their motivations and function? Make some character sheets for this! Also set up a character web to showcase each character´s relationship to one another! 🐰🎩🦁🦄 2. Game world - What makes your game world unique? What is its purpose and how is that facilitated visually? What rules and logic apply - in what way are they different from our world? What creatures live in your world? Do they have houses? Add some sketches to get a clear vision amongst the team! 🗺️ 3. Do´s and Don´ts - To get more alignement, have a clear list of things that you want to facilitate and things that are no-gos! This allows for easier decision-making down the road! 👍👎 4. Writing-style and Tone - Since our game is very dialogue-heavy, it made sense for us to establish some rules about the writing. List some key-words to guide your writing! What is your game´s tone? It´s always great to look at some reference material from competitors! ✍️ Hopefully these tips prove useful in helping you establish rules for your game´s next exciting, never-before-thought-of game world! I´m excited to immerse myself in the unexpected! 🎮 #narrative #narrativedesign #worldbuilding #gamedesign #gamedev #writing

Game, gamer, gamest. There are many different ways to see life and compare it to something more fun to enhance the experience. Like some compare their life to a book, a movie, a poem, a song, etc. One such perspective is to see life as a video game, preferably GTA because that's the most fun. So... Life is a video game, You are a character, The city you live in is the map ( playable area) The people around you are other characters which are there to make the game more fun. Just like any video game character you start with no skills and no money (parents' money don't count) Most of the things on the map are locked/inaccessible ryt now due to your lack of skills and xp. As you go through the storyline you will learn things, meet new characters, gain xp and some skills. But here's the thing gamer, to gain xp and skills you have to fight, complete challenges and defeat some enemies. That won't happen if you don't make a move, action creates reaction. As you make progress you will gain access to important places and important people on the map which you did not see before. The decisions you make in the game will shape your story. #write #writing #writer #creativewriting #contentwriting