Looking for clues on how to break into writing for games.

JnBaker

Hello my Polycount friends,

I graduated from college wanting to be a character animator. But, as I get deeper into the process of game creation I'm finding I'm drawn more into the writing and story development side. So my question is, how does one build a portfolio for that?

My initial inspection, and from past experiences, is that you should make a simple module for an existing game that demonstrates a good ability to tell a narrative within the constraints of a game setting. This belief comes from when Bioware would hold 'contests' for writers, where they would just want you to submit quick but engaging modules using the Aurora Toolset. What a great way to demonstrate your ability, but I'm running into some issues.

Mostly that NWN is now so old that I imagine most people wouldn't be able to play a module I created. So, what other solutions are out there that could be reasonably accessible? One thought I had was to try and use UDK but not sure if there would be a way to implement dialogue trees as that would require a bit more scripting that I think I'd have time to learn. Does the Dragon Age Toolset act much like the NWN one?

Any insight into this field would be appreciated. Thank you.

-Jeff Baker

Justin Meisse

well, all the writers I know I met at Mythic but it seemed they all came from tabletop RPG backgrounds. It's possible to get freelance writing gigs with various RPG publications.

From what I've seen, Bioware's writing test is pure writing, no module stuff (that would be more of a content designer job).

Now not many companies have dedicated writers, if you are more interested in creating adventures that fall under the amorphous heading of Game Design.

Josh_Singh

Hey JnBaker, I think you are on the right track. But Really I would think it would also have the same bar of entry as any sort of writing gig. You should probably show up with some samples of some great stories. But your angle of shifting it to games with the use of udk modules is a good one.
Good luck.

JnBaker

Justin_Meisse wrote: »

well, all the writers I know I met at Mythic but it seemed they all came from tabletop RPG backgrounds. It's possible to get freelance writing gigs with various RPG publications.

Having been a D&D player for 18 years and for many created custom worlds, I guess I'm on the right track

Gav

There's a difference between writing something your friends like and something that will make you money though For what it's worth, any of the devoted writers I've worked with have had actual writing education and published experience - be it novels, biographies, tabletop games, etc. - with experience / interest in some sort of game design

JnBaker

Gav wrote: »

There's a difference between writing something your friends like and something that will make you money though For what it's worth, any of the devoted writers I've worked with have had actual writing education and published experience - be it novels, biographies, tabletop games, etc. - with experience / interest in some sort of game design

It's not so much about putting something out to make money as an individual, but rather using a tool to showcase a talent. Just trying to find the best tool to do that, to build a portfolio.

And my friends are the most critical group. If I could make something they enjoyed, I'd consider myself as having done a good job.

Gav

I highly doubt your friends are as critical as design leads. I don't mean that what you write = direct money, but there's certainly a difference between writing an adventure for D&D night vs. writing and reiterating on a narrative and having a boss and, ultimately, that is getting paid to do a job, not to just have fun.

There is a way to do it via UDK, though, your best bet for that is probably to browse through the UDK forums as there are most likely more scripters and the like there. If you're looking for just text "pop-ups" you set that up through Matinee.

I have no working experience with the DA tools, and only looked at it briefly for other reasons,but from what I can tell they do have sometihng similar to what you're looking for / used to:

http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/Conversation_tutorial

Gav

Campaignjunkie

Make mods for the genre you want to get into -- if it's Bioware RPGs, mod Dragon Age. If it's Bethesda RPGs, mod Fallout. If it's FPS games, uh, mod something. Unfortunately you'll need to learn design tools as a vector to deliver your writing, but I guess they're something you should know anyway.

Regardless, you'll need some sort of portfolio of game writing, and the best way to do that is to work on your own projects.

Ben Apuna

Just thought I'd throw in a couple of links to the writing sub-forums over at Gamedev.net and TIGSource in case you were not aware of them.

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/forum.asp?forum_id=32

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?board=44.0

Best of luck with your career goal.

Habboi

If you can mod then why not follow the same route Dear Esther has taken? Interactive storytelling.

What about starting a blog and write about a topic that interests you. Why not write a short story a week to improve your writing and perhaps as a way of storing future game design ideas.

I studied Story Development as part of my games course and they had us write a story with certain rules each week. It was challenging but very effective. So overall I'd make a blog, use something like Source / Unity to make a simple side scrolling game with a deep story as the main focus.

Finally, get a published book out there :P

JnBaker

Ben Apuna wrote: »

Just thought I'd throw in a couple of links to the writing sub-forums over at Gamedev.net and TIGSource in case you were not aware of them.

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/forum.asp?forum_id=32

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?board=44.0

Best of luck with your career goal.

Awesome. This should be a great resource. Thank you.

Habboi wrote:

Finally, get a published book out there :P

Yeah, that should be easy enough

vcortis

Most of our narrative designers have experience writing for tabletop, comics, books, web stories, etc. So really you just need to start doing it and get some things published.

JnBaker

vcortis wrote: »

Most of our narrative designers have experience writing for tabletop, comics, books, web stories, etc. So really you just need to start doing it and get some things published.

That's a generally consensus that I'm getting. I'll guess I will start contacting smaller gaming publishers and seeing what it will take to write some modules for those.

snemmy

Just be aware that if you do get into the industry as a writer that you may be called in at the END of a project to develop a cohesive narrative. Here's a very short article with Rhianna Pratchett (Terry Pratchett's daughter) on writing for games: http://www.writerswrite.com/tags/video-game-writing

I could have sworn I had read a more in-depth article several months ago on the same topic but I cannot find it.

Something you may want to do, take a game you love the story for and break it down. Figure out why you liked certain sections, figure out the themes and their repetition.

Look up info on the 3 Act setup and 12 Steps of the Hero's Journey.
You may want to consider going back for classes (or even another degree) in creative writing.

JnBaker

snemmy wrote: »

Just be aware that if you do get into the industry as a writer that you may be called in at the END of a project to develop a cohesive narrative. Here's a very short article with Rhianna Pratchett (Terry Pratchett's daughter) on writing for games: http://www.writerswrite.com/tags/video-game-writing

I could have sworn I had read a more in-depth article several months ago on the same topic but I cannot find it.

Something you may want to do, take a game you love the story for and break it down. Figure out why you liked certain sections, figure out the themes and their repetition.

Look up info on the 3 Act setup and 12 Steps of the Hero's Journey.
You may want to consider going back for classes (or even another degree) in creative writing.

Thanks for that link, I'll have to give it a read through. I've actually taken several classes already on writing. One focused specifically on screen play development. Its the part of the development that I've always enjoyed the most, I just don't know why it has taken me this long to really make the plunge.