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Game Writing Skills

Game Writing book cover

 Just out (in June) is an edited book that looks like an excellent resource: Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames. Contributors include Ernest Adams; Chris Bateman; Richard Boon; Richard Dansky; Mary DeMarle; Matt Entin; Stephen Jacobs; Ed Kuehnel; Tim Langdell; Rhianna Pratchett; Coray Seifert; James Swallow and Andrew S. Walsh. It is described as follows:

As computer games become more and more like Hollywood productions, the need for good story lines increases. Research shows that stories are highly valued by game players, so today’s studios and developers need good writers. Creating narrative — a traditionally static form — for games is a major challenge. Games are at their heart dynamic, interactive systems, so they don’t follow the guidelines and rules of film or T.V. writing. Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames addresses these issues and is the first book written to demystify this emerging field. Through the insights and experiences of practicing game writers, the book captures a snapshot of the narrative skills employed in today’s game industry. This unique collection of practical articles provides the foundations to the craft of game writing. The articles, written by members of the International Game Developer’s (IGDA) Game Writers’ SIG, detail aspects of the process from the basics of narrative and non-linear narrative to writing comedy for games and creating compelling characters. Throughout the articles there is a strong emphasis on the skills developers and publishers will expect a game writer to have. The book is suitable for both beginners and experienced writers, and is a detailed guide to all the techniques of game writing. This book is an essential read for anyone wishing to get into this exciting field, particularly for new game writers wanting to hone their skills, and film and T.V. scriptwriters who want to learn how to transfer their skills to the games industry.

The chapter outline indicates that once you get past the first three chapters on what narrative is etc there is some interesting guidance. The first chapter is available for free in [pdf form] and html at Gamasutra. Also at Gamasutra is a review in which Richard Dansky and Brad Kane give the book 4.5 out of 5 stars. You can buy it from Charles River Media.

Now, we just need a book on Cross-Media/Transmedia/Convergent Entertainment writing…Drew’s book which should be out next year is the first step. 🙂

empyre this month: Mobile Media artists

The listserv empyre is having a discussion this month with Mobile Media artists.

Mobile Media are increasingly present in our daily life because networks are more flexible and widespread. Currently, connecting is not only about accessing something that is /not here/, but also about moving along with the flow. /From here to elsewhere/: beyond browsing (which was the Web approach), towards physical traces of relational data. Real time maps of cities allow people to exchange and retrieve information based on its location. GPS games explore the possibilities of mixing urban and data landscapes. Mobile phones become moving infotainment platforms. By using such devices, our culture is shifting even further towards nomadic procedures that blur the boundaries between frontiers and stable knowledge.

Space becomes an important category, since making sense of this continuously moving and interweaving collections of text, image, sound, video and binary depends on an understanding of their trajectories. But there is a dark side of this moon: such devices allow tracking and surveillance, making their user more and more exposed. RFID tags are, probably, the most evident example of a new, distributed panoptic. This month, Paula Roush, Joanna Callaghan, Luis Silva, Heather Corcoran, Marina Vishmidt and, time permitting, Lucas Bambozzi will discuss how mobile media is affecting our culture.

You can sign up to participate or lurk at the empyre list. They have great themed discussions every month but for some reason the website hasn’t been updated for a while. 🙁 You can check out the archives though. Here is the listing of the invited guests (though everyone can discuss):

Continue reading empyre this month: Mobile Media artists