Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
What you're really looking for is a narrative trifle, where the player is equally invested
in both story and gameplay, and gameplay challenges and losses are reflected in story
challenges and losses, bringing the player and the player character more in-line.
Overview: The Scope
Perhaps more than any other kind of game writing, working on new IP requires
a good working knowledge of game creation and the development cycle. Whilst
external writers with little experience with games can wing it as long as they have firm
briefs and good lines of communication, anything that requires story design, pre-
production, and the creation of narrative tools needs a good understanding of how
those tools should be working within the individual gameworld. This will usually be
predominately defined by the genre, platform, and gameplay. However, the vogue for
genre blending is picking up the pace in the search for new gameplay experiences—
for example, Overlord mixed together action-adventure, role-playing, and strategy
elements.
Now more than ever, game writers need to be fully aware of the medium they're
writing for. It's a tall order, especially if you didn't grow up playing games, but it can
be an immensely rewarding one. The fact that you are interested in writing for games
and have picked this topic up suggests that you already have some interest in games
and gaming. If not, then go away and do your homework.
When it comes to project lengths, then writers on a new IP will be looking
at quite a meaty time commitment. Depending on the genre and importance of
narrative within the game, this can be spread over anything from four to eight months
for the bulk of the story work, with a couple of extra months for recording, pick-ups,
and ambient-dialog writing (if you're lucky). If a writer is brought onboard quite
early on, then they may be only required to roughly scope out a story and characters
and then return to a project further on down the line when the story needs properly
embedding into the game and production schedule.
Some writers do charge more for anything that falls into the IP creation/world
creation workload, given that often they are helping create the building blocks of a
franchise, rather than just a standalone game. It's certainly worth both writers and
developers checking with the Writers Guild of America or Writers' Guild of Great
Britain (both of which represent games writers) to see just what the current rates are
for early-stage narrative work. However, it usually falls to the individual writer and
their employer to define exactly where early-stage IP creation begins and ends.
14.2 Innovation or Familiarity?
New IPs fall into two rough categories: complete, standalone, original games such
as Psychonauts , Call of Juarez ,and Bioshock ( Overlord , Heavenly Sword ,and Mirror's
Edge also fall into this category) and games related to an existing (or upcoming) IP
such as a movie ( The Chronicles of Riddick , Spiderman 2 , Hulk: Ultimate Destruction ),
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