Interactive Script Formatting - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 17

Screenwriter and think there must be a way to make a tool for speeding up the process
of formatting and writing interactive narrative. So far, I'm unconvinced it's possible
to have a perfect tool for all games, but some of the proprietary tools created for
internal use at some of the larger developers may prove me wrong.
BioWare publishes something similar to their interactive narrative tool in the
Neverwinter Nights mod toolset. Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment has contract
writers use Movie Magic Screenwriter, then use a tool to automate the transition into
the database. Another developer showed me their internal writing tool based on flow
charts and stick figures.
You probably won't get to use these proprietary tools unless you're hired on staff at
a company where they've built a writer's tool to interface with their unique workflow.
However, you can get a feel for working this way by playing around with the mod
tools distributed with some PC games.
Another way to learn how to work with specialized tools is to delve into the realm
of interactive fiction. This community of independent text-based game developers
have created some very interesting and intuitive tools for interactive narrative.
These specialized tools can mitigate some of the more tedious aspects of game
writing that closely resemble data entry, but sometimes they just change the interface
rather than cut down on real time spent. They do tie all the various formats together
into one program and can integrate the writer more closely with the development
team. No doubt about it, those specialized tools work wonders on the games they
were created for.
The nature of the beast, though, requires that the writer's tool gets tangled up
with the other proprietary tools a developer uses. So if your next game-writing job is
with another developer, or if the developer you work with changes the game engine
they're building on for the next game, you'll have to learn all new software. You
may also have to wait while the new tools are being built-and the writers' tools are
notorious for being last on the list of things the busy tools department has to conjure
up. So you may have to submit scripts before your tool is finished. Don't let this stop
you. Excel and Movie Magic will always be there on the shelf at the store, and they
can be made to work with proprietary toolsets, too.
They're not likely to be joined there on the shelf by a box with a program specif-
ically for game writing any time soon. If such a program were made flexible enough
to work with every game genre in existence, it would look pretty much like Excel.
2.7 Free Your Mind
Writers can sometimes get hung up on format. Let's face it—we'll play around with
fonts, margins, italics, and underlines till we're up against the deadline. Personally, I
use it as a way to make that blank page not so scary and blank. Somehow having a
title and a few headings makes the whole project look a little more possible.
But interactive narrative is young and still trying to find its way. Don't consider
anything in this chapter as a standard or requirement. They're suggestions to help