Manuals, In-Game Text, and Credits - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 40

Game Intro
Once you have collected your information, it's time to start writing! The first part
of many manuals is the game intro. This is a short blurb encapsulating the game's
main character and story. Once again, the essence of this section is brevity: it has to
be done in one or two small paragraphs.
This intro will take much more work than you would expect. Many of the people
who have a stake in your manual will want it to mention certain aspects of the game
that you might not find important. Make sure you listen to them all and are polite
to them. Remember that manual writers must be diplomats. If they aren't, then they
find themselves in endless meetings about whether to use the word “obliterate� or
“decimate� in a sentence.
The intro should also sound a bit like advertisement copy. The intro reaffirms
to players that they made the right decision when they bought this game. Also, this
section may be stolen at a later point to be the source for the back-cover blurb on the
DVD case itself, so make this as engaging as possible.
Theingredientsoftheintroareasfollows.

• Introduce the hero. If the game lets the player make his own character, like

a multiplayer title, introduce the base concept of the character, like a WWII
soldier or a star-spanning superhero.

•

Introduce the world. Introduce the setting of the game, whether it is a fantasy
village or an entirely new universe.

• Introduce the initial plot twist that gets the game going: the war that just broke

out, the battle that must be fought, the princess that has just been kidnapped,
etc.

•

Introduce any secondary players, including named enemies that impact the
plot in the first few minutes of the game. These introductions can be very
general or fairly specific, depending on the amount of mystery you want to
shroud the characters in.

“You are Mark Durable, a down-on-his-luck asteroid miner looking for his next
job. While looking for a job in Star City 12, you find yourself launched on a quest
to find the ancient relic of Exomar before the nefarious Squid-Lords of Volumina 7
can possess its awesome power!�

Contents List
The table of contents may or may not come before the intro. The table of contents
is necessary for the player to find the information he wants without having to page
through info he isn't interested in. The page numbers will change as the manual is
edited, re-edited, formatted, reformatted, spindled, mutilated, and redone, so keep
your eye on it and work with your editor (if you have one) to keep it as accurate as
you can as the manual develops.