Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
positioned so their views of her podium are partially or even fully obstruc-
ted!
Sounds like a recipe for horrible cacophony, doesn't it? If you were the
managing director of this symphony orchestra, would you believe this to
be the way it should be run?
And yet this conductor's unenviable situation is akin to that which a lone
game writer might very often find himself when working on a large-scale
game project. Poorly integrated; resented and rebuffed by a significant
percentage of the team; unsupported by those who hired him.
So, there are three additional obstacles to narrative success:
▪
Isolation
: Writer is not fully integrated with the team.
▪
Lack of Collaboration
: Team is at least partially uncooperative and
uninterested in helping to tell the game story.
▪
Unempowered
: Management knowingly or unknowingly undercuts
or overrides the narrative intentions and instincts of the writer.
Let's look more closely at each of these sometimes subtle challenges.
Isolation
If the game story is seen as a completely separate component from the
rest of the game's elements—such as its design, levels, game mechanics,
etc.—the writer is encouraged to work in isolation, having limited contact
with the rest of the team. He makes narrative choices that may directly
clash with the game mechanics and levels, and the reverse is also almost
sure to happen.
At some point someone will notice these issues, but it may occur far
enough into the development cycle that addressing them will be cost-
prohibitive, almost as if the writer were hired too late (see
this page
). Most
likely the narrative elements will be forced to bend to the direction charted
by the other team members, since their programming, art, and animation
is generally more expensive and risky to rework than the story elements
are. Or, the clashes will simply be allowed to stand, making for a discord-
ant game experience at best.
Lack of Collaboration
