Sunday, December 27th, 2009
Are you Game?
Granted, I’m just trying to wrangle a new career path in order to justify getting an Xbox 360 for Christmas, but writing for computer games has greatly interested me for years now.
At the beginning of December, I managed to gain a place on a Writing for Games training scheme run by Screen Yorkshire and indie games company Team 17 (who created Worms and the just released Alien Breed Evolution pictured above). For the next few months, I’ll be learning how to plot, develop and actually script a narrative for game which, whatever I come up with, will be about running around and blasting aliens.
That’s the interesting part for me and what makes it so different from writing for other media. Whatever this game turns out to be, this game will always be a ‘run and gun’ - but it’s the writer’s role to provide the context: Why are you shooting the aliens? Where are they shooting the aliens? Who is shooting the aliens?
That sounds like a lot of fun to me, for now - the main focus of a game should always be the gameplay, shouldn’t it? But there seems to be a battle brewing between narrative and gameplay on its way. Upcoming games such as the impressive-looking Heavy Rain which are focussing on emotional impact in its audience could open up new levels of interactivity and emotional immersion in a story. If it sells (fingers crossed!)
Even though the cut scenes were clunky, the story for the original Resident Evil had enough to keep me going. Mind you, most of the backstory for that came in the little booklet that came with the game, rather than it. But did that matter?
I found this short and funny video lecture by Daniel Floyd at Screw Attack on Storytelling in Videogames. It succinctly puts across the potential problems as well as the positives of interactivity in big release games. But, to me, it also puts across why writing for games is an exciting new venture as the rules haven’t quite been laid down yet. I’m going to give it a go anyway. Just as soon as I’ve saved Gotham from the Joker in Arkham Asylum 
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