Developing a New Major

we read this after the lazarro article on emotions

huge differences between movies and games – but both want to make things interesting and make them deep

emotion in movies – movies are linear – series of scripted circumstances that occur to a character, in a specific order with exact timing set up by the writer, writer creates characters and then sets up moving experiences for those characters. Mechanisms: control order of events, control timing between events, create characters with whom the audience can identify and put hte characters in moving experiences

games nonlinear, calls them multi-linear/multi-path with some events happening in a set sequence and others occuring in any n umber of possible orders and other events are optional and some players might not ever see them no matter how cool the writer thinks they are, and events show up at times set by the player, not the writer/designer. In games the player is the main character – you can’t make him feel anything and you can’t make him change, can’t make him buy into the role. we’re going to create a character with a rol nad hte player “inhabits” them

reasons to put emotion in games – expand variety of people who want to play by making games more than just fun diversions and give them the range of emotions of other media; deeper emotions will make games seem not so amateurish by making them compre more favorably to movies; emotions get people involved in the game and that will increase and improve word of mouth chatter about game; this will lead to more loyal customers; and more immersive media will get better press coverage and therefore more sales; don’t want to leave money on the table by players who heard it had a bad unengaging story; creative team will be more inspired to produce better game; emotional content and more complex games are a competitive advantage; don’t want to come in last -0– and maybe most important reason – because designers want to create art

quote on p. 16 – “my feeling is that a game without a story is better than a game with a bad story, because anytime a player is taken out of their connection to hte game it gives him the opportunity to walk away from the game entirely” – how do you react?

players don’t want to feel trapped by the story, forced into actions at a specific time just because that’s  what the writer thinks is best – “Gamers want to feel like they’re playing a game, not being played by it” (p. 19)

story not the only way to make games emotionally immersive – which is good because there are many games where player can play without experiecing what the writer considered as the story

have to learn ways to help the player identify with the role their character has to play, identify with the personality of the character, create an environment that encourages the player to take on these roles – might be why main character is the hero – who wouldn’t want to identify with the hero

writer/designer can create incentives to encourage player to follow the story the designer has set up

character has to be set up with minimal dialogue in many games, but dialogue can convey emotion

cut scenes are the least game-like elements – take the player out of the game

games created differently than movies – game ideas created by a group sometimes long before a wrter comes on board, idea changes as the game is developing, situations and setting might be established and the writer has to work with them

writer has to write npc dialogue – game not over till all of this is written – and it’s the writer’s job, not some flunky

have to be creative nd not use same old techniques over and over so have to know what’s being done in other games

integrate the story with the gameplay  mechanics, make th eplayer care about the game world, create complex relationships between the players and npcs, keep player motivated to play thru to the end of hte game

comic book writers have other different problems when trying to write for videogames – not a quick fix to just hire comic book guys – but many of them can’t create rich characters and stories tho there are cool things to take from comic books in how they combine words and pictures

key is the writer has to be the best writer regardless of medium, gotta understand the medium and how it’s different from movies or tv or comic books – not always the big name writer. insist on reading a script they personally wrote – not a group write, not a rewrite because ya can’t tell what the personal actually wrote

emotioneering – techniques that can create for a player a breadth and depth of emotions in a game, emotioneer has to move the player thru interlocking sequences of emotional experiences without the player noticing wiht the game is doing – more than dialogue (but not cliches or wooden dialogue)

gotta make things interesting & deep where interesting = unique, imaginative, original and deep = emotional depth, layered, soulful, complex — deep isn’t always the same as interesting

p. 465 (start of ch5.2) – talking about creating fun and mentions creating immersion – does he think fun = immersion, talks about how people want a sense of play and fun in their games

p. 467 – types of fun – combat, travel, competition, kinetic thrills, sports, being God (bldg & managing cities/resources), exploration & discovery, collecting and building sets of items, torturingg, when different roles have different powers/abilities, self-expression, taboo thrills, building machines, having superhuman abilities, sotry, humor, bartering, changing the landscape/building in the game world, training na NPC to do hat you tell it, balance (?), solving puzzles, keeping pets/npc’s alive, sei-randomly generated actions, dancing, role playing, nonlinear structures, emergent gameplay, choosing what side to play (good or evil), timed missions, mini-games, socializing — list came out of a workshop at Game Developers conference (so from a bunch of game designers

can create new games/new kinds of fun by combining several of these kinds of games – doesn’t always work but it can spark creative game design -gives examples of GTA which combbo’d driving, stunts, combat, flying, chases…

Related articles by Zemanta

• How To Write For Videogames (mediabistro.com)

Trackback URL

Comic book, Cut scene, Game design, Game Developers Conference, Games, Nonlinear gameplay, Roleplaying, Video game, Writer