| Video games, like films, are a visual medium, so visual artists – directors, directors of photography, art directors and others – will always be essential to their creation process. However, so are professional writers experienced in crafting narratives and developing characters. "You wouldn’t have a game designer also do animation and modelling," says Sean Smilie, senior writer and game designer at Action Pants. Typically, though, it is designers and not writers whose job it is to structure the gaming experience.
Anne Toole, who with Sande Chen formed the Writers Cabal partnership to provide narrative design and dialogue for games, has also written for film and television. On the phone from her Los Angeles office, she says that where film is a director’s medium and television is a writer’s medium, video games are "a designer or programmer-driven medium. Designers are the ones calling the shots," when a video game is being created.
This makes sense when you realize that "If you take the story out of the game, you still have a game. But if you take the game out of the story, you don’t have a game," says Toole.
Video games are an interactive medium ultimately different from either film or television. "It’s not just the dependencies of writing," that need to be considered, says Radical Games lead designer Eric Holmes. Video game writers need to consider "the dependencies of the game, of interactivity.
"The biggest thing about this medium – and it is a unique challenge for writers – is you have this wild card which is the player," says Holmes. "You’re throwing an actor, basically, into the scene." Writing video games means taking this player-as-actor dimension into account. Every time a player is provided with an opportunity to make a decision, for example, the game needs to branch and tell the story – or a variation of the story – for each possible decision. Three possible choices mean three variations of the story. Another decision point moments later branches the story even further.
Despite the need for writers, few developers have staff positions for them. Toole says that in 1998, when she first tried to get work writing video games, everyone was saying that the industry needed good writers. "But no one seemed willing to hire them."
The situation has changed somewhat as game designers commonly turn to contract writers for help in getting the work done. That’s where writers like Toole and her partner Chen enter the picture. The biggest drawback of being a contract writer, says Toole, is that she doesn’t have the same access to the rest of the team, so her ability to participate in the collaborative nature of game development is compromised.
Solving this problem, Smilie says, involves making writers part of the team from the start. "If you’re going to hire a writer to write for a game, you bring that writer in, you introduce them to the team, you have them see who’s doing what and what’s going on, have them on-site writing. I firmly believe that when you start a game idea there’s the writer, the producer, the game designer, the art director. Let the writer do his job, but have everyone else contribute."
Holmes agrees that collaboration is the key. "An artist or designer can come up with a line, but it takes someone who’s a writer, who’s been doing nothing but writing for years, to know that it’s right."
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Motorstorm (Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment; platform: PS3; rated: teen)
It took me awhile to get to playing this game, because I kept playing the opening sequence over and over again. The visual fidelity of Motorstorm is simply breathtaking. From the rendering of the vehicles – and the crashes – to the stunning representation of Monument Valley, this is the best looking game I’ve ever seen. Motorstorm is, essentially, off-road racing in your choice of vehicle. These races take place in a massive, circus-like assembly of people in Monument Valley that seems like it was pulled straight out of Beyond Thunderdome. You race for tickets that gain you entry to subsequent races on different courses. The robust online component means that you can race with 11 other real people, but there is no single-console multiplayer, so you can’t race your sister on the couch beside you. Rev up your engine, Mad Max, and have at it.
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (Publisher: D3 Publisher; platform: DS, PSP; rated: everyone, 10+)
It seems like an obvious blend of genres to come up with, so I’m a bit surprised it hasn’t happened before. Puzzle Quest is, as its name suggests, a puzzle game. It’s not unlike Bejeweled, in which you need to swap adjoining gems on a grid to make rows or columns of three or more. The difference with this game is that the various game boards have become part of a combat system, so you’ll be alternating turns with the enemy you are fighting. Instead of just looking for the next best combination, you need to look two and three combos ahead to prevent your combatant from getting opportunities and to set yourself up. This is also a fantasy role-playing game, so you’ll be responsible for improving your character’s skills and abilities. It takes generic puzzling to a whole new level. |
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