Spoken like a developer trained by 20 years of bad cut-scenes to skip & hate all cut-scenes.
Also, this idea that the only thing writers bring to games is dialog is soooooo 1990's. Try theme, character and humor. Your zombie game can be as scary as all get out, but without a few moments of levity to break the mood, you can't get to a scarier place very easily. There's no black without white to compare it to, and a symphony of all loud notes gets old pretty quickly compared to one with loud and soft sections.
I love the concept, incidentally that games were hijacked by narrative... what is narrative other than a way to differentiate today's games? Okay, I'm running down a hallways shooting zombies... big deal there are 50 other zombie-shooting games out there on the market. The question for MOST people (who aren't jaded game developers opposed to all story in games) is WHY are they running through the hallway and WHAT do they hope to gain at the end of the hallway?
Without narrative, we'd still be making Super Mario Brothers sequels.
This is the biggest load of claptrap I've ever heard. I'm a freelance game writer and I make a fine living writing games. I've also written Animation and frankly, I've never heard of Cartoon Network outsourcing scripts to "script doctoring companies." Worse, I'm not even sure I've even heard of a SINGLE "script doctoring company." Can you name two? This post comes across as the worst sort of uninformed hogswollop.
If someone desperately wants to break into games, they need to do a few things:
1) Hang out where game producers hang out. GDC, DICE, etc.
2) Network, network, network. The more people you know, the more people who can hire you.
3) Write. Write MODs. Write sample scripts. Write that downloadable content for GTA 4 that's burning a hole in your soul. Whatever it is, it's bound to be better than most games... when the time comes for you to show it to someone, you might get hired.
4) Know how to do something in addition to crafting good story & dialog. Learn another aspect of game design so you're not a too-specialized expert with no use except for the last 10 weeks of a game's production.
5) Play games. There's nothing worse than a games writer who doesn't play games.
Just some examples of REAL advice.
-Micah Wright, writer, Evil Scum.
chairman, Videogame Writers Caucus, Writers Guild of America (west)
http://www.evilscum.net/
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Spoken like a developer trained by 20 years of bad cut-scenes to skip & hate all cut-scenes. Also, this idea that the only thing writers bring to games is dialog is soooooo 1990's. Try theme, character and humor. Your zombie game can be as scary as all get out, but without a few moments of levity to break the mood, you can't get to a scarier place very easily. There's no black without white to compare it to, and a symphony of all loud notes gets old pretty quickly compared to one with loud and soft sections. I love the concept, incidentally that games were hijacked by narrative... what is narrative other than a way to differentiate today's games? Okay, I'm running down a hallways shooting zombies... big deal there are 50 other zombie-shooting games out there on the market. The question for MOST people (who aren't jaded game developers opposed to all story in games) is WHY are they running through the hallway and WHAT do they hope to gain at the end of the hallway? Without narrative, we'd still be making Super Mario Brothers sequels.
This is the biggest load of claptrap I've ever heard. I'm a freelance game writer and I make a fine living writing games. I've also written Animation and frankly, I've never heard of Cartoon Network outsourcing scripts to "script doctoring companies." Worse, I'm not even sure I've even heard of a SINGLE "script doctoring company." Can you name two? This post comes across as the worst sort of uninformed hogswollop. If someone desperately wants to break into games, they need to do a few things: 1) Hang out where game producers hang out. GDC, DICE, etc. 2) Network, network, network. The more people you know, the more people who can hire you. 3) Write. Write MODs. Write sample scripts. Write that downloadable content for GTA 4 that's burning a hole in your soul. Whatever it is, it's bound to be better than most games... when the time comes for you to show it to someone, you might get hired. 4) Know how to do something in addition to crafting good story & dialog. Learn another aspect of game design so you're not a too-specialized expert with no use except for the last 10 weeks of a game's production. 5) Play games. There's nothing worse than a games writer who doesn't play games. Just some examples of REAL advice. -Micah Wright, writer, Evil Scum. chairman, Videogame Writers Caucus, Writers Guild of America (west) http://www.evilscum.net/