Video Game Storytelling

UNLOCK YOUR GAME'S NARRATIVE POTENTIAL! With increasingly sophisticated video games being consumed by an enthusiastic and expanding audience, the pressure is on game developers like never before to deliver exciting stories and engaging characters. With Video Game Storytelling, game writer and producer Evan Skolnick provides a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow guide to storytelling basics and how they can be applied at every stage of the development process—by all members of the team. This clear, concise reference pairs relevant examples from top games and other media with a breakdown of the key roles in game development, showing how a team’s shared understanding and application of core storytelling principles can deepen the player experience. Understanding story and why it matters is no longer just for writers or narrative designers. From team leadership to game design and beyond, Skolnick reveals how each member of the development team can do his or her part to help produce gripping, truly memorable narratives that will enhance gameplay and bring today’s savvy gamers back time and time again.

What really makes a video game story interactive? What's the best way to create an interactive story? How much control should players be given? Do they really want that control in the first place? Do they even know what they want-or are their stated desires at odds with the unconscious preferences? All of these questions and more are examined in this definitive book on interactive storytelling for video games. You'll get detailed descriptions of all major types of interactive stories, case studies of popular games (including Bioshock, Fallout 3, Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, and Metal Gear Solid), and how players interact with them, and an in-depth analysis of the results of a national survey on player storytelling preferences in games. You'll get the expert advice you need to generate compelling and original game concepts and narratives.With Interactive Storytelling for Video Games, you'll:

The potential of video games as storytelling media and the deep involvement that players feel when they are part of the story needs to be analysed vis-à-vis other narrative media. This book underscores the importance of video games as narratives and offers a framework for analysing the many-ended stories that often redefine real and virtual lives.

Beginning with the structural features of design and play, this book explores video games as both compelling examples of story-telling and important cultural artifacts. The author analyzes fundamentals like immersion, world building and player agency and their role in crafting narratives in the Mass Effect series, BioShock, The Last of Us, Fallout 4 and many more. The text-focused “visual novel” genre is discussed as a form of interactive fiction.

The book provides a comprehensive application of narrative theory to video games, and presents the player-response paradigm of game criticism. Video Game Narrative and Criticism explains the nature of gameplay - a psychological experience and a meaning-making process in the fictional world of video games.

In this fun and informative YA Non-fiction title, Dustin Hansen, author of Game On!, a self-confessed video game addict with over 20-years experience in the gaming industry, examines the storytelling skills shown in some of the most beloved and moving games of all time. We all know that video games are fun, but can a video game make you cry? Can it tell you a powerful love story? Can a video game make you think differently about war? About the environment? About the choices you make? Whether it's playing through blockbuster-esque adventures (Uncharted, God of War, The Last of Us), diving deep into hidden bits of story and lore (Red Dead Redemption II, Bioshock, Journey) or building relationships that change the fate of the world itself (Persona 5, Undertale), video games are bringing stories to life in ways that are immediate, interactive and immersive. Focusing on some of the best, most memorable, experiences in gaming, The Greatest Stories Ever Played, examines the relationship between gaming and storytelling in a new way.

As the videogame industry has grown up, the need for better stories and characters has dramatically increased, yet traditional screenwriting techniques alone cannot equip writers for the unique challenges of writing stories where the actions and decisions of a diverse range of players are at the centre of every narrative experience. Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames was the first book to demystify the emerging field of game writing by identifying and explaining the skills required for creating videogame narrative. Through the insights and experiences of professional game writers, this revised edition captures a snapshot of the narrative skills employed in today's game industry and presents them as practical articles accompanied by exercises for developing the skills discussed. The book carefully explains the foundations of the craft of game writing, detailing all aspects of the process from the basics of narrative to guiding the player and the challenges of nonlinear storytelling. Throughout the book there is a strong emphasis on the skills developers and publishers expect game writers to know. This second edition brings the material up to date and adds four new chapters covering MMOs, script formats, narrative design for urban games, and new ways to think about videogame narrative as an art form. Suitable for both beginners and experienced writers, Game Writing is the essential guide to all the techniques of game writing. There's no better starting point for someone wishing to get into this exciting field, whether they are new game writers wishing to hone their skills, or screenwriters hoping to transfer their skills to the games industry.

This insightful, revised book explores the challenging and evolving world of the games writer. Part I provides a fascinating overview of the history of games writing following its humble roots in the '60s to today’s triple-A titles; Part II asks and answers the key question: what does a games writer do and how do they do it? Especially useful reading for novice game writers, its chapters cover a broad range of topics including contracts, NDAs, creative collaboration, narrative design, editing, adaptations, and environmental storytelling. Part III, of particular value for more advanced students of writing, addresses deeper theoretical questions increasingly relevant in today’s games titles, including: "Why have story at all? What is plot and how does it work? How best can a writer use agency?" Finally, Part IV presents readers with hard-earned nuggets of wisdom from today’s game writers working in the US, Europe, and Japan. Packed with practical samples, case studies, and exercises, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the world of games writing. Features: • Covers history of games writing, narrative design, storytelling, plot, contracts, and packed with practical samples, case studies, and exercises • Presents readers with opinions and suggestions from today’s game writers who are working in the US, Europe, and Japan • Includes a broad range of topics e.g., creative collaboration, editing, adaptations, and environmental storytelling • Mentions games such as Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Borderlands 2, The Walking Dead, L.A. Noire, Grand Theft Auto V, Mass Effect 3, The Stanley Parable, The Last of Us, Alien Isolation, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Life is Strange, Until Dawn, Quantum Break, BioShock, World of Warcraft, and more.