Root and Branch: An Overview of Writing for Games

Scott Edgar - artist, writer, composer and comedian - guides this introduction to the dynamic art and craft of storytelling for video games and interactive experiences.

In this workshop we’ll be looking at this huge fledgling art form and together delve into its connections with age-old storytelling traditions, identifying lessons from the past while unraveling the unique challenges presented by interactive narratives.

We’ll explore the multifaceted nature of the term "game" and the role of “story” across its various facets, taking a birds-eye view a thousand feet above the jungle to discover the general principles that can help us navigate this task, and begin to contemplate what sort of games we individually aspire to make, and what sort of stories we want to tell.

We’ll also discuss some of the specifics of the craft, including ways to think about branching narratives, different views on character, world building versus plot, how game mechanics interact with storytelling, and of course the central inconvenient fact of game storytelling; that you don’t control your protagonist. The player does.

Topics covered:

• Discussion - what is a game? What are our favourite games?
• Activity and Discussion - look at these clips. Identify the many types of writing we see.
• Discussion - what are the tools of a writer?
• Small Groups Activity - take an example game mechanic and come up with a fiction to wrap it in. Discuss the examples above, with an eye to Tone or Flavour.
• Individual Activity - Describe a Loaf of Bread, several different ways; this is to do with the concept of Tone. Same again, with a door.
• An overview of Story Structure, focussing on the Pixar method. In groups, fill in the broad strokes of a story based on the Pixar method.
• Now let’s imagine the Pixar method as applied Branching Stories. Write some examples.
• A brief overview of Branching Scope and ways to control it. Write some alternative Turning Points for your story.
• The Quantum Ogre and the Illusion of player choice.
• Game Over.