With Keaven Freeman

Descrip: “An in depth look at the game creation process from a writer’s point of view, attendees will get an industry veteran’s take on moving an idea from thought to implementation in a working game.  What role does writing play once the production process has begun, and what does a writer need to be prepared for?”

Phases of Game Development:

• Green-light – producers give you a go
• Taking your idea and giving it more form for an executive
• Research
• Who wants to play this game? Who do I not even know about who might want to play this game?
• Start prototyping, including paper prototyping.
• “Here is a snapshot of the experience of playing the game.”
• Sometimes you may have to go back to concept if it doesn’t work. Iteration!
• Pitching – “A very Caligula thumbs up/thumbs down moment.”
• If it doesn’t pass, the exec might tell you to shelve the idea for now and start all over again.
• If success then: funding!
• Preproduction – bulk of writing.
• Story Arc
• “If you do nothing else for the writing of a video game, do the story arc … everything else branches off of that”
• Story of the Game
• Role of the Player
• High-Level Chapter Breakout
• Small incremental parts of the story that propel your character through the story arc
• World Concepts
• World Rules
• Define your world, how does the world work and how does the PC function within that world.
• How does my character identify and work?
• What is my Identity?
• Interpersonal Relationships
• Character Identity
• Small Team Chapter Focus
• Break into smaller groups of writers to focus on groups of chapters to flesh out
• Environmental Factors
• Get some concept art from the artists
• Start to assign quests, dialogue from NPCs
• Also dictated by progression arc and XP curve
• Chapter flow
• NPCs, Quests, and Encounters
• Milestones
• Trackable Progress
• Early Warning System
• Executive Digestible
• Production – implementers. Daily interaction with content teams. Revising documentation and creating new documents based on the needs and desires of content teams
• “Then comes the downside, production. … Everything was creative vision before now … now you have to fit everything you’ve written into the game world designed by engineers.”
• Implementation collaboration
• Clarification
• Addition
• Revision
• Sometimes new elements are developed and you must create content for them. Sometimes mechanics change and you must alter the game for them. Must fit everything in the story arc.
• Post-launch – creation of expansion or sequel material, small scale feature development and pkeep of old material.
• Live support (especially for MMOs).
• Expansion/sequal
• Maintenance
• Brand New Shiny
• More production phase!
• Start all over again with production cycle

Game concept -> development -> live product.

Timeline – anywhere from 3 to 5 years for large title production.

Production process can change from studio to studio.

Engineers vs Story writers?

• “Just within the last few years story has come back with a vengeance.”

The prototyping will be the narrative, a written narrative of the game.

What do you need to learn?

• Technical writing

END OF SESSION – Watch my Twitter for link to the next session doc I’ll be writing. http://twitter.com/chronotope

Link to this doc: http://aramzs.me/wfg1