This year at the 28th annual AFF Writers Conference we launched a new track of panels all about writing for video games. As the lines between filmmaking and game development continue to blur, we believe it’s an excellent time for screenwriters to turn their eyes towards a new medium.
Check out some of the advice that was shared at this year’s inaugural Game Writing Track.
1. The Difference between Game-writing and Screenwriting
“Game writing is not about telling a story the same way a screenwriter tells a story in their script. It’s really about creating the space so that the player can create their own story. It’s very different. You’re still doing world-building, you’re still creating characters and dialogue but you’re setting a stage and then you’re inviting the player up on that stage and then do whatever it is the player is going to do, so it’s really a different style of storytelling.”
– Susan O’Connor
2. You Have to Account for so Many Different Variables
“This whole world of agency and potential is the hardest thing and I feel like if you were writing in other mediums, it can be a really hard thing to reckon with. There’s a million and one conditionals to account for. The more robustly you can account for those conditionals, the more holistic your game will feel.”
– Evan Narcisse
3. The Careful Balance of Confidence and Humility
“You have to be open-minded about representing somebody who doesn’t have the same background as you and that takes a lot of humility, which is not always active in these spaces. There is a lot of pride and confidence you have to bring to video games as a creative career because these things are so complex and if you don’t spend every day thinking ‘I know what I’m doing. I know how to do this.,’ then it’s going to be very hard. Coupling that to open-mindedness, humility, and consideration of other people is important.”
– Evan Narcisse
4. It Has to Stay Short
“The first thing you have to remember is that a lot of players are just going to skip dialogue. People don’t have the attention span to read a text wall, nobody wants to read all that shit. So it has to stay short, and it has to make sure they know what they’re doing next and why they’re doing it, and after that, you can worry about making it good.”
– Erin Firestine
5. A Symbiotic Relationship of Creativity and Technology
“A good game script doesn’t work on its own. It’s not supposed to work on its own, if it works on its own then it’s not a good game script. It’s got to be integrated with all the other elements of the game. Right, it’s so embedded in the other elements like the gameplay mechanics, how the look and feel, even the technology. The goal is to make it where you don’t know where one begins and the other ends.”
– Susan O’Connor
Grab a Badge and join us at our 29th Annual Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference to get more tips and tricks!
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