The importance of world-building – in all genres, although particularly science-fiction, fantasy, and horror – can’t be understated. The world of your script isn’t something that should be designed separately from the story, but in tandem with it.
Video games are a massive market for writers to explore: the recent RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 made £725 million in its first weekend and shipped 17 million copies in two weeks – the largest opening weekend in the history of entertainment! If you want to get into this market as a writer, this article is for you…
Video games might be lucrative, but it’s not always easy to figure out all the terminology means. If you don’t know the difference between an FPS and an RPG, or an emote and a cutscene… Well, you certainly wouldn’t be the first!
That’s why Mark Brendan, our Elite Consultant for video game writing, is here to help. Mark has put together a handy guide for anyone who wants to get involved in writing for this new medium that cuts through the confusion and explains what all the terminology means…
RTS = Real-time Strategy
Normally top down view, often wargaming, but could be running a power station or theme park. Involves managing resources in real time to achieve a goal.
Command and Conquer, Total War series
FPS = First Person Shooter
An extremely popular style of game where the perspective is first person, as if through the eyes of the ingame character. Sometimes nothing of the character is visible, on other occasions hands with weapons are visible and the player can see some of their body when they look down, or press to interact with ingame objects. Shooter refers to the style of the game play – the gaminig is predominantly fighting with ranged weaponry.
Call of Duty, Bioshock, Half-Life
RPG = Role-playing Game
While the FPS is predominantly concerned with fast-paced action, an RPG takes longer to unfold. There are likely to be action sequences, often combat, sometimes challenges such as climbing. The player will gnerally be required to have much more of a relationship with the ingame world than in an FPS. To advance the player will need to talk to NPCs (Non-Player Characters), find and use objects, and solve puzzles to advance. While an FPS often makes the main character invisible, most modern RPGs allow extensive modification of the player’s character to customize it to their own preferences.
Fallout 3, Oblivion, Mass Effect
Third Person
In a third person game the player can see the character they are playing onscreen. The action is viewed as if from behind the character’s shoulder.
Prince of Persia, Uncharted, Tomb Raider
MMO – Massively Multiplayer Online
An online game that involves many people accessing the same game world at the same time.
World of Warcraft, Guild Wars
Cutscene
A cutscene is a non-interactive section of a game. This is generally used to tell story and to set up the key gameplay points for the next level i.e. Get to that bridge!
Scripted Event
A scripted event is an interactive cutscene. Here the player retains control while an event they don’t control such as a building collapsing, a plane flying by, or someone appearing on a balcony takes place.
Ingame/Level dialogue/Barks
This is dialogue that happens during the interactive sequences. The player will retain control as they hear pedestrians talking as they walk by, enemy soldiers calling orders, or companions calling warnings.
Emotes
Emotes are sounds rather than words such as a scream, a grunt, the effort sound of lifting; these are emotes rather than lines.
Player Activated Dialogue
Dialogue which the player triggers themselves by pressing to interact with characters in the game.
Player Character
As the title infers, this is the character the player controls. There can be numerous player characters in the game and the ‘character’ can lack many of the key things that define a character in other fiction (backstory, personality, etc.)
NPC = Non-Player Character
A non-player character is one that the player does not control. They could be an enemy, an ally, or neutral in terms of their approach to the player character.
With any luck, you’ve now got a better grasp of the gaming terminology a writer needs. If you really want to take your writing to the next level, we’d recommend get Elite Mentoring from Mark Brendan himself!
Take a look at Jamie White’s thoughts on writing for video games too in this article, where there are plenty more hints and tips to be found!
This is a great time to be getting involved in writing for video games; WriteMovies is still looking for scripts for both films and games to be directed by 2x BAFTA winner and 2x Oscar nominee Habib Zargarpour, too, which can be submitted to our Winter 2019 Contest.
Jamie White continues his thoughts on writing for video games. This time it’s all about the difficulties of writing open world games…
Up until now the games I’ve talked about have had a very linear narrative structure. The gamer doesn’t really have that much control of where the character goes or what they can do. That’s all about to change as we look into what is possibly my favorite genre of game – open world sandbox RPGs.
OK, it can be a bit of a mouthful, but these types of games (which I’ll just refer to as sandbox games) are usually the most immersive. They offer the player a variety of options within an open world setting – you can create your own character from scratch sometimes, mix and match weapons, and perhaps most importantly, nail your outfit. That might sound kinda silly, but giving the player that little bit of control allows them to put some of their personality into the character.
So why are they called sandbox games? Well, as always, Wikipedia puts it best…
“A game in which the player has been freed from traditional video game structure and direction, and instead chooses what, when, and how they want to approach the available content. The term alludes to a child’s sandbox without rules, with play based on open-ended choice. While some sandbox games may include building and creative activities, they are not required. Sandbox games generally employ an open world setting to facilitate the player’s freedom of choice.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_video_game_terms#osandboxgames
So, in short, you can do whatever you like with sandbox games – as long as you stay inside the sandbox and only use the sand and really cool customizable plastic shovels.
A collection of various sandbox games.
I also mostly find that these games have some of the best storylines. Whether it’s the more recent Horizon: Zero Dawn or Nier: Automata, or classics of years gone by like Red Dead Redemption or GTA: San Andreas. The big issue for writers when writing for these types of games, though, is side quests.
Think of side quest as sub-plots. Some are more related to the main plot than others, while some are simply hunting and/or gathering missions. What they should always be, though, is interesting. The escort side mission has become the bane of many gamers’ existence (it’s just so damn annoying!) and finding specific artifacts or plants to complete a quest is just super tedious and unimaginative. These types of missions can add some needed variation to side quests, but finding several unique ways to handle them can be a tough task for writers.
An even tougher task is how the hell you actually write these types of games. And much like the narrative focused games I looked at in my previous article, there isn’t a set way. You gotta go with whatever makes sense to you. But, I do have a suggestion.
Sandbox games are comprised of, essentially, two plot arcs: A) The main story and B) the side quests. Sometimes these side quests only become available after you’ve reached a certain point in the main story, or after you’ve unlocked a certain weapon, or whatever, so how can you writer both into one document?
Well, you’re familiar with those “Choose Your Own Adventure“ novels, right? The ones that say “Turn to page 36 to follow the dragon”, then you turn to page 36, get killed by the dragon and quickly turn back to the previous page. Well, I think you could follow a similar sort of format.
Start out writing the main plot as you would a regular script. Then, when you get to a place where you think “hey, I can add a side quest here”, make a note like “SIDE QUEST “A side quest served cold” now available. Turn to page 124 for narrative”, then carry on with the main plot. You could either then finish the main storyline before adding the side quests, or add them as you go.
Again, it’s best to do it however you feel comfortable. While there’s strict format for screenplays, that is not really the case for video game writing.
Most importantly, though, especially for new video game writers – stick to writing the main plot. Don’t take the Skyrim route that has several big plotlines and what feels like millions of side quests. It can be exhausting to play, so I can only imagine how it would be to write…
If you wanna write your own video game script and enter it in our Spring Contest (we allow video game scripts now!) but aren’t quite sure on how to approach it, just get in touch! Maybe we can end up doing a Q&A sorta thing…? We’ll see!
I wanna also talk about why you film and TV writers should not look to adapt video games into mainstream consumptive media, but that’s an article for another day…
Our new contest is almost here! And before we announce it we want to draw your attention to our NEW special prize… with the first of our new series of articles about WRITING FOR VIDEO GAMES by Jamie White.
I love gaming. It’s one of the few ways that I can truly turn off from the outside world, and relax… well, mostly (Fifa and Overwatch have given me my fair amount of stress!) Even watching films I can’t fully switch off. Maybe I’ll notice some blatant exposition for no other reason than to be exposition, or I might simply note to myself “shot, reverse-shot, shot”.
Gaming Is different, though. I become fully invested in the protagonist and their story because, as silly as it sounds, I AM the protagonist. It’s my story. I am experiencing these things because I am controlling this character freely and the character’s progression depends entirely on my own.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has this same experience… and it’s great that we are now accepting video game submissions! So, I decided to look at a few games and note down how you can take similar aspects into writing your own video game script…
Online multiplayer games are incredibly popular and are possibly the most profitable type of games as it offers a unique element of competitiveness to them. You can actually test your true capabilities as a player. Now, this “loot box” fiasco has taken some glory of these types of games (sarcastic clap for EA) but these are still viable games.
For me, the one gaming franchise that comes to mind when you talk about online modes being more important that the story is Call of Duty. While the golden age of CoD has faded, with some ridiculous and over-zealous stories, they continue to be popular. Why? Online modes. Whether it’s a straight-up team deathmatch or the infamous “CoD zombies”, Call of Duty games continue to sell for their online games modes.
But they still contain story campaigns, and rightly so. They may not be the main draw of the games now, but they’re still vital elements to their marketability. The way these games utilize their stories could also be the easiest way for new video game writers to get involved with the medium.
Note: I haven’t played a Call of Duty game past Black Ops, so I’ll be mostly referring to Modern Warfare 1 & 2, World at War, and Black Ops itself.
Now The way the stories work in these types of games is fairly simple. There’s one narrative (maybe two) that goes from A to B – much like a regular, linear screenplay. The difference is the scenes of this type of video game script would be HUGE. You should treat your scenes like levels in a video game (sounds obvious, but it really is the best way I can put it). The levels won’t last 10 seconds like some screenplay scenes, but closer to 10 minutes, and probably even longer. Check out this video of the first level to Call of Duty: World at War.
That opening is close to two minutes long – that sets up the premise of the entire game. There’s another “cutscene” that acts as an intro to the level itself – another 30-40 seconds there. That means the level itself is around 10-12 minutes long. Consider that a scene for your video game script and compare it as a regular feature script scene – that’s a huge difference. Saying that, that’s the only real difference. Take note of how certain NPCs (non-playable characters) only appear or act when the player is close by – see how that would be scripted? It’s very cinematic. Very filmic.
If you’re new to video game writing, you should definitely take this sort of approach.
Next, I’ll look at a couple of games where the narrative is imperative but gameplay takes a backseat, and how that could be much more complicated than this method.