I look in on the helpwanted forum from time to time, and I''m always puzzled that people ask for writers when they''ve already done a significant amount of work. Of the game plots I''ve come up with, the best of them require special coding and all of them require special art. For example, one plot was based on the idea that the main character''s weapon/armor ratings were determined by the fact that he could morph in player-controlled ways as he acquired pieces of monsters'' dna. A typical rpg engine would have to be substantially re-written to allow for that. And I don''t see how any art, be it character sprites or scenery, could be done before the plot had at least been sketched out. Am I missing something, or is it the teams that look for a writer halfway through who don''t know what''s up?

It''s a sad fact that the game industry doesn''t value writers OR designers as much as they should. But this is something that I''m convinced will change as the industry matures.


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I think it''s already changing, look at the large discussions here!
Though I think it will evolve first into "designs that allow for easier writing" before writing a story really comes before designing the engine.


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Writers and designers are underappreciated...there''s no doubt about that, but if a person is making budget game by themselves or a very small team I can see having a general idea of what the game will be like but not having all the specifics and wanting to get the technical part out of the way first. Then work on the specifics of the story and maybe working on all the different quests or levels or whatever.

I definitely think that what we do here is change the opinions. We are the ones who are making the reality bright for future designers. Game design and story writing is an art. Coding without taking that into account is just hacking. Personally, I think that a story should be thoroughly developed before production of code is even considered

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The process of creating a game should be something like that :

-Idea of the Game/Plot/Story.
-Writing the Story/Designing the game.
-Designing the engine to be used.
-Polishing the designs.
-Beginning to code (and modifying slightly the design)


This is IMHO the best way to design/create a game...

Please don''t do : Create a cutting edge code (3d engine...) and asking what you can do with it, this is the wrong way to proceed !

What you need is to build something to highlith the game, camera position, sprites size, engine capacities ALL depends on WHAT you want the player to FEEL.

A game IS NOT (or should not be) a demo of your coding capacities...

Maybe that''s why games are nice looking but empty.

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

Well, the approach that I''ve seen taken on one project was to first develop the world - the setting, the game engine, the scripting engine - and then let the story unfold in the world that has been created. And with a half-way decent scripting engine, just about any story can be implemented without any re-writing of code!

And honestly speaking, on little 1-2 man projects, if something doesn''t get finished, or one thing is what causes the game to never get finished, that''s writing the game engine. Once you''ve got a working game, it''s easy to find people who want to help out, but some people just want to get something done before they start asking other people for help, in fear that they may not finish what they started, and then have the person who wrote this big, full, fleshed out story upset with them because they didnt'' finish the game.

I''m not saying this is how it should be (definitely not!); I''m just stating my observations about the kind of projects people do here. As far as professional (as opposed to hobbyist) game design, I (almost) completely agree with your order of how things should be done!

quote:
sunandshadow
I look in on the helpwanted forum from time to time, and I''m always puzzled that people ask for writers when they''ve already done a significant amount of work. Of the game plots I''ve come up with, the best of them require special coding and all of them require special art.

I believe you are talking about my post. I''ll have to explain a bit. The engine that I made was actually for a different game. After the game designers made up the specs I started writing the generic parts of the engine. For example I knew that it was going to be isometric so I wrote the display engine that way. Then the project fell apart because everyone got tired of waiting for the game designers to finish up the design doc.

The engine was very generic and well coded so I decided to try to make a new game and find better game designers, and have them maybe not going into so much detail in the beginning.

The heart of the engine is actually off of an action game I made. One of the things that means is that it was a lot of work to redo it, and there are hidden features in the engine waiting to be used.

quote:
"...people ask for writers when they''ve already done a significant amount of work."

In the latest Game Develpoper magazine there is an article that examines the differences between games and stories. If you haven''t had a chance to read it, I sugest you get a copy. The jist of the article is that games are not stories and stories are not games. Therefore you can have a really good game and not require a story, just as you don''t need a game for a great story.

There have been good games that have told stories (Myst is an example). He gave one example of a story that was almost gamelike (I don''t remember the name off the top of my head).

The question (that was left in my mind and) that wasn''t really answered is how and why?
How do you make a great game from a great story?
Why can''t a great story be a great game?

So, to answer your question, why do people as for writers when they have done a substantial amount of work?
I would suggest that it is just as natural for a game to come from a story than it is for a story to be based on a game. Most of the time when a story is written for a game it is to give a history of the game (RPGs for example) or to set the mood for the player before entering the game (Frontier: Elite II''s novelete for example).

Just my 1 gold piece worth...



Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

I think that they should do the story, then decide on the engine and the art, including the art style. I never saw any sense in someone picking an art style and then trying to justify the art decision through writing the story. If you are hard up for a game idea, choosing an art style might help, but that is only when you have nothing to start with and with cultural based art styles that have established techniques for an existing medium.