I finished up this item recently, and as a long time reader first time poster, I thought I'd drop it off here and get some feedback. I have mainly worked "near" this industry as a freelance 3D artist/designer and assistant technical assistant (TD), so my experience in successful writing is dwarfed by my technical knowledge- the field is just tiny! I was hoping for some feedback on a short game script I put together, and as well as some questions about writing scripts for games. My script: Something Winnowing This Way Comes *Essentially, this is Chapter 1 of a game fairly implementable in the UT2k4 engine. Voiceover is persistent, theme is horror, style is a mix of Lovecraft and Max Payne noiradrama. Reading through this forum, it seems the focus here is on the writing quality, but if anyone has any input on my inclusion of scripts and settings description and their industry relevance, I would love to know. I've yet to hear of a near standard way to approach game writing/scripting, so anything on organizational method would be especially helpful. [Edited by - Amalachite on October 1, 2005 1:29:52 AM]

This is what I would do.

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Elias Therac: I woke up in a glass cell, the flickering florescent lights barely keeping my mind afloat in the abyssmal darkness. The cold had crushed my body into a distorted, husk of a man, and then I realized that I had just awoken, crouched in a pool of frigid water. I leapt up, and disregarding the flames of pain from hours of immobility, I threw myself at the blackness of the glass wall before me. As I struck it, the pain tensed my body, and I sat back into water and wept. How did I come to here? How... when... and why... why was I here... I only remember a distant morning... it was November 7th, 2080...

Very good description here, but I'm not sure this is how a person would actually talk.

I would change it to "crushed my body into a distorted husk."

I've never heard anyone actually say the word "awoken," you might want to make that part colloquial.

"How... when... why was I here?" The two why's may be redundant, but this depends a great deal on the voice actor's delivery.

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<Trigger: After player moves near the troops, control taken from player. Loche moved to near the player until sequence ends>

Is there any other way to keep control in the player's hands while this sequence goes on? You've had a lot of inactivity.

Maybe make it so as the Commander talks, a display of the map appears directly on the player's HUD, arrows appearing and such as he specifies the plan.

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Elias Therac: ...came an impregnable bark of our commander,

This is sort of an odd context for the word impregnable. You might want to find a different one.

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<SFX: Mutiple sources of heavy breathing through out> Trigger Script reaction Player tries to zoom in with sniper rifle scope Elias Therac: Curses... I gripped my sniper rifle closer and zoomed in just enough to keep all the men in sight. I hated this kind of unknown. Player tries to shoot with sniper rifle <Script: Weapon cannot be fired> Elias Therac: I was petrified, my finger couldn't clamp down. Something was wrong.

This is awesome. Great use of voiceover. Great use of atmosphere. Great use of form, taking the FPS conventions and linking them to the story itself.

More later.

I couldn't stay away for very long!

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Something Winnowing This Way Comes

You attached to the name?

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Trigger Script reaction Player waits over a minute to start going down Elias Therac: What was I doing, why couldn't I move? Shaking... so hard... I had to get down there. Player waits over 3 minutes to start going down Elias Therac: There must be survivors. I had to know, had to know.

Again, this is a nice touch.

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Trigger Script reaction Player kills a zombie <Script: choose a random line to play, with a soldier name from database where indicated> Elias Therac: "[SoldierName], I'm sorry." Elias Therac: "[SoldierName], I'll end your misery." Elias Therac: "It's not fair, [SoldierName], it's just not right. " Elias Therac: "[SoldierName]. Peace, brother." Elias Therac: "You were a fine soldier, [SoldierName]." Player kills Loche's zombie <Items: killing Loche drops a flashlight for the player to pickup> Elias Therac: "Loche, I'm sick, Loche. Don't know how we're gonna get outta this one, buddy."

This could be a very effective sequence. Do what you did for Loche's zombie, for everyone. In fact, you might want to add some more lines and exposition for Loche earlier.

I don't know what sort of visuals you're planning, but you could put soldier's names on each of their skins, like a tag on their chest or something. That'd add to the dynamic.

Just be sure not to have these lines play too often.

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Door to enter can not be opened without a password Elias must find among whispering statues among the many rooms. The words uttered by the statues form the sentence "Place your hope within madness." The order of the words hinted in a mural showing the statue order. Mausoleum door: "There is no room for madness in the space we save for death." Player must shoot the door when the word "madness" is spoken.

Great puzzle idea.

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Well this wasn't seduction... this was paranoia. This was the unknown. My journey began.

Okay, I'm definately coming away wanting to know what happens next.

This is a very densely packed level plotwise, and you've got a lot of voiceover going on. Maybe too much. Sure you don't want to pace yourself a little? Break up each part of this into its own sublevel?

I'd continue to pick on dialogue details, but other folks can do that :p

Get a friend and read through the parts, if you haven't already.

Ok some VERY useful criticism Beige, big thanks!

- The title... yeah that was the first thing that came to mind, not very catchy.

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Very good description here, but I'm not sure this is how a person would actually talk. I would change it to "crushed my body into a distorted husk." I've never heard anyone actually say the word "awoken," you might want to make that part colloquial.

Hmm definitely need to rework the first paragraph then, that would be the most important bit. Aside from the first and last sentence, can't say I'm perfectly happy about it.

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Is there any other way to keep control in the player's hands while this sequence goes on? You've had a lot of inactivity. Maybe make it so as the Commander talks, a display of the map appears directly on the player's HUD, arrows appearing and such as he specifies the plan.

Yeah that's what I was worried about, that it would be difficult to point out the direction the player is intended to go. I should rethink this as well. I don't want too much movement freedom for the player or else he may walk away from the commander while being given directions. I'm thinking mouselook is still activated.

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This is sort of an odd context for the word impregnable. You might want to find a different one.

Agreed kinda weird. I like the sound of it, but if it rubs you wrong you won't be the only one.



Finally, yes I think voiceover may be a bit overdone, particularly the internal dialogues. For a lack of visuals, it was kinda necessary to be a bit more verbose than the actual would be. Perhaps I should build more of it into script descriptions and trim dialogue down a bit? Thanks for reviewing it so thoroughly, I am glad you caught several of the misgivings I had had too.

It looks to me like your narrative could stand on its own without the context of the UT games. You might want to look into that, it'll make your game more distinctive; unless you're using it to save on content creation time.

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The title... yeah that was the first thing that came to mind, not very catchy.

One brainstorming technique I use is just thinking of random "chapter titles," stuff peripherally related with the events taking place. You end up with a whole list of stuff that way, and you can pick and choose.

Or, try to summarize as briefly as possible the main feeling your narrative is intended to generate, and use that as material.

You could just use "Something Wicked This Way Comes," of course :p

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Yeah that's what I was worried about, that it would be difficult to point out the direction the player is intended to go. I should rethink this as well. I don't want too much movement freedom for the player or else he may walk away from the commander while being given directions. I'm thinking mouselook is still activated.

The player'll still be frustrated if you do that. Maybe just go to a totally different "overview" screen. That way the player won't feel restrained and unable to move, because they can scroll and zoom around on the map.

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Finally, yes I think voiceover may be a bit overdone, particularly the internal dialogues. For a lack of visuals, it was kinda necessary to be a bit more verbose than the actual would be. Perhaps I should build more of it into script descriptions and trim dialogue down a bit? Thanks for reviewing it so thoroughly, I am glad you caught several of the misgivings I had had too.

Yeah, script descriptions are probably the place to do that if you're trying to fill in the blanks.

If "Show, don't tell" is an overused writing axiom, "Play, don't show" should be a game one.

Though I may just like that for its aesthetic appeal :p