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Original post by Nathan Baum
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Original post by Alpha_ProgDes
I didn't realize that writing the game story would be the same as writing a short novel.
Narrative is narrative. If you don't write something people will want to read, there's little point writing it.
But don't forget that the game's background doesn't have to be described with a narrative. If it's a problem for you, you may be able to achieve the same goal -- giving the player a grounding in the game's world -- by writing in an encyclopedic style. You wouldn't be in bad company: D&D campaign setting source books are mainly written in this style.
On the other hand, if you press forward with the narrative approach, you'd have company there, too. Offhand, Elite and Outpost 2 came with complete stories set in the universe of the game. In these cases, though, they were written by experienced science-fiction writers and not the game developers.
I'd go further than Nathan and point out that games are software designed to enable players to tell their own stories. Playing a game is, like playing cops'n'robbers as a kid, inherently a role-playing experience, regardless of the genre. It doesn't have to be labelled an "RPG" for this. Doom, Tomb Raider, Jet Set Willy and even Asteroids and Defender all place the player into an adventure. It's up to the player how he plays his role using his avatar and the game's environment.
ALL the rules of fiction therefore apply to games too. They're just applied in different ways because of how games work. I.e. your job is to ensure the game has all the story elements necessary to allow players to tell entertaining stories. This might be through traditional literary means, such as scripting cut-scenes and writing character dialogue, or using much more subtle means as would be the case in a puzzle game. (For example, "The Incredible Machine" and "The Secret of Monkey Island" are fundamentally the same type of game. The difference is in the user interface, not the core game mechanics as both are based around solving logic puzzles. The latter uses narrative as a reward for the player. The former uses the successful running of the machine as its reward mechanism.)
Decide first what kind of game you want to create and how you intend to present it to the player(s). Only then will you know how best to provide those storytelling tools. You may find a scripted cut-scene works better than, say, a narrated voice-over. Some writers prefer scripting over prose as each requires very different styles of writing.
Sean Timarco Baggaley (Est. 1971.)Warning: May contain bollocks.