For a while now, I have been designing this 3rd person shooter/adventure game, for fun. It takes place in this fantasy setting that I am inventing. Im havent had any problem with that so far. The problem is, now that I want to start figuring out the specifics of the plot to my game, I relized I''m really not sure how to write this out. You see, this game is sort of objective based. The story is multilinear, with the player ending up at the same important places, and just different ways of getting there. So what Im asking is: What is a good way to go about writing about the areas, npcs that populate it, what happens there, etc? With it not being a jumbled pile. Should I just make a flow chart with all the possible plot developments and where they will lead or something like that?

There''s a good book on this - "Writing for Interactive Media; the complete guide" by Jon Samsel & Darryl Wimberley which sets out a number of approaches. I suggest you get this from Amazon.

You do need flow charts - first for the central story and then others for each individual byway.

Once you have those skeletons in place then start to flesh them out. However don''t be confined to the flow chart of a particular story if you think of better ideas; alter the flow chart to make it fit in and ensure that it also fits in with the other plotlines.

Hi!

Start out with making a flowchart nice and slow so that you ge the hang of all the things involved in the story. After that you may do a more detailed flowchart or write a more detailed storyboard(depending on your situation).

Regards

Daniel

I said this in another thread, but I guess I could probably mention it again. Whats most important is that all of your ideas are clearly expressed, and consistantly placed in a way that any one could read and understand. I''ll give a short example in the obnoxious suikoden style.

''Joe: "Hey."''

:ASKPLAYER:
[ASK PLAYER]
''>Respond Hello.''
''>Ignore Him.''

IF "RESPOND HELLO."
''You: "Hello."''
ELSE
''Ignoring is rude.''
GOTO :ASKPLAYER:
ENDIF

Its a little quirkish, but then again theres always the choose.killingmachines.org way of doing it.

''The answer is five.''
TO AGREE, GO TO PAGE 12

The post before me recommended a book, I''d suggest looking into it. Just make sure that your ideas are complete.

Will Bubel

Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

If you mean a game design document, there''s a sample of the Betrayal at Krondor design document and script in Swords and Circuitry.

Yep, there are some great design templates in the articles section of this site.

I''m doing a small text-based adventure game, and when I did a map of the rooms, I found it SO much easier to work with. :D

A good game script, for me, seems to be standard screenwriting format mixed with Choose Your Own Adventure. But that''s just what I''ve found. Thoughts?

Worked for me at least as far as the game dialogue was concerned. It was also easy to convert the branching version of the script into a linear version for the voice-over sessions.

Joe Ward