Kian Northcote

freelance writer

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It is heart warming to note that whilst the computer games industry thrives on change, it will always be grounded by one basic principle. Success stems from good writing.
Today, it’s typical for a major studio to have anything up to three or more projects running at any one time. Unlike film or television, where a fleet of writers can be assigned to a single script, the pre- production stage for a video game is often scaled down to just one writer per project. Sounds like a lonely job, but as James Leach, head of writing at Lionhead Studios explains, it can get quite animated.

‘When things are going well, I stick to my own project and the two other guys remain in the murky depths of theirs,’ says James. ‘But often there’s an interchange of ideas. Commonly this takes the form of emails saying, Help! I need to name twenty towns in Fable, to which the reply will be, yeah, but only if you quickly invent a religion for the Aztec nomads in Black & White2,’ he laughs.

Along with the two Black & White games, Fable is one of Lionhead’s most successful titles. It’s a game that allows you to live the life of an archetypal fantasy hero, from a young child through to adulthood. It places you in a moral dilemma, where you can either solve problems by being good or by being bad. It’s the perfect example of the industry’s response to the consumers increasing demand for games that can mimic real life.

It’s a second-generation Role-playing game. [RPG] these operate in a vast non-linear environment, designed to be more flexible, allowing you to experience not only a sense of freedom, but also the illusion of free will. This means that the manner in which you respond to a certain character, or react when placed in a specific situation, could radically alter the structure of your gaming experience. The implication is that you are shaping your own destiny.
RPG’s are often the most challenging games to produce. But for writers, the sheer scale of the production means they are usually the most rewarding.

Developing a story

The scripting for a particular project will often only commence after the game’s initial design has been completed. This means the writer will already have some prior knowledge of the world that has been created.
The trick is in figuring out a way to develop the existing idea and expand on certain events without altering the originators’ vision. ‘To an extent it’s about adapting and fleshing out unchangeable ideas which others have had,’ says James.

Once the writer and designers have a feel for the project they can begin to construct ideas for the basic plot. Often a short story will be put together to help sell the outline to both the publisher and the rest of the team. It’s very much a game of mix and match, with potential ‘story arcs’ often being taken apart and completely reassembled. Or simply binned entirely.‘Its common to be told that ‘you know that scene a third of the way in, where the player faces the bad guy for the first time? Its brilliant fun to play so we want to move it to the start of the game. And silently, the whole story crashes down and we sit and listen to the blood pounding in our ears,’ says James.

For an RPG to work well it needs to look and feel authentic. It needs a strong sense of history in order to
appear all the more believable. This can only be achieved with the most meticulous of background research.

Mike Laidlaw, is one of the lead writers for Canadian games developer, Bioware. As is the case with Lionhead Studios, Bioware specialize in delivering some of the most innovative RPG’s around. Two years ago they enjoyed huge commercial and critical success with their crossover epic, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Mike explains that a key part of their success was down to the fact that they did their homework. ‘When we were preparing to design Knights of the Old Republic, the design team totally immersed themselves in the Star Wars universe, reading
everything they could about the Old Republic, and the origins of the various species, the early history of the Sith and so on. Giving it a rich back story.’

This dedicated approach appealed to Star Wars fans worldwide, but it’s not an easy thing to get right. ‘The process can be difficult at best’, adds Mike. ‘This is because you have to narrow your focus to a thin band that informs the story you want to tell.’

The importance of gameplay

The key difference between writing a video game, and writing a novel or a script, is that regardless of how complex and how detailed you want the story to be, you still have to account for that little thing called gameplay; the technical aspects of the game. If you have a great story but the product is full of sloppy technical mistakes and badly designed A.I, [artificial Intelligence] all that hard work will count for nothing. ‘Gameplay is everything,’ remarks James. ‘A good story and dialogue can make a good game better, but can’t make a bad game good.’

Dialogue is a perfect example of how this works. Usually, writers are given the freedom to voice characters in whatever way they feel is most effective. ‘It needs to be short, snappy, and clear,’ continues James. ‘We spend more time condensing and pruning lines back than we do writing them.’

The problems start when the dialogue begins to disrupt the flow of the story and distract the player, turning their attention away from the game itself. ‘The trick, is to define what you want the player to gain from every chunk of dialogue and exposition, and deliver it as succinctly as possible.’

Being able to write dialogue in a manner that is equally descriptive and compact, is an essential skill for anyone looking to work in this industry. Competition for jobs is fierce, with the majority of computer journalists wanting to work in this area. It’s not enough to be a talented writer. You need to know games. You need to know what you love about some, and hate about others. To succeed, you also need a strong understanding of how the industry operates.

‘Work out which companies create the sort of games which require creative writing and target those,’ suggests James. ‘The bigger the company, the more likely they are to have their own in house writers, so smaller companies are worth approaching. Send hard copy CVs and examples of your work rather than emails. Be prepared to keep trying.’

The tools of the trade

Some prior knowledge of the software you may be working with could also prove handy. ‘For someone angling at writing, Neverwinter Night [One of Bioware’s classic titles] comes with a toolset that’s literally the same tools we used to build the game’, says Mike. ‘Whilst its been refined, the conversation editor you see in Neverwinter is almost the same one we use today.

‘Beyond that,’ he chuckles, ‘I’d strongly suggest a degree. It probably goes without saying that it looks good on a resume, and it’s always easier to immigrate when you’re carrying some letters after your name.’

Finally, you need to be someone who is flexible enough to adapt to a whole host of unexpected problems. ‘Funnily enough’, say’s James, ‘the biggest headache we’ve ever faced was creating thousands of fake film titles for The Movies.’ [A simulation that allows the player to run his or her own movie studio] ‘When we submitted them to the legal team to check in case they already existed, we were shocked to have dozens rejected because they sounded like rude euphemisms.

To this day, I’m sad that The Glasshole isn’t in the game.’

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