Game Play™

By Jami Todd

So you want to write for games? Whether you want to write for indie or mainstream games or simply design a game idea you just had in the shower, this Game Play™ seminar gives you expert advice in everything from designing missions and objectives to developing memorable player characters that inspire and respect the core game mechanics. Jami Todd has written interactive stories and games for the last ten years. He presents his Game Play seminar to studio executives the world over. In this seminar, you get industry tips and strategies for making stories interactive, maximizing player agency, and designing the most important mission of the game. This seminar is for anyone who ever wanted to write their own game and simply needed a few industry tips and strategies to get started!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312410565

Book preview

Game Play™

Game Play™

By Jami Todd

Copyright

Game Play © 2006-2010 Jami Todd. All rights reserved.

Game Play Transcript© 2011-2014 American Game Institute. All rights reserved

www.jamitodd.com

This is a work of fiction and/or non-fiction. All characters, their distinctive likeness and related elements featured in this book are registered or unregistered trademarks of the author(s). All rights reserved. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by an information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.  This is a work of speculative fiction. All of the characters, names, products, incidents, organizations, religions and dialogue in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used satirically, as parody and/or fictitiously.

ISBN 978-1-312-41056-5

A Meaningful Story Well Played

A good premise leads to a meaningful game experience.

Meaningful Fun

I’m Jami Todd and welcome to Game Play, a story seminar on writing for games.  Let me just say I’m thrilled to be here to discuss classical story design and game writing. There is nothing I appreciate more than discussing story and helping writers and directors design games that are meaningful and engaging. Let me start off by saying that stories are powerful.  They can inspire, they can inform, they can entertain and they can change lives in small or big ways. Make no mistake. When understood correctly a good story can add an element of the sacred to any medium including this relatively new medium we call games. That’s why I’ve spent a good chunk of my career working with writers and directors as a story designer, analyst, and consultant for studios and schools around the world. My experience has taught me that where writers and designers often fail is quite surprisingly not in the ‘writing’ but in the basic understanding of story. Many write well but have troubles with the essence of story.  This is where I believe understanding the basic guidelines of classical story design will help immensely.  There’s a lot of great writing in the industry, just not a lot of great story; or, if there is a great story, it’s usually an interactive film and not a game, and therefore not such a great game story. The trick, then, is to tell a meaningful story while maximizing player agency.

Let’s not mince words. Great writing is nothing without great story. And a great game story is nothing without meaningful choices and mechanics that are somehow linked or even inspired by the story’s premise. And by premise I do not mean log-line or summary. I mean the subtext of the log-line or summary. I mean the heart of the story. And the heart of the story is the thing you want the player to explore throughout the game. Premise is something we shall discuss later on in the lecture. Suffice to say a game writer must know the principles of classical story design and the essence of the game