Questions for Video Game Writing 101?

Any tips for overcoming writers block?

What does a 'first pass' look like? Eg: How high fidelity do you get with the details for a character, story, etc, before engaging with the team / presenting what you've done for feedback, ideas, iteration, etc before building on it? Do you start with big blocks and pull it back as needed, or start small and build it up to meet constraints?

Matt Barton

What's the high-level process for writing a video game? For example, do teams start with an ending or general goal and then move backwards? Or maybe do teams come up with the main story structure (key steps that take the story from start to end) and then move onto filling in all the details?

How do writing teams work collaboratively on a game? Is it a lot of open discussions together with individual writers being assigned specific writing tasks by the writing lead? And are writing leads making the high-level story decisions (with the rest of the team filling in details) or are the leads more guiding the process and the entire story evolves from input from all team members?

How do teams iterate on writing over the course of game development? Does it at some point move to multiple people editing a single shared document and/or the writing team making changes to things inside the main code repository? And are there any special tools used for video game writing or is it basically a lot of Word documents that get shared around?

If you’re writing for a character and an actor gets attached or your writing for a sequel with the actor already attached, do you find it hard to write solely for the character and not the actor who would sound amazing saying those words? How do you maintain that lack of bias?

Iain McParland

If they happen to have been in the industry for a long time: what games have been revolutionary or even just plain old influential in terms of writing?

A question for any writer: what work that was originally created in another medium do you think could be adapted seamlessly into a great game?

Well I have three questions. First off, how are you doing? Second, is there a big interest in comedy writers in the video game industry? I went to the Second City Training Center in Chicago over 10 years ago, but then life got in the way of me pursuing my dreams. I always loved the humor of the LucasArts games from the '90s like Sam & Max, Monkey Island, and Day of Tentacle. I'd really love to do something related to that or voice acting. I just need to get out of this slump that I've been in. And third, if you have the time because I know it's unrelated, could you possibly recommend a decent gaming laptop that's around the $1,500 price range? I've been shopping around, but I don't want to be let down. I'm currently looking at Razer, but I'm open to other opinions

Kyle von Jacobi

As a writer, how much interaction do you have with design and the rest of story on nailing down and refining the voice or style for a specific character when you're writing their dialog?

Joseph Heck

I have been working with a dev team on a video game and my role is one of the main writers. I personally love to world build and have a deep lore for the story that extends into the past. To me, it makes me feel like there is more foundation for the current story we are trying to tell. Is there a best practice for how to deliver a rich and deep story to the player that allows them to understand the full lore without numerous side quests or monologues? Or does that unfortunately go hand-in-hand when trying to delver that much of a world? Also, in an open-world type of game, is it difficult to tell the story you want to in a "linear" way without the player progressing linearly? Is there a way to accommodate both? Love the show and really appreciate what you are bringing to the table.

Rand Kelly

I don't have a question, but I'd like to thank them for coming on the show.

Steve Goodman