Main Essay
With this essay, I plan to touch upon a few speakers' notes specifically around the art of narrative design/ writing in games and how I can apply them if I want to work in the industry. I am choosing to focus on writing within the games industry explicitly as, at this point in time, it is the area of the industry that I wish to work in. At a point, I may also talk about character design as that is a big part of what I am doing within my final major project, and we had a very important industry talk on that too.
With the combination of Hannah Nicklin and Dan Bernado, I found myself at first a little lost at the true purpose of what a writer within the industry does. Simply, I assumed that I would just sit there and write out stories that I often did when I planned out writing my own works or fanfictions. While I would usually do planning with these- especially fanfictions to try and come out with a work that would really resonate with the characters that pre-existed. This was not entirely the case.
During the Q&A section of Bernado’s industry talk on his company Playtra Games, I asked him about what he looks for in narrative designers when/ if he would be hiring them. He explained that they run a test for the writers they are considering for hire. If they say ‘ENOUGH’ to end a battle sequence between characters then that is a red flag and they instantly do not get the job. Bernado continued to explain that he is looking for freshness, to see the writer be able to make each character stick out individually, not to have four characters talking only for them to all sound the same. It is integral to understand how the characters will react. A balance between game writing, decision relevance and story impact. Bernado then repeats that a good understanding of the character is key.
With Nicklin, she had a different take but one that still links with Bernado’s response to my question in the Q&A segment well.
Nicklin states that while stories are thousands of years old, we do not have to stick to the conventions that most games and especially film, stick to. This involves storytelling tropes such as ‘the hero’s journey’ or the ‘Cinderella story’. Sticking to these codes and conventions can sometimes lead to games that are ‘trying too hard to be movies’ as Nicklin makes a point that not every game has to follow movie conventions.
Sometimes looking to other mediums of storytelling can make an impact on how a game’s overall story can be told. Nicklin focuses on the use of an ensemble cast, especially as that’s what she and Die Gute Fabrik used in their game Mutazione. Their pitch overall was the idea of it being like a soap opera but in a game format where you can personally explore the characters and connections and feel more integrated and invested. Gameplay is all about making the player feel like they are immersed in that world, and finding more interesting ways of doing that than a solo character makes the industry diverse and open to many more interesting routes to take inspiration from, not limited to TV, film or even plays/ stage shows.
Nicklin also talks about when wanting to fit in with the style of a studio- especially one you may want to be a writer or designer for, you need to be able to adapt to their style. Affectionately calling them ‘barks’, Nicklin states that taking characters that exist in the industry and writing the text for them and interactions can be a great way to show off your understanding of that character.
Thinking about this, got me rather excited. As I mentioned earlier in my essay, over the last several years, I have taken to writing about characters I adore within the media in the form of fanfiction. While it started off with characters from TV shows like Yuri On Ice, it has very quickly become more exclusively intertwined with video games I adore. The ability to write these characters in scenarios or events while making sure you stick to their core principles and initial character design/ development is something I love to do. I have spent many days planning out timelines of games and looking at every information piece about these characters to keep them ‘as canon-compliant as possible’ (as true to their original self). This especially came through when I was writing pieces in relation to the Detroit: Become Human franchise on the popular fanfiction website: Archive of Our Own (or Ao3).
With the overall lore behind a lot of the characters in the game up to fan-interpretation, a lot of ‘fanon’ (fan-made ideas that are considered canon in the series overall) speculation has been posted- leaving fans to fill in the blanks or continue on the stories and develop them more than the original creator. I myself was one of these people who wanted to see more from these characters, learn about their past trials and what it may look like for them in the future. While I am still actively working on some of them that feature more of the background characters that were just there (ie- the character of Simon whose past is left unknown), I really wanted to have my hand at taking a core story of the game and developing the relationship between these characters. These characters were Hank Anderson and the android Connor.
I ended up doing things like planning out timelines and going through wikis that have information on characters and locations that I may have missed when playing the game myself. All of this was mixed together when I would write and I always have this thinking of ‘if I can’t hear it in their voice, I do not add it into the work’. It has helped me as I’ve been lucky to get comments from people saying that my writing really captures the characters well and explores sides of them they always wanted to see. It is very fulfilling to see that I was able to capture the essence of the characters and make people excited for how my stories would develop.
Despite all of this, I wanted to focus on how I could make some examples that could be seen as more ‘professional’ as using my fanfiction may not be the best way to fully show my abilities.
Wanting to use the ‘bark’ technique that Nicklin had mentioned, I took a game that I loved and that I could make character interactions with. This game was called Genshin Impact. As this is an MMORPG, the characters had menus where you could listen to their ‘voice-overs’ that give information about themselves and how they feel about the other characters within their universe. I took a character I really loved, Zhongli, and decided to do a character interaction with another one that has been introduced but is not yet playable, called Baizhu. Here is an example of how they format it so you can see how I replicate it:
I was quite proud of trying out this method, as I had spent over an hour trying to think of different ways Zhongli would talk about Baizhu, what he may already know as he has an extensive knowledge about most of the characters and how he would speak. Again, I looked at the interaction that Zhongli had with others to get his way of speaking and then wrote down texts until I was happy with them. I sent two examples to my friends who play Genshin and got good results back from them.
This was then the finished version. I was really proud of this when my friends said that it looked and sounds like something that Zhongli would say about the character of Baizhu. It took me a while to create, but I personally think I was able to incorporate the character and really interpret how he may feel. Hopefully one day they will release a character interaction voice over and I can see if I got it right. I do wish I had noticed I made a slight grammar mistake when I first did it, but next time I’ll make sure to use something like Grammarly if I am struggling to make sure I don’t make mistakes like that again.
I then also did another one for a character called Barbra. I wanted to have a go at doing one for a male character and the other for a female one, mostly because they have very different personalities and I wanted to see if I could be more diverse.
With Barbra, she has an older sister called Jean. For some reason, the game doesn’t make them act like sisters together, so I decided I would change that and have a secret voice-over that could appear if you get your friendship level with them both to the max, to show that they trust you enough to disclose this information. Again, this took a while to fully figure out what I was planning to say (as I also tried it from Jean’s perspective too), but in the end, this is what I came up with.
This one was definitely harder to do as she has a very specific and bubbly way of speaking. While she is excited with her words, she is also quiet in that it feels like she never wants to raise her voice. Again, I went to my friends who have also played the game and asked how they felt about this interaction and they both said it again, felt like they could really hear the character, especially with the idea of her giggling.
I don’t have too much more to add on these attempts other than I had fun and it helped me get a better understanding of why people do ‘barks’ when it comes to trying to get used to a specific way of being able to show how a character feels or what tone they speak in. It was also super fun to do, so I would really look forward to trying to do this again.
Now wanting to try and take on how Bernado was talking about writing, I wanted to try a more story-oriented game. I was still sticking to games that are pre-existing as I wanted to be able to stick to the idea of using the ‘bark’ basis for my examples as I wanted to try different styles of game writing. This direction was more of a script as I wanted to rewrite a section of Resident Evil VIII: Village. There is a scene behind the main protagonist, Ethan Winters, and one of the antagonists, Karl Heisenberg. I wanted to explore if they went through a different route where they would become allies rather than enemies. I ended up looking at the cutscene between the two a few times and how I could adapt it, thus I started the script with the original opening to the cutscene.
I then decided to deviate from the script. I liked the idea of the two teaming up as Heisenberg was the only one of the four lords you have to fight in a game that tries to plead a case of wanting to actively work with Ethan to take down the main antagonist Mother Miranda. I am only showing the second screenshot of a part that I wrote as it ended up being five pages so I will put it on a different page on my website.
With this piece, I was somewhat proud of it as I had written in a format I haven’t tried in a few years, but I have a few problems with it. I feel like this was a lot harder as I haven’t spent a lot of time obsessing over this game as I have with Genshin Impact and I worry that I missed the mark. I don’t have many friends that loved this instalment of this Resident Evil game, so I haven’t had a chance to get any opinions on it. It might not be a brilliant script format (as I didn’t do any camera angle shots), but I didn’t see camera angles as too important as the directions were more for if the voice actors were seeing the delivery instructions and how they should be feeling in this scene. If I wanted to improve this for the industry, I should brush up on script writing more in case that is the preferred way that the industry likes the narrative design done, as well as finding better ways to put myself in the shoes of the characters.
Being able to experiment like this has gotten me excited for trying to do this as a job within the gaming industry. I am not afraid to talk about my passions, especially when it comes to writing. While most people find the mention of fanfiction to be somewhat ‘cringy’, within the gaming community and even other authors of works (ie, Alice Oseman author of HeartStopper), claim that fanfiction is a great way to explore characters you love and they love seeing what their fans write.
While she didn’t focus on writing characters, one final industry person I want to mention within my essay is Lucy Kyriakidou. Kyriakidou is a character designer, so during her talk, she mentioned how important it is to get the character you are creating. To understand what and why you are creating them, to think about every aspect of them down to their routines and goals. Kyriakidou also says that when it comes to visual storytelling, foreshadowing as it can then be very rewarding to players when they notice and can encourage replaying as you want to go back and see if you can spot any more hints. Though I may not be able to write out full stories for the games industry, as the story phase is mostly done before the narrative design (by producers or those higher up the chain of command) I can still write my own stories in my free time and having these kinds of ways to think about how I can make my characters as relatable as possible and really develop them and overall my skills in the narrative field.
When it comes to putting this to use in my final major project, I am working with my classmate Marvin Chatting and I will be responsible for the narrative design and fleshing out the main character within the story he initially came up with. We talked about this and he said he had a rough idea of his in-game world and the character, but I would be coming in to design him as well as any dialogue or overarching story that we could use within our game. Our main character, Abel, wakes up and realizes he is all alone, his mission throughout our game is for him to try and find someone, before realizing he is alone forever as he is the last remaining person in this world. The point of the game is to have it be a Metroidvania and have Abel accept his ‘loneliness’ as the concept originated from the idea that loneliness is a social construct, and if you have no one else to be with, can you be okay with always being ‘alone’.
I am also designing the character which is why I am closely looking at Kyriakidou's work and making sure to constantly get feedback from friends and Marvin. As of writing this piece, the designs are not finished, but here is a peek into how the designs are going so far.
These designs will be talked about in another part of my blog, but when creating them, I looked into how Kyriakidou said that research and iterations were key. These are the final four out of many designs I did over a month or so and once they are done we will then be looking into style.
Overall, I feel like, through these industry talks, I have really been able to get a good grasp of how to better prepare myself for the working world of being a narrative designer. I feel like through all of this so far, I need to not apologize for being myself and what I have passions in. If I like to do fanfiction to better understand existing characters, then there is nothing wrong with that. While it is still being debated about whether fanfictions can be put into portfolios, I would find it interesting to do so as I feel like they are perfect demonstrations of understanding characters in pre-existing games. In the same breath, I will also say that I did enjoy doing my ‘bark’ activity with the Genshin pieces and would love to do more of that when it comes to "fitting the creator’s style" as it can also visually show the degree of dedication and method of understanding characters too.
My new goal after this essay is to look more into creative writing portfolios to start tailoring my one for when it is time to apply for jobs. I may ask Bernado once again about the writing examples in terms of word size and formatting so I can get a feel of what he expects to see in an Indie scene (as I would prefer to work for an Indie company than a AAA one). Another thing I may do is talk about my writing online. I often mention my fanfic writing on my main Twitter account, but for professional practice, I will look into posting it on the Twitter account I made specifically for this final year (I call it my professional one). With all of these plans, I look forward to doing this and can’t wait to see what doors it can open.
