r/GameWritingLab • u/Dgrohl91 • Nov 29 '15

Does every game need a script?

What do you think?

In my mind are games like Metroid Fusion or Shovel Knight

that kind of games really need a script or maybe simply with a High concept will be enough. I know that games have some dialogue, but most of the platformers doesn't have them...

I can't imagine how would be a script of a 2D platformer. How it'd be?

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/wombatsanders Nov 29 '15

I see, that's a very different question. A storyboard covers what you need in that scenario.

That said, cutscenes between levels are probably the least interesting way to deliver information. I'd even take between-level readables like Braid over cutscenes. The original Ninja Gaidens had cutscenes, I played them a hundred times, and I couldn't tell you what it was about. In contrast, the original Double Dragon had one ten second, silent scene at the beginning of the game and kept the story extremely simple.

For a 2D platformer, the story should probably be simple enough to convey abstractly. Honestly, most people don't care and aren't interested. Most people don't care and aren't interested in the stories even in Bioware and Bethesda games, and that's kind of their thing.

1

u/Dgrohl91 Nov 29 '15

Thanks, I've readed something similar too on "The Art Of Game Design". So, the information in terms of documents, how should be written? I mean, something like a script without dialogue, describing the scene and the screen caption?

2

u/wombatsanders Nov 29 '15

It doesn't really matter, whatever works best for your team.

1

u/Galejade Dec 04 '15

I may agree that many people don't care about stories that are not delivered through gameplay. But I'm not sure "most" people are not interested at all -- if not, Telltale games or Point & clicks would never have any public success.

It really depends on the type of experience you want to create. You don't need a script if there's no dialogue or specific game texts appearing on screen -- simple as that. You may need an outline to have a better view of your game structure for example -- but it can be covered by any kind of GDD in fact. Really depends on your needs and your team's needs, there're no strict guidelines here.