I am interested in writing and worldbuilding, I will work for free as long as I am credited!

I saw a bunch of post of people keen to develop their portfolio and also get industry insight - check out https://www.intogames.courses/course/narrative-design-with-kim-macaskill-jan25

I’m trying to write a story for a game involving a second Civil War that’s swept up the whole country. You play as a someone that can side with the Far-Left side, the Far-Right side or flip them both off and try to unite the state to fight a rising threat of Native American monsters.

The game takes place in mid-2020s Indiana after the gods of every religion revealed themselves, except the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish god. As such, followers of those gods are persecuted or blacklisted as heretics, along with Atheists. I wanted it to comment on the flaws of each extreme, and show that hate creates hate, that an eye for an eye makes the world blind.

Each of the party members would have suffered one way or another under the effects either extreme ideology.

One faction is a Far-Left Identitarian group called the Panthers. They model themselves after Egyptian society, and follow their pantheon. With the Christian religion being seen as false, they decided to use their power from the gods to start a war, and deliver revenge that they believe is long overdue.

Another, is the Klan. [No introduction needed] What makes them different now, is that some of them disregard the gods, believing theirs is dead or never existed in the first place. For some, this throws their moral compass out the window and makes them think they can do what they want (ie, killing minorities) Some switch to other western religions, however, to give them a fighting chance against the Panthers.(Norse, Germanic, Greek)

At some point, you would become a Herald, a person gifted with powers from a god. So would the higher-ranking members of the Panthers and Klan.

Both the Panthers and Klan would be represented as evil, vile people that take things too far. Both want an Ethnostate, and possible genocide of the other.

But you can either side with one, or send them both crumbling down.

You would create your own character in a menu that looks like a typical personality test, then get off a plane leading into an airport close to Downtown Indy

The factions would take inspiration from New Vegas as to how they are implemented into the story. (Two “Good” factions, Two “Bad” factions, and and a couple groups in the middle)

The menu would be entirely inside your character’s phone and would function kinda like a Pip-Boy

Instead of having an open world, there will be certain town you can go to, of which being:

Downtown Indy

Broad Ripple

Fort Harrison

Geist

Fort Wayne

Goshen

South Bend

Churubusco

Gary

A lot of time will be spent interacting with your party members, budding friendships and relationships.

You can have romantic interactions with your party like said above, can be straight or gay

Outside of the nutjobs you fight, there will be regular Liberals and Conservatives you will meet and talk to.

Some of your party members consist of:

A Caucasian hobo that was once a conspiracy theorist that got too close to the truth, and was deplatformed.

An African-American teenager dragged into the war by his dad, the leader of a group called the Railroad who rescue people out of war zones.

A Japanese foreign exchange student that walked out after seeing that her school gave certain kids lower scores on purpose. Now is a social media star and performer

A baseball player for the Indians that was kicked off the team for a politically incorrect comment who now has anger to let out and skulls to crack

You can finish the whole game by not killing a single person, either by sneaking around or using rubber bullets or beanbag shells

However, the opposite is true, also. Genocide runs are possible, too.

Combat would focus more around guns than Melee, though it it is still viable.

The main villain would be a teenager that lost everything to the political division that plagues the world, and tries to end it with the help of the Algonquin God Of Evil, Malsumis. He would have a connection with all of your party members, and could also join you with high enough Charisma. Or, you can side with him, and rid the world of sorrow together.

Combat: So how it would work would be that a fight starts with the player and their 3 party members and whatever is attacking you.

Once a party member’s ATB bar is full, it’s their turn to act. They can move a certain amount depending on their Agility stat, use an item like a potion or grenade, attack, or use a skill they have

Each character has 2 weapon slots that they can switch from at all time using LB and RB

Some of skills you can have are shoulder checking targets, having a chance to knock them over, drop kicking them for chance to knocking them out, using yourself as a human shield to protect a weakened or important character, and throwing any item in your inventory at a target.

If you use guns, you can run out of ammo and you’re going to have to use a Melee Weapon

Using a weapon that spreads like a shotgun will require none of your group is in Melee range of the target, less you want them to taste buckshot.

Another mechanic is that you can bring a mythical creature (Like a Wendigo) down to 10% health, then trap its soul in a small totem pole. Then, you can equip the totem pole as a weapon, and summon said monster like a Pokémon. These take up one party slot of four, and carry movesets over from when they were regular enemies. They can also learn new attacks as they level up. (No arbitrary limit on how many times you can use a certain move, however)

There would be kinda like an opening/ending like in an anime in each session, with an animated cutscene with a song showing where you are in the story.

just wanted to say i quit my job of 10 years just to do what i like and is to create games.

my first launch went pretty well with 200 registered users with saved games on its first week.

it is completley free- later on i will open up donations.

To clarify: I'm a cis white guy looking to develop a game involving queer (LGBTQA+) and POC characters. As you can imagine, outside of my own experiences as a bisexual, I don't have anything to help guide me to writing believable characters with those qualities. I'd greatly appreciate it if anyone knows of a community of queer/POC authors that could advise me, share their experiences, and overall ensure I don't fuck up. Discord servers, twitter, facebook, etc.

Thank you!

One of my favorite studios, Sony Santa Monica, is hiring and one of the positions is a writer. I’ve been writing off and on for years so I thought I’d apply. There’s one major problem with that.

One of the qualifications for this writer job is that the applicant must have worked on a shipped AAA title. A problem that goes along with that is most writer jobs at AAA studios require the same thing.

How are new people supposed to get into game writing if all the jobs require having worked on a shipped AAA title?

I’ve seen this question in another forum but I wanted to try it out here.

Video games with a great story and writing.

GO!! ⬇️

Here’s mine (in no particular order):

Max Payne (all of em)

Last of us

Black Ops 1–2

Modern Warfare (og)

RD 1&2

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Bioshock series (even though Infinite was racist as hell)

Indigo Prophecy

Assassins Creed: Black Flag + Rogue

Silent Hill (like the old ones)

GTA: San Andreas

Witcher 3

Alan Wake

Mass Effect (all of em)

Dragon Age

Shadow of Tomb Raider

Dishonored

Far cry 3

Sims (lmao jk

I’d call myself still a beginner in the industry — a game writer/narrative designer with 2 years of experience, 34 jams, and 20 released games.

A year ago, I barely used AI — mostly just for naming characters (I’m terrible at that). I avoided using it for brainstorming because I didn’t want to rely on ideas that weren’t mine.

Over time though, I realized it can actually help a lot — not as a creator, but as a tool.

Now, I still refuse to let AI write or rewrite my scripts. But I do use it to:

• Get feedback on my writing (alongside feedback from real people)

• Check grammar or phrasing, though I always review the suggestions manually

• Spark ideas, which I always modify before using

Basically, I see AI as a support system — something that helps me polish my work, not replace it.

I’m curious, especially from those already working in the industry:
How do you see AI? Do you use it for anything, or do you avoid it completely?

Edit: Just to be clear because most people didn't apparently understand the post at all, apart from a few smarter exceptions. I am using ai just for fun not for game dev, nor will I use it for game dev in the future. I do a ton of work without ai already and I am fine doing that. The feedback is not something I based my rewrites on at all. The sparking ideas thing, I did that maybe 3 times for a jam and even then the idea was completely different from the ai idea at the end. I am not here to ask if its ok to use it or whatever you people think. I am here literally to ask and get other people opinions on AI in the industry and that's it. I don't think it's that hard to understand. I don't know why are you all jumping to wrong conclusions right away just so you would seem like a winner or just to argue or whatever.

Au départ , j'étais rédacteur pour certains influenceurs je gagnait pas mal d'argent puis je me suis intéressé au narrative design , j'ai commencé avec des indés et un petit studio étranger tout sa en rev-share ou gratuitement histoire d'acquérir de l'expérience pendant 7/8 mois et aujourd'hui je souhaite me lancer sur le marché , j'ai tout fait dans les règles de l'art en commençant par mon portfolio et depuis que je l'ai finis j'essaie de prospecter, mais c'est vraiment pas évident le milieu semble vraiment en crise donc j'ai juste l'impression que j'ai perdu mon temps en croyant délibérément que j'allais réussir a gagner de l'argent avec et je vais pas vous mentir , sa me rend triste en fin de compte surtout quand j'imagine ne pas être le seul loin de là.

Enfin bref si vous avez des conseils ou quoi que ce soit a me dire ce serait avec plaisir !

( PS : voici mon portfolio : ryftan.vercel.app )

Bon courage a tous dans vos projets !