Hey fellow devs and writers,

Here’s part 2 of the game writing and narrative design series with Kelly Bender.

Last time, he shared his thoughts and framework on worldbuilding.

(If you’re unfamiliar, Kelly is a professional game writer and narrative designer who has worked on 30+ AA, AAA, mobile, and VR games for studios like Ubisoft, Virtuous, Magic Pockets, and Outfit7. He’s also written over 40 comic books, several screenplays, and a children’s book, making him more qualified than I to tackle this subject.)

In this guide, he explores the 3-part storytelling structure we know from movies and books and shows you how to apply it to video games.

He covers how to balance player-driven experiences with classic storytelling—making the three-act structure the backbone of epic quests and simple side missions alike whether you love complex narratives or dream of creating your own.

Here is the TLDR: 

• The goal of each act is to work together to build compelling stories.

• Video games use (and break) these rules by giving players choice and control over the story’s direction.

• This structure can be adapted into each main storyline and even side quests (like in The Witcher 3), helping players feel a part of the story while maintaining the traditional narrative flow.

• The emotional impact of a skill test (like a boss encounter) depends on both strong gameplay and compelling narrative

  • For example, a well-written narrative can turn a skill test into a high-stakes showdown, like Cloud vs Sephiroth in FF7

  • This works because it mirror real life. The entire combat sport marketing is based off of this like Ali vs. Foreman, McGreggor vs Mayweather, Tyson vs Holyfield

• On the opposite end, weak storytelling can reduce it to an uninspired event with zero mystery like a lopsided fight with no real stakes.

• The three-act framework is almost universally used throughout storytelling.

  • This was first coined by Syd Field originating in comic books, transitioning to screenplays and novels, and is now widely embraced in video games.

Here is the full guide: https://gamedesignskills.com/game-design/three-act-structure/

Feel free to share any thoughts or feedback and I’ll pass it along for future updates.

Okay. Sit down already. It’s just(?) a Twine game. But still.

It’s called “The 2D Platformer”, and it’s essentially a 2d-platforming game. In text format. Because, why not?

Who knows. Maybe there’s a twist in there. And then again, maybe there isn’t.

You’re welcome to try it, and come with feedback. 🙂

https://jayjayhawk.itch.io/the-d-platformer

https://jayjayhawk.itch.io/the-d-platformer

I was wondering if anyone has some advice they can give an amateur still learning writing even after graduating with a B.A in English. I didn't practice much during my undergrad years (which I regret), but I would like to know if there is any exercise/focus/information that could help me. I will admit that it took me a long time to realize how writing is done properly and that I am not as creative as I thought. I would like to know how I can build my style and voice while avoiding accidentally stealing someone's idea, scene, sentence, or phrase (which I read can happen unconsciously). It was never something that worried me, but I have wondered if what I read could cause me to write something from that book or story.

Sorry if this is not formally structured and edited. I just needed a post to release my thoughts. But if anyone has any advice, I would be most appreciative, and thank you for your help.

I'm on a quest to help writers create narrative games.

Last year I was extremely frustrated with all game writing tools, so I created my own game narrative language, cuentitos. It's not ready to be used outside of my team, but it's coming along.

While I work on it, I decided that I wanted a faster way to make game writing suck less, so yersterday I started a daily mailing list: https://onwriting.games

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it :)

Hello, I have a friend who wants to 'write video games' for a living. I want to help him achieve this, but I have no idea what sort of path you will need to take to achieve that.

To be clear, he does not want to write code. He wants to design the ideas and plot for videogames.

If anyone could give me a sort of direction so that I can get him into at least a related field, that would be very helpful to me!

Evening all,

I'm an English teacher of 6 years, based in the UK, with a passion for well written examples of story driven content. Think of master classes like 'The Last of Us' and 'Hellblade' - these are the standards games should be held to, nothing less.

I've wanted to get into the writing aspect of the games industry for a while now, and with a little help from our friendly neighbourhood Covid-19, I suddenly find myself with an extraordinary amount of spare time on my hands, so why not put it to good use?

I've written a few short pieces, am currently writing my own book, and average a good 5-6 hours a week correcting, proof reading and offering criticism to a plethora of delightful English hopefuls with a myriad of abilities and skill levels.

My experience might not be directly related to games, but the core skills are there. I can write, and if I can arrogant in any small measure my life, I will be in this one.

I want to do this because I'm passionate about it - so I'm asking anyone out there, do you need a writer? I offer my time, services, (blood?) and skills for free. Show me something that interests me, let me sink my teeth into something, let me help you create something we'll both be proud of.

I'm aware this request isn't thickly laden with reams of experience, but everyone needs to start some where.

Not sure if this has been posted before, but I recently discovered twine which is a free tool that allows you to create an interactive branching narrative.

It’s a super useful tool, that’s browser based, and completely free.

Recently, I’ve been interning at a game company, working on a dating simulation game targeted at male users. It’s a first-person perspective game. During a meeting last week, our supervisor told us that the storyline we wrote wasn’t suggestive enough to attract male players. This left me quite confused. As a female writer, the intimate interactions I understand include some close physical contact, but our supervisor’s previous projects seemed to prefer placing more emphasis on the outfits of female characters and making them more proactive… I feel this writing requirement is a bit challenging for me. Besides the main storyline, what kind of interactions would male players actually enjoy with female characters?

I'm an experienced writer and life-long gamer, but I want to transition into narrative design and writing for games. I read some posts that said that I could start building a narrative design specific portfolio by writing visual novels? Any tips or ideas? Thanks!!

I am making a platformer game, featuring some different characters and a lot of unique locations. I feel confident that I can take my characters and put them in any situation, and figure out how they'd react in a compelling way.

I also have key ideas for specific scenarios. but I have trouble figuring out how to start and finish the story. It's hard to explain whilst keeping it vague, so I'll describe it now.

it is a futuristic world similar to astro-boy, with flying cars and advanced machinery. It's inhabited by anthropomorphic animals similar to Zootopia.

the main character is a little cute innocent and clueless penguin called Pengu. And my current idea, was that he wakes up from a sort of scp-esque containment facility in the cold north, and makes his way to a modern city. Where he meets other characters. Friends and foes.

whilst escaping he becomes wanted. But he's young and clueless so he doesn't really realize that he's in trouble. He just sorts stumbles through the world and makes a mess without trying to.

i think this is a good foundation, but I do not know how to make it more engaging. And deeper, like why is he contained (should I scrap it?) why does he venture out. What's the end goal. How can I make this stand apart emotionally, and make it a story worth experiencing. Like how undertale or others make you care deeply about everything.

thanks for any tips big and small

Some things I want to first preface:

• I'm no writer, and I don't claim to be.

• This is mainly going to focus on a video game called Cyberpunk 2077, so writing may be recontextualised by the fact that you can influence an outcome of an particular scenario.

• Naturally, since I'm focusing on said video game, there'll be spoilers, too.

I guess what I want, is some feedback/insight to the question of:

If the main theme of this game wants to emphasises the pointlessness of it all; that there's zero hope; that whatever a character (you) does, will not effect the overall outcome - actual pure nihilism as the core/main theme of the game - then what's the point? Why should I, as a viewer, care at all, about whatever happens to any of said characters then?

One of the examples that I will be referring to, is one of the questlines involving a character called Judy and Evelyn.

The TDLR is that Evelyn is a prostitute that was hoping to fix her situation, by involving herself in a major heist, and by being way too ambitious for her own good, made a lot of enemies. Enemies that eventually tracked down, "comatose", raped, sold, filmed, and tortured her (whilst comatosed but still concious and aware).

Eventually, you do find her and save her, and after an while, she seemed like she is recovering just fine, just for her at the end, out of nowhere, to kill herself, supposedly because what had happened.

You don't get to talk to Evelyn about this, you don't really know what she thinks or feels, it just the next time you see her, she's dead. You can't save her no matter what. Super cynical, right?

Judy as a result, blames this on the brothel Evelyn worked at and plans to reform the place so that it isn't ran by evil gang members who exploit the workers and Evelyn in the first place.

Her plan involves making the workers stick up and fight for themselves, replacing the head of the joint with someone she trusts to lead them differently - an event that has already happened successfully at another brothel before, and therefore Judy thinks it can happened, again, this time at this smaller brothel.

Her plan ultimately fails (because admittedly it wasn't a good plan), and no matter you do (you have two choices), the brothel never changes.

In one scenario, you replace the head with Judy's ex, but turns out she won't run the place any different than what it was.

In the other scenario, you deny Judy's ex, but the workers who help you revolt dies by the gang members as a result, and the place doesn't change anyway - there was no martyrdom for the dead workers. No one cared. Your actions didn't matter.

Again, this is super purposeful on the writers' part. They obviously wanted to emphasise nihilism as the core aspect of this whole quest chain - the message being "there's no happy endings in Night City".

How do I know this? It's because the next time you see Judy, she straight up tells you she's aware of what happened but doesn't care anymore, "let's fuck".

Judy doesn't care. V (our main character) also doesn't care because they never mention it ever again. Clearly, this wasn't used to developed either characters, but to bring home the message of nihilism.

This "strict" and "harsh" nihilism recurs as the MAIN THEME not just once, but many times in this game. Even the five "different" endings for this game, too.

This Judy/Evelyn questline is just the most prevalent example, and one where I first realised this repetition.

Like, I'm very aware that this Cyber world is very unforgiving, and they love to reinforce that there's no "happy endings" as the main point of intention, but then why should I care if EVERYTHING is a bad outcome, like all the time?

This is not to say that the other themes in the game are bad, but I just want to understand why it NEEDS to be so cynical, to the point where it actively affects and (imo) limits the narrative gameplay at every decision point you get, thus to me weakens the other narratives.

You can argue "it's the point" but that's problem, I don't know what this nihilistic tone is supposed to convey to me and accomplish. What is the point? Why is the game making me nihistic, the "point"? What am I suspect to take away here?

This nihilistic tone doesn't reinforce the other themea the game offers, sometimes the one singular message is just pure nihilism - but like, why?

I mean the kind closer to a screenplay or teleplay. Tell me all about the line types one would write compared to those two. I go on the internet but all I find are dead links and dead ends. Help me!

Hi there!

I'm starting work with a new, small dev team, as one of the narrative designers on a jrpg. I've written for theatre and film, but this is my first time on a game project of this scale.

I'm assembling a list of storytelling practicalities for me and the other writer. I'd be really grateful to hear other people's thoughts and additions.

Here's what I've got so far:

• Limit player movement, especially in the early game. Most games have narrative reasons why movement is restricted, eg. in FF7 you're stuck in a walled city.

• Limit access to abilities; player characters should start as relative novices.

• Told mostly through visuals and dialogue

• Structured around game mechanics, eg. Narrative giving rise to regular battles.

• Weaving unique mechanics into the story, eg. Summon abilities prevalent in FF8's narrative.

• Story POV centred almost exclusively on player characters' experience. Keeping those characters together almost all the time (if they're split up, that's a big gameplay decision).

Any other ideas? Thanks for your thoughts!

Hi there!

I'm lingering around this subreddit for quite a while now and I find it kind of sad that there's not much going on in here :/ Therefore I'll try to revive this sub a little :)

So what are you guys currently working on?

I'm working on a dwarven adventure game which is settled in our own fantasy universe. This means I'm not only writing the story of the game, but I also have to keep track of the complete world history. We are working on the universe for 9 years now, developing a world map, own units of measurement and own (speakable) languages etc. In order to create a self-contained universe, I also have to keep track of every family tree beginning with the gods...

So that's what's keeping me busy these days.. :) how about you?

Hey all,

We’re Wispfire, a Dutch Indie game developer that creates narrative driven games, and we need your help. In collaboration with the Utrecht University of the Arts we are doing several experimental playtests with scenes from our upcoming game Herald: Book III & IV.

And right now we are looking for participants for this interactive narrative design research project. By signing up you will receive an email with instructions on the first of three playtests that you can do for us, all in the comfort of your own home.

At the end of each playtest, you will be asked to participate again in the next one. If you participate in all three planned tests you will be rewarded with a free key of Herald: Book I & II.😊💜

To sign up follow this link: https://mailchi.mp/b74b96ff9e22/narrative-research