Gamertell

Title: Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing
Author(s): Sande Chen, Richard Dansky, Wendy Despain (Editor), Beth A, Dillon, John Feil, Alice Henderson, Erin Hoffman, Chris Klug, Jay Posey, Rhianna Pratchett, Haris Orkin, Evan Skolnick, Anne Toole, Maurice Suckling and Andre S. Walsh.
Price: $39.00 (paperback, 250 pages)
Release Date: May 19, 2008
Publisher: A.K. Peters
Format: Paperback
Pros: Written in easy-to-digest chunks and includes a few useful examples. Great text book for an upper-level high school course or lower-level college course.
Cons: Not quite as in-depth as a true professional guide. Should have more real-word examples with notes.
Overall Score: One thumb up, one sideways; 85/100; B; * * * 1/2 out of five.

While the US economy seems to be going to, well, a bad place, videogames are still selling surprisingly well. The theory is that as financial times become tough, people invest more in stuff that will give them more bang for the buck.

So, if you are a starting writer already looking for work in a still growing industry, now might be a good time to check out Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing.

Me Like Two Rite

Just to be clear, Pro Techniques is about writing in the game industry, not about it. In other words, everything within, shipped with and about a game: the game’s script, in-game dialog (read and spoken), manuals, tutorials and guides.

Each chapter is written by a member of the International Game Developer’s Association’s (IGDA) Game Writing Special Interest Group, and offers several sections of basic and more advanced advice. The chapters end with a few classroom style exercises that include a segment from the chapter and often have a comparative example in the back of the book. The seemingly silliest was to write as many character call outs (as in “Argh,” “Hey,” “Oof” and “That hurts!”) in 20 minutes as possible each day for a week to see how you improve. It seems quite silly but, yeah, you’ll really have to do that.

The book bookends (pun partially intended) itself with helpfulness. The first three chapters and the final few, except the speculative “Game Writing and Narrative in the Future,” are clearly the most useful and beneficial for anyone who seriously wants to get into the business.

More than half of the book is about time and personality management than actual writing techniques. Many chapters begin with a “if you get hired to” scenarios and then eventually offer some helpful tips.

Between the Covers

This is neither a handbook nor is it really an in-depth guide. Instead, it’s more of a textbook for someone who has never worked as a professional freelance writer. For example, rather straightforward personality skills advice (“Don’t be a jerk,”) and how to handle working both on and off site are reiterated in most of the chapters.

Some of the better advice is as basic as the preferred program for writing a game (Excel), regardless of how linear a game’s story might be. This also speaks to the individuality of a game company’s process, which cannot even agree on a process or develop an application for writing games. Unfortunately, some of these sections are also the most inadequate.

The section on “Representing Branching and Nonlinear Narrative” in Chapter 2, for example, is only three short paragraphs. It’s semi-saving grace is the Bratz game script in the Appendix, shown in four formats. It’s very helpful to view the script but it does not include notations nor do they include any diagrams mentioned in the brief section. These are clearly writers who probably prefer words over diagrams.

What the book does do very well is put everything into amazing context. You definitely get the impression that these writers have had to deal with many types of situations - otherwise they wouldn’t feel the need to continually emphasize attitude and atmosphere. To the editor’s credit, it does read as a decent collaborative effort, with very few sections breaking overall the flow (other than the occasional, “When I was working on…”)

Video Game Writing: Second Edition

If it isn’t in the works already, I recommend that the IGDA to consider several follow-up books that delve more deeply into game writing, with complete samples (a la movie script books), sidebar notations and critical comments. That would truly be useful to a professional writer looking for a lateral career change.

Pro Techniques is not the in-depth guide that will satisfy skilled, professional writers. It is, however, an excellent primer for beginning writers and would make a decent text book for either an upper level high school course or lower level college course.

Product Page [Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing] Read [Forbeck] Also Read [Only A Game]