The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design

I understand now why this is studied in many uni courses. This is a thick badboy full of incredibly insightful information. As a game developer, I have been interested in moving more towards writing and production. If that's something that interests you, then this is your bible.

As someone who's studying games design (college and now into my 2nd year at uni) this book is brilliant for those who need extra guidance or some idea of the writing side of the industry. I will be recommending this book to fellow students and adults who are interested in the games industry.

Bought for my son who said it was very good and very accessible.

Well, as I study game design, I found this book really interesting, It covers what I need to known about writing a design document and how its work in the industry, maybe not a must but definetly a recommendation for everyone who are interesting in Game Design.

This is a really good book. I'm just starting out studying games design and development, and this book has been the perfect guide. I return to it often. The design document guidelines are brilliant. I highly recommend this book.

This book was first published in 2007, and it's really starting to show its age now in 2022. The video game industry has changed a huge amount in the interim, and a lot of attitudes towards storytelling that you'll encounter here are quite outdated. It does feel like it was written for a different age. The book was written at a time when there were still only a handful of video games that had what would be considered today 'effective storytelling'. Although 2007 was the year of the original 'Bioshock', it was still a good few years until 'The Last of Us', 'Uncharted 4', 'GTA V', 'Red Dead Redemption 2' (among many others), which are now considered high-points in the development of video game narratives. The 2010s were the decade that video game narratives really started to mature. The best narrative-driven games nowadays rival movies and TV series for depth of characterisation, structure and thematic material. However, this book doesn't really go any further than a two-dimensional approach to characterisation and completely omits any useful discussion of story structure. Any aspiring video game writer would be much better off reading one of the many books on screenwriting or storytelling available today. If you're completely new to writing or video games, you might find some useful tips or insights into the industry. But anyone seriously trying to become a video games writer today would be better off looking elsewhere or waiting until an updated edition is published.

Got this for my nephew who does nothing but play computer games. I wanted to inspire him to do something more with this and to my surprise he started reading the book and told me how interesting it was.

bought as a gift

Ich habe dieses Buch gekauft, weil ich mich mit Narrative Design stärker auseinandersetzen wollte, auch in hinblick als mögliches Uni-Projekt. Es wird alles verständlich auch für Anfänger erklärt. Ohne nervtötendes vorkauen und vielen Wiederholungen, was ich als jemand, der sich schon einige Zeit sowohl mit Storytelling als auch Games beschäftigt, sehr angenehm fand. Vor allem im Vergleich mit Büchern, die die eine ähnliche Thematik abdecken. Beispiele sind gut gewählt und bekannt. Die vielen Templates fand ich hervorragend und konnte ich problemlos in meinen Workflow integrieren. Die abgedruckten Scripte im Anhang fand ich ebenfalls unglaublich praktisch. Es gibt immer wieder kleine Übungsaufgaben, die ich zwar nicht genutzt habe, aber jemand, der eher so lernt wird sie sicher brauchen können, Sehr gutes Buch zum Thema, kann ich nur wärmstens empfehlen.

Here are my reasons for the stars and why this book is important for anyone looking to try game writing. 1-This book is easy to read and the concepts easy to understand and get you quickly writng or writing again. 2-It also helps you with whatever problems that you have with your writing or improve upon it. 3-Gives you some insight (though from a personal and professional standpoint) as to what is expected from you as a writer. 4-Gives you excercises to help get you in the frame of mind that gets you writing. 5-Gives you a layout format to help you when you are writing. Notice that I said write alot. These guys wrote this book for the people looking to write and help design games. If you are a designer and then read this book may feel a little cheated cause they really didn't go in too much detail in what or how that process is done. Yes writing does play a big part just as the programmers and coding that goes into a game. When you have to re-write something that could mean meeting your goals or just putting something out that totally misses the mark completely or even your job. They do go into how the design and writing the game go hand and hand but once again that process or how a designer gets it done is not there. IT is to give the aspiring writers something tangible to read and gives you more then what you thought that went into game writing. Once again I'm writing my own game and this book helped in so many different ways that I'm in the process of revising my game and how it is written and how it will look and feel and play. The thing that I found that this book really drove home the point is that if you are writing a game or any media medium that everything will fall in your lap and if you don't know how to weather the storm you can and almost will be lost. I mentioned in one of the reasons is that they drew on their personal and professional trips through the gaming business and gives you some tips on how to conduct business as a writer in the business. This book is for anyone looking to get into game writng or any writing medium today.

It is a great book and it arrived very fast.

El autor describe todo desde una perspectiva muy personal. Sí, es bueno que lo haga de esa forma pues deja ver las fortalezas y debilidades de un proyecto. Sin embargo, le da muchas vueltas para llegar a un punto que pudo haber resumido en un par de párrafos. No es un mal libro pero en general a mí, no me sirvió.

Un buen punto de partida si quieres trabajar en diseño de videojuegos. Además incluye gran cantidad de ejemplos hechos y referencias para hacerlo aún más explicativo. Muy, muy recomendable.