Quote from: kconan on Fri 19/11/2010 16:26:16Quote from: Harbinger on Fri 19/11/2010 15:42:46
You can't write for a video game as you would write for a short story; it doesn't translate well.
You must think there is some translation. In the "Offer Your Services" thread you mentioned winning a short story contest as your experience for writing a video game.
I do like the overall idea of a "game design outline" contest, though I don't know if that has been tried on here before.
Yeah. It's probably not right, but-- for now-- I think you have to be a solid writer before you start writing things for games. And then it's one thing to just write dialog blurbs and another thing to create a plot/narrative that holds hands with gameplay to make the over all game immersive as possible. Before you just jump into writing whatever for games, you've got to understand how to craft a story (short story, screenplays, etc). Though in the future, one could probably jump straightaway to writing narrative for games (I mean, I see a few books emerging titled as "How to Write Narrative for Video Games" just like "How to write Screenplays").
I was also probably wrong to have said that I've won that or had a class. I didn't do research before that; I had just fiddled around with the AGS. There might be some translation, but if you try to write a game like for a short story, you'll end up with a bunch of cut scenes and a not-very-interactive game-- or that's my thought. And like I said, game writing incorporates some things from other mediums like short stories and screenplays, but you can't write a game as if you're writing for a movie or novel.