Four experienced narrative designers from different genres of game development have banded together to create this all-inclusive guide on what it's like to work as a writer and narrative designer in the videogame industry.
Tobias Heussner is an experienced Game Content/Narrative Designer and Producer, who started developing games in high school. He has worked on more than 25 published titles ranging from AAA PC games to console, handheld console games and Free2Play browser games. His areas of expertise include Game Content Design, Game Narrative Design/Writing, Game System Design and Game Production.
Toiya Kristen Finley, PhD has nearly 30 years of experience as a writer and editor in several media. In games, she has worked as a game designer, narrative designer, game writer, editor, narrative consultant, and diversity consultant (or some combination of the six) on several AAA, indie, social, and mobile games for children and general audiences, including Destiny 2 and visual novels for Ubisoft and the and Chapters apps. With Tobias Heussner, she co-founded the Game Writing Tutorial at GDC Online and served as an instructor. Her books include Narrative Tactics for Mobile and Social Games: Pocket-Sized Storytelling; Freelance Video Game Writing: The Life & Business of the Digital Mercency for Hire; and Branching Story, Unlocked Dialogue: Designing and Writing Visual Novels.
Jennifer Brandes Hepler got her start in tabletop game development, working for well-known properties such as Shadowrun and Paranoia before detouring to Hollywood to work on CBS Television's The Agency. She was a senior writer and narrative designer at BioWare, on the Dragon Age franchise and Star Wars: The Old Republic and more recently at Pixelberry Studios on Choices: Stories You Play and Storyloom. She is currently the Writing Director at Thought Pennies Entertainment.
Ann Lemay joined the videogame industry in 1997. Over the years she's worked as a game designer, narrative designer, and writer on a wide range of AAA projects. She has worked at many companies, including Ubisoft, BioWare and Microids. Ann is currently a Narrative Director at WB Games Montreal, and leads a team of very talented writers, narrative designers and voice designers on Gotham Knights.
Chapter 01 What Is Narrative Design?
Chapter 02 The Concept
Chapter 03 Worldbuilding
Chapter 04 Characters
Chapter 05 Story
Chapter 06 Implementation and Production
Chapter 07 Dialogue
Chapter 08 Cutscenes and Cinematics
Chapter 09 Troubleshooting
Chapter 10 Visual Novels
Chapter 11 Storytelling in Open-World Games and Games-as-a-Service
Conclusion
References