Some links for perusing purposes:
The psychology of avatar customization,
Patrick Redding on co-op narrative and NPC interaction,
intriguing insight into Valve’s design process,
and a cool new animation blog and podcast.
Enjoy responsibly.
Archive for the 'Writing' Category
Vampires
Posted in Games, Writing on Jan 30th, 2010 No Comments »
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/04/06/interview-without-a-vampire-bloodlines-b-mitsoda/
This is old, but I was re-reading it recently and there’s some great points about game writing in there… Bloodlines is one my favourite games, a real diamond in the rough; unfinished in places, but community patches have solved most issues and at its best it rivals classics like Deus Ex for character interaction and [...]
Story Problems – 3
Posted in Film, Games, Writing on Jan 23rd, 2010 No Comments »
The story discussion continues.
Again, SPOILERS…
The heart of a good story are its characters. They don’t have to be likeable, but they have to be interesting and above all believable. Sometimes a character will say or do something that just seems wrong… People change, certainly, but you know that character would not make that choice at [...]
Story Problems – 2
Posted in Film, Writing on Dec 5th, 2009 No Comments »
FOCUS
Deleted scenes are deleted for a reason.
Maybe this is controversial, but I felt Peter Jackson got a little carried away with the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings.
Now, I *love* Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, but with the exception of The Two Towers I find the cinema version vastly superior to the [...]
Story Problems
Posted in Film, Writing on Nov 29th, 2009 No Comments »
I’ve been meaning to write a post about this for a while.
Stories are fragile things. One false note can easily pull apart that carefully constructed illusion and your audience, once you’ve lost them, are lost forever.
Sometimes you can’t help but wonder what possessed someone to make such baffling story-choices. I’m going to use movies as [...]
Emergent Story
Posted in Design, Games, Writing on Oct 19th, 2009 No Comments »
I agree with this.
Interactive Animation revisited
Posted in AI, Animation, Design, Games, Writing on Jun 19th, 2009 No Comments »
I just got an article published on Gamasutra!
The intertubes of course are a never-ending supply of interesting things to read, so here’s a selection of the intriguing persuasion:
Splinedoctors walk three ways…
Jordan Mechner has an epiphany about player motivation
… and expands on the development of Sands of Time.
Hans Bacher makes an interesting point about restraint
and 10 things are learned in making a short [...]
Story in games
Posted in Design, Games, Writing on Nov 27th, 2008 No Comments »
I read this post on Steve Gaynor’s Fullbright blog and was compelled to respond:
Good storytelling is underrated. “Player-generated stories” aren’t usually all that good. They offer good moments, but not good narrative. I agree that games should give the player an interesting place to visit, but that’s not enough. If it doesn’t go anywhere it [...]
The making of Teddy
Posted in Animation, Art, Teddy, Writing on Oct 5th, 2008 No Comments »
I’ve finished writing the “post mortem” on my short film. It feels like saying a long goodbye to the project, sad but satisfying. I tried to cover what I would find interesting if it were someone else’s film:
Main – Research – Story – Production – Thoughts