Recently in Game Writers in the Trenches™ Category

This is an ongoing NDE series featuring interviews with Game Writers in the Trenches™.  The game industry is riddled with the unsung heroes of interactive storytelling.  As game developers are increasingly looking to create meaningful virtual narrative experiences, listening to the real-world wisdom of these writers can help everyone on the development pipeline understand their trials, tribulations, and needs, in hopes of enabling them to do their job as they know best. Today's game writer is Micah Wright, I'm hoping to see what we can learn from his experiences in the trenches of writing and game development.

Stephen Dinehart: First off congrats on your continued success; between comics, books, games and more I'm wondering where you get the time. The first project I'd like to address is your propaganda remix project.  It is highly compelling from multiple perspectives. How did it get started?

Micah Wright: It started in early 2002... I saw a series of new WWII-era styled posters regarding "information security" that the National Security Agency commissioned, and something about them didn't seem right.  After staring at them for a while, I realized it was because at least one of them was a direct repaint of a Nazi propaganda poster, and all of them included a lot of techniques more commonly associated the social realism posters of Russia or China... military figures staring not at the viewer, but up and away to the glorious proletariat future.  It really angered me that after 9/11 our government's first instinct was to pass the USA PATRIOT ACT and strip us of our civil liberties, and here suddenly was a poster with Nazi imagery on it.  I didn't like the implications.  I blogged about the image, and a reader suggested that I make fun of it, so I did.  One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had about 50 posters that I'd repainted, so I posted them all onto one page and started getting crazy amounts of hits solely through word of mouth.    That's when I knew that there were a lot of people like me... people who saw which direction the Bush Administration was leading the country and weren't on board with their plans.

This is an ongoing NDE series featuring interviews with Game Writers in the Trenches™.  The game industry is riddled with the unsung heroes of interactive storytelling.  As game developers are increasingly looking to create meaningful virtual narrative experiences, listening to the real-world wisdom of these writers can help everyone on the development pipeline understand their trials, tribulations, and needs, in hopes of enabling them to do their job as they know best. Today's game writer is Richard Dansky, I'm hoping to see what we can learn from his experiences in the trenches of game development.

Stephen Dinehart: First off, congrats on being named one of the top 20 game writers most recently by Gamasutra! How has the recognition of your craft changed over the pas 15 years of your career?

Richard Dansky: Thank you! It really is a tremendous honor, particularly being listed with some folks whose work I've always looked to as a model for what I've tried to achieve. I think the list itself is indicative of how much game writing has grown and matured as a craft  - fifteen years ago, I don't think you could have gotten folks to name twenty game writers, and now there are energetic debates on message boards as to who else deserved to be on the list. The fact that game writers are getting known for their work - not just within the industry, but by the fans as well - means that there's more of an understanding of what good writing brings to a game. And that can only be a good thing moving forward.

This is an ongoing NDE series featuring interviews with Game Writers in the Trenches™.  The game industry is riddled with the unsung heroes of interactive storytelling.  As game developers are increasingly looking to create meaningful virtual narrative experiences, listening to the real-world wisdom of these writers can help everyone on the development pipeline understand their trials, tribulations, and needs, in hopes of enabling them to do their job as they know best. Today's game writer is Jeff Spock, I'm hoping to see what we can learn from his experiences in the trenches of game development.

Stephen E. Dinehart: How did you become a game writer?

Jeff Spock: I have always been two things; a video game player and a fiction writer. I started playing games back on the Apple platforms in the 70's, and have been writing something roughly resembling fiction ever since I was old enough to hold a crayon correctly.

These two passions came together in a perfect storm of coincidence; I met Marc Laidlaw while I was doing the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 2004 in Seattle. Marc is the brains behind the Valve writing (the Half-Life series in particular) and has been writing excellent speculative fiction since the 80's. Chatting with Marc was an epiphany: "You mean, you can get paid to write stories for games???" Through Marc I met Raphael Colantonio of Arkane Studios, and he introduced me to the Ubisoft Third Party group. Since then I have probably done 80% of my game work with Ubisoft.

This is an ongoing NDE series featuring interviews with Game Writers in the Trenches™.  The game industry is riddled with the unsung heroes of interactive storytelling.  As game developers are increasingly looking to create meaningful virtual narrative experiences, listening to the real-world wisdom of these writers can help everyone on the development pipeline understand their trials, tribulations, and needs, in hopes of enabling them to do their job as they know best. Today's game writer is Sande Chen, her experience spans from RPG's to Serious Games. I'm hoping to see what we can learn from her experiences in the trenches of game development.

Stephen E. Dinehart: How did you become a game writer?

Sande Chen: Unlike other game writers, I don't have a wild breaking-in story.  My professional writing career has only been in games.  Basically, I pursued academic majors that were relevant to game development.  Then, I applied for a job.  

I was a double humanities major at M.I.T., which is known for its computer science and engineering programs.  After M.I.T., I attended the London School of Economics and USC's School of Cinema-Television.  I specialized in screenwriting, but I wanted to learn more, so I asked production students to teach me what they knew and I took classes like Avant-Garde Cinema.  I started making music videos and while still in film school, I was nominated for a Grammy in music video direction. During a visit to M.I.T., I chanced upon a flier for a game design contest.  A military contractor was interested in expanding into entertainment.  With this first taste of game design, I started applying to game companies.   

This is an ongoing NDE series featuring interviews with Game Writers in the Trenches™.  The game industry is riddled with the unsung heroes of interactive storytelling.  As game developers are increasingly looking to create meaningful virtual narrative experiences, listening to the real-world wisdom of these writers can help everyone on the development pipeline understand their trials, tribulations, and needs, in hopes of enabling them to do their job as they know best. Today's game writer is Tom Abernathy, his journey as writer began in film, and now continues into video games. I'm hoping to see what we can learn from his experiences in the trenches of game development.

Stephen Dinehart: You are currently a Writer at Microsoft Game Studios. Your career has had you focused full-time on storytelling in some of the worlds top-tier studios, what is the most challenging part of writing stories for games?

Tom Abernathy: Without  question, the interactive element.  Those of us who have worked as writers in other narrative media are trained and experienced (if we ARE trained and experienced) in linear narrative.  The spin that interactivity - which is to say, non-linearity - puts on things can really mess with your head.  There are so many tools we're used to having at our disposal - timing, sequence, parceling out information in a certain way, dramatic irony, on and on and on - that increasingly fly out the window the more control over the direction of things you give to the player.  We writers are used to driving the experience, and then in games, suddenly we're not.  That's a tough transition to make, and, after ten years in this industry, I'm still making it.

This is a new NDE series featuring interviews with Game Writers in the Trenches™.  The game industry is riddled with the unsung heroes of interactive storytelling.  As game developers are increasingly looking to create meaningful virtual narrative experiences, listening to the real-world wisdom of these writers can help everyone on the development pipeline understand their trials, tribulations, and needs, in hopes of enabling them to do their job as they know best. Today's game writer is Haris Orkin.  His experience as writer runs the gamut of media types, with a most recent focus on games.  I'm hoping to see what we can learn from his knowledge and experience.

Stephen Erin Dinehart:  Haris thanks for taking the time to interview with the NDE. Your most recent project was Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, can you explain your role and duties?

Haris Orkin: I was hired to work with the team on the story for the game and write the script for the live action cinematics.   The story was collaboration between Mical Pedriana, who functioned as the narrative designer, Jason Torres, the lead game designer, Mike Verdu, head of EALA, and me.   We wanted the tone and the concept to be a continuation of Red Alert 2, which came out about seven years ago.  Mical was the audio lead on RA2 and wrote all the unit responses. I was a big fan of that game and the Command and Conquer series in general.  So I knew the tone and the story and the characters and was thrilled to be included.   A bare bones outline of the basic story was already in place by the time I was brought on board.   But I suggested some changes, fleshed out the existing characters, came up with some new ones, and created the relationships and conflicts and many of the specifics.   I also wrote and/or rewrote what we call the "Talking Heads"; live action head shots of various characters that appear in game that help steer the player in the right direction vis-à-vis game play.  I helped Mical on unit responses and co-op commander responses and barks as well.