'What do you want to be when you get out of school?" It was supposed to be five paragraphs, each paragraph at least three sentences long. When I was taught those sorts of things, one paragraph was at least four, and it's only gone up from there.
Video games are experiences. But who creates what makes up those experiences? Who is the one who creates the world that the players are in and can imagine doing things in themselves; who creates the characters that are interesting and seem to just jump out of the screen into life; and who creates storylines that can fascinate and move anyone who reads or listens to it. Creating that, and more, is the job of a video game writer, and that is what I want to become when I get out of school.
The job of the writer is to come of with the game’s story, characters, dialogue between the characters, writing the game journals and the development blog, doing commentary, writing instruction manuals, and basically doing everything else that requires a writer. They will often find themselves working hand in hand with other members of the design team, and they are often freelance, working other things as well. Writing for video games, as one might expect, requires additional and uncommon skills when compared to what you need for writing books, but you still need to be able to tell a good story.
To me, the idea of establishing the setting for the game and world in which the game takes place is extremely interesting. The exploration and discovery of beautiful new places is always one of the most fascinating and interesting things about a game. The world in which a game takes place is one of the most important things in the game. No matter how good the story or characters are, if the world they are in does not absorb you, then there is no point. To me, the idea of having other people explore my world and be fascinated by what it offers is an extremely thrilling and exciting thought. To see its sights, and hear its sounds. To be interested by its history. To find out how other people see my own world.
Creating the characters also seems like an interesting thing to do. When the player is playing the game, they are always controlling one of the characters. Without good characters, nobody really is attached to their character and so they would play the game differently than normal. Without interesting and fun characters whose abilities reflect that, nobody would want to play the game as a source of enjoyment.
I find that games can offer to be an exciting and dynamic storytelling medium. Games are very different storytelling mediums than books or even movies. In books, the characters are not moving on the page at all, you can’t really hear them and you have to describe what happens. With movies, you can actually get a bit more done for average sized books because you do not have to take the time to describe every little detail that happens, but you lose in complexity and subtlety of character interaction. With games, however, you can choose to either have full CGI cut scenes or text boxes, both of them fully voiced over.
One game can even have as much storyline as a full series of books. There are advantages and disadvantages for each way of telling your story in a game. For the CGI, it looks better and you don’t have to describe anything, therefore making best use of your time and also being able to see interesting action occur. With text boxes, you can still voice it over, but because text boxes cost less and are simpler, you can make all sorts of different paths that the players can choose, creating differing cut scenes, places to visit, and outcomes.
That brings me to the other reason I would want to show my story in the form of a game: interactivity. The player is the one getting the characters from one place to the next, even if there is no other place to go. The player can choose whether to advance onward, or explore the area and make their characters stronger. Even during a game’s cut scenes, you can choose what your character says, and that can affect the whole game’s storyline, either just that scene or even the ending can change. Video game writers can create an extremely high level of interactivity that you just cannot achieve with books or movies.
Video game writers are people who control every bit of text and every bit of content in the game. The do the entire characterizations of all of the characters and the world. They direct how the players advance the story. They are extremely creative people who can create entire worlds and envision how they are supposed to look like to the player. They effect the entire way the players experience the game, and creating those experiences is something I want to do.
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