Game Scripting

Writing a video game script offers a challenge that goes well beyond the normal realm of writing. But it is also something that can be tremendously rewarding in the scope of its creativity. Here are some guidelines and tips for writing a video game script.

Today's video games are based in complex worlds and they tell stories. No longer does a player simply advance through repetitive screens slaying goblins and ghouls in a quest toward the goal. A player now expects to progress through a world where there is a rich history and a plethora of decisions to be made. This adds to the complexity of writing a video game script and it also adds to the richness of the creativity involved.

The first thing you need to think about is that writing a video game script is that it is not the same as writing a movie script. The two processes are similar and you do write a movie like script for your video game but that is only part of the process. There is a whole host of accompanying materials that you need to write for your game script. Here is an overview of what you need to write and why.

Write An Executive overview of the story in prose
This is the most important part of your game script and this is what will sink or float your script. This overview has to tell a compelling and unique story and it should tell the complete story from the opening scene of the game through the major steps all the way to the completion of the game. An overview like this can be almost any size and it would be very easy for this to be ten written pages or more. Remember that today's video games are very complex and the stories can be very complex. This overview is also the most important part of the script. You would shop this to game developers to see if they are interested in developing it into a game.

Write a History and Background of the world
Video games are complete worlds and game designers need to know what the world is like and what kind of history it has. This will help the designers to visualize what the world will look like.

Create a Flowchart for the entire game
Your game is going to be very complex and there will be many decisions that the player will have to make and each decision opens up a whole new path for the player to take. Creating a flowchart is the best way to keep track of all the possible paths through the game.

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