I just finished reading Linda Seger’s Making a Good Script Great which is a fantastic book about scriptwriting, drama and character development. As I was reading this book, I really started realizing how relevant and underappreciated this topic still is in a lot of games. Especially when we look at online campaigns and educational games. PC games are really beginning to pick up on the topic and have for a while, but to many online campaigns are still about bells and whistles while a majority of educational games are still created by teachers and not game developers.
A company like Nintendo has always done a great job of telling engaging and simple stories in there games. Just think of Donkey Kong – the monkey stole your girl, now go get her back! You believe the story and bring it with you, when you play the game.
Right now game developers can only really look towards film and tv for inspiration on how to tell visual stories. Imagine when the field grows and we start developing a more structured school of thought on interactive scriptwriting. I can’t wait.
For now, I have really been inspired to spend the time to develop the story aspects of the next couple of games I am involved in. And, I can strongly recommend Linda Seger’s book!
