The Game Narrative Toolbox

Description

Learn how to create compelling game storylines. Four experienced narrative designers from different genres of game development have banded together to create this all-inclusive guide on what it's like to work as a writer and narrative designer in the video game industry. From concept to final testing, The Game Narrative Toolbox walks readers through what role a narrative designer plays on a development team and what the requirements are at every stage of development. Drawing on real experiences, authors Tobias Heussner, Toiya Kristen Finley, PhD, Ann Lemay, and Jennifer Brandes Hepler provide invaluable advice for writing compelling player-centered stories and effective dialogue trees to help readers make the switch from writing prose or screenplay to interactive. Thoroughly revised, the Second Edition includes updated content reflecting the industry’s latest developments. In addition to revised and updated chapters, this new edition features two additional chapters covering more advanced topics that are applicable to the lessons learned from the original chapters. Accompanying every chapter are exercises that allow the reader to develop their own documentation, outlines, and game-dialogue samples for use in applying for industry jobs or developing independent projects. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Contents Preface to the Second Edition Acknowledgments Authors Introduction Chapter 1: What Is Narrative Design? Chapter 2: The Concept Chapter 3: Worldbuilding Chapter 4: Characters Chapter 5: Story Chapter 6: Implementation and Production Chapter 7: Dialogue Chapter 8: Cutscenes and Cinematics Chapter 9: Troubleshooting Chapter 10: Visual Novels Chapter 11: Storytelling in Open-World Games and Games as a Service Conclusion Resources Glossary Index