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Getting into Gaming Industry

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 9:00 pm
by darkvamp001
Hey, Matt!

I was wondering if you have any advice for a soon-to-be college graduate who is interested in writing for video games? I'm not quite sure how to even get started.

Re: Getting into Gaming Industry

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 2:42 pm
by matt
Hi DarkVamp001,

Getting into writing for video games is challenging. The problem is that a lot of studios don't have dedicated writers, and in terms of the job positions in games, they make up a very small position.

Writing is often done by game designers, so I suspect game design would be a good intermediate career choice on your way into games. There isn't an easy path to get into game design. A lot of designers come out of QA, which is a terrible, terrible job. I think the best way to get a game design position is to design games and then show that to the jobs you are applying for.

Design them in twine, GameMaker, Unity, whatever. Just make something really cool, and it'll help you get a position in games.

I hope that helps!

Re: Getting into Gaming Industry

Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 5:07 pm
by darkvamp001
Hey Matt, thanks for the reply!

That does help, sort of... I mean, I can understand how designing games would help lead to writing stories for games and such. My big issue is that I don't know anything about game design... I'm sure I could provide creative input and write stories, dialogue, etc. But I don't know anything about how to actually make a game...

Re: Getting into Gaming Industry

Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 10:34 pm
by matt
There are a ton of tutorials on how to start developing games, so it's definitely something you can learn. I'd say if you want to write for games, you need to know about game design because game design puts all sorts of constraints on writing. Storytelling in games is quite a bit different than other mediums.

Re: Getting into Gaming Industry

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 11:40 am
by gagaplex
Another way to get into it would be from the actual writer-side of things, obviously.
But specifically writing for games is a very niche job, so I'd expect it to be kind of hard to get directly into that without doing either "side" (writing for other ventures or as Matt mentioned developing games) first.

Re: Getting into Gaming Industry

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 5:06 pm
by RightClickSaveAs
In addition to Unity and Gamemaker as Matt already mentioned, check out Adventure Game Studio, it's free and fairly simple to learn. The scripting and all that can get complicated, and you'll still need art assets if you want to make anything other than the generic templates, but you can make a simple room with a locked door puzzle in about 10 minutes once you know the basics. It is specifically focused on point and click adventure games though. Still it would be another way to get an idea of what goes into game design.

Also since writing is your interest, check out some interactive fiction games. Yes those are still around! Learn Inform, which is also free, and give it a shot yourself. Interactive fiction is basically all writing, and you can do it on your own since you don't need art, audio or much programming.

Re: Getting into Gaming Industry

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 5:53 pm
by matt
Don't forget Twine! It's getting quite popular these days, and basically allows you to do branching stories. Depression Quest got a lot of acclaim and was created in twine.

Re: Getting into Gaming Industry

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:31 am
by darkvamp001
Thanks everybody! You've been very helpful! :D

I'm going to take a look at some of these links when I get the chance. I'm especially interested in taking a look at Twine. I never really thought about using a tool to create a branching story!