Creating Worlds: Writing for Video Games

Course Description

Welcome to "Creating Worlds: Writing for Video Games," an immersive and comprehensive course designed to equip aspiring game writers with the skills necessary to craft captivating game settings. In this course, you'll dive deep into the art of environmental storytelling, lore creation, and world-building techniques that will bring your game worlds to life.

As a game writer, you'll learn to collaborate with art directors, level designers, and marketing teams to create rich, deep, and believable worlds that players will want to explore for hours on end. Through a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical exercises, you'll master the tools of environmental storytelling, lore development, and the creation of engaging readables and audio/video logs.

What students will learn from the course

  • The collaborative process of game writing and world design
  • Techniques for environmental storytelling
  • Creation of compelling lore and backstory
  • Development of engaging readables, audio logs, and video logs
  • How to work with level designers and art teams
  • Methods for creating mystery and revealing history through setting
  • Research techniques for creating authentic fictional worlds
  • Tools for populating game worlds with races, cultures, and creatures
  • Strategies for animating game worlds and motivating player exploration
  • Genre-specific considerations in world-building

Pre-requisites

This is an introductory-level course, and no specific prerequisites are required. However, a passion for video games, storytelling, and creative writing will be beneficial.

Course Coverage

  • The importance of setting in game design
  • Collaborative world-building processes
  • Environmental storytelling techniques
  • Lore and backstory development
  • Creation of readables, audio logs, and video logs
  • Working with level designers and art teams
  • Fictional races, cultures, and languages
  • Historical research for fictional places
  • Designing fictional beasts, weapons, and technology
  • Depicting day-to-day life in game worlds
  • Using environment to motivate exploration
  • Genre considerations in world-building
  • Overcoming common challenges in game writing

Who this course is for

This course is ideal for aspiring game writers, narrative designers, and anyone interested in the craft of world-building for video games. It's also suitable for fiction writers looking to expand their skills into interactive storytelling, and game developers who want to enhance their narrative capabilities.

Real-world applications

The skills acquired in this course are directly applicable to the video game industry, where compelling world-building is crucial for success. Learners can use these skills to:

  1. Pursue careers in game writing and narrative design
  2. Enhance their storytelling abilities for other media (books, films, etc.)
  3. Improve their world-building skills for tabletop RPGs
  4. Develop more engaging marketing materials for games or other products
  5. Create more immersive user experiences in various digital platforms

Syllabus

Module 1: Creating a Compelling Game World

  • The imagination space - from game map to player POV to game economies
  • Getting started: finding the hook and inspiration

Module 2: Creating Fictional Worlds

  • Defining scope and producing the illusion of a larger world
  • Collaborative worldbuilding
  • Creating mystery and shaping player decisions
  • Working with established worlds

Module 3: Populating Your World

  • Fictional races, cultures, and languages
  • Fictional places and historical research
  • Fictional beasts
  • Weapons, equipment, technology, and vehicles

Module 4: Animating Your World

  • Depicting day-to-day life
  • Using environment to motivate exploration
  • Soundscapes and audio/video logs
  • Found narrative

Module 5: Finessing Your World

  • Genre considerations - how genre influences setting
  • Common challenges
  • Getting players invested in your world

By the end of this course, you'll have the tools and knowledge to create rich, immersive game worlds that will captivate players and bring your stories to life. Join us on this exciting journey into the art of game writing and world-building!