Storyline... how to come up with it? Characters? Dialog? etc.

So I'm looking for advice...

I met someone on reddit and we made our first game. We're going to start working on our next game, and here's my story (or lack of)...

We got the programming and art skills... I think our stuff looks great. I've been programming for 20 years and I'm really fast at making this stuff.

I look at other games in the space genre (for iOS/desktop/web/whatever)... and my first thought is... "people buy these games?, the controls are terrible., the graphics are using stock art/models/etc. We could make a better looking ship/station/asteroid/etc."

... but they always have a story line and HOURS of gameplay...

You may be saying, "Why is this post here, go post in collaboration or gamedevclassifieds"

Well this might sound funny, or bad or whatever.... but finding someone who will actually stick with it for more than a 3 emails back and forth is really difficult. I feel so lucky to find a really dedicated person that I think it would make more sense to gain writing skills, then to keep sifting through people. I'd rather find a dedicated mediocre person than a rock star very busy and easily distracted person.... anyway...

So...my questions to you...
- What's a good way to be inspired for a story idea?
- Does anyone have any suggestions on where to start?
- Tricks for getting the creative juices flowing?
- Writing dialog?
- Good book suggestions for this that are geared towards games?
- Any suggestions on how to do this with 2 people would be amazing.

Thank you all for your time, I'm having a great time with Unity and all of the "characters" here in the forums

For the curious... Game we made is here: http://snagen.com/aeosrift

 

Maybe my answer should not be the first, because I always see things kind of black and white...

I was always bored by storys in games
The funniest thing you could do is watching me playing games with dialog. The first thing I try to find out is

a) could I skip whole dialog
b) if answers are needed, how to skip the animations
c) would it really change something in this brandnew game when I answer rubbish (sure not)

Hours of gameplay... For me hours of being bored. Of course a racing title could say there is hours of gameplay, but you will always drive a car. You will always kill mobs in an rpg and build your character with new skills - it's the same. Mob is mob, skill is skill.

I've the same problem with films these days. You know, they make unbelievable stunts, lot's of money, but they make me bored. This is the best car chase scene ever, because it has great, unforgettable visuals. This scene wins through ideas:

 

www.tvtropes.org

Take food and water, some people never come back.

 

Funny. Stories have always been my strong suit, while I'm only a mediocre programmer.

Here's a few tips:

Decide what kind of story it will be.

Is it a large, political story, involving major powers warring back and forth?
* What are they fighting over? A new technology? A new power source? Territory/Control?
* Play a game of Risk. As your friends conquer different lands, figure out why they're making the moves that they are. Why are they attacking the locations they are? This can often be modified to fit any genre and turn into a great story.

Is it a tale of an individual (or small group)?
* Look up Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey". Most great stories (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Matrix) follow this to the letter.

Exaggeration is also a great tool. Take one small thing of general importance and make it the most important thing in the whole universe! "The One Ring", "He who controls the spice..." etc.

Also, look into things that fascinate you. Fortunately for me, a lot of things fascinate me. Genetics, physics, mythology, etc. You'll often find some very cool bits of information that can turn into a whole story. They just discovered the Higgs Boson! The "god particle" responsible for turning chaos into a living universe! How can you not make a story from that!?

Now take some of these facts and turn them around. Cool, there's a particle that creates mass from chaos. Does it have an opposite? How cool of an enemy would that be? What if, according the the Hero's Journey, YOU were the "father figure" that had to be reconciled with, etc.

As for dialogue, I've found that the best training wheels here are to pick characters from movies. You know what your characters are like. Now overlay a movie character personality on top of them. So your soldier is kinda rough and gruff. So is Wolverine! What would he say in this situation?

Also, be sure to fill out a full backstory and timeline for your characters. By giving them a history (even if its completely unrelated to what's happening in the game), you get a true sense of who they are. Often, these backstories can also lead to branching storylines within the game itself.

Ok, I'm done ranting now. Hope I've helped.

 

I'm a big progressive rock fan, some month ago I stumbled over this one... Maybe it help's you. The mechanics are really good desriped I think: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Complex-Progressive-Rock-Lyrics

 

Apply to a college/university that offers a degree in English - Creative Writing. Finish that up, apply to a school that offers a Masters and do your thesis on Video Game Fiction.

It's kind of funny, imo - how people will look at game programming, game art, and game music as if they're something that people need training in...but then expect that anybody can write the story. Sure you can, and you'll likely get the same results as if you picked up your programmer, artist, and musician at the quickie mart.

 

While I agree that its not something you can just pick up and do, writing is completely different from other categories. You can be taught some tips, proper sentence structure, the whole "show, don't tell" crap, but that's not writing. You can teach someone to use Maya, and they can produce efficient models, but if you teach someone how to use Word, it doesn't mean they'll be able to write an epic story.

Now yes, there is some skill/creativity that comes into play in all categories. Someone who has the natural talent or gift for 3d art could produce a much better model than someone who simply knows how to use the program, but nowhere is that more relevant than in writing. If you're not creative, you simply won't be able to do it.

 

I'm not quite sure where I said it was the same. Quite the opposite, it would appear that I stated that the writing aspect required the most. Unless picking up the team from the local quickie mart is acceptable...

 

I actually have a bit of a story about a substance that when combined with technology let's us do all the sci-fi stuff (faster than light travel, teleporting, cloaking, etc.) but it can be used in weapons... of course if something is rare or scares people will fight over it either for protection or domination. Maybe I need to dig a bit deeper.

I also see how others can feel like "oh I just skip all the story stuff" ... but for me, I need a little something... I'm also thinking of a slightly slower gameplay that may appeal to a 30+ crowd and not a twitchy teen crowd. Which is why it's been hard for me to find people interested in working with me on my newer idea.

 

I'm a big prog rock fan too. I was making breakfast the other day and had Dream Theater on... and I always of course loved the lyrics of Rush songs (and I have his books too)...

 

Creativity for me just means to be able to do things in another way and also find new ways to do something with a special goal. I wanna give you some examples for it. It's kind of "what else could I do, could I do more with it than others"...

This guys were really creative: Crystal clear sample play back, realtime calculated vector balls, a picture using interlace effect for more colors in mid resolution, video animation, a bunch of sprites in 320x200 and no loss of frame rate (lemmings part) and 3d filled polygons in real time...

You don't know why that was a revolution? Because it was only 128k machines!

Here we have 4k... Just to shock a bit...

Dam! Without sleep from my aching arm and much too warm night... What does game studios today? The last stuff was made with 4k... Do day we have... Let me think... The double right?

 

I actually used to do demos like these back in the day. I have a starfield I wrote in assembly that compiled down to 75 bytes (yes.. bytes) ... I used to do some crazy video card tweaking effects.. this brings back memories... I was briefly part of a demo group called UAA (united ansi artists)

I think this is more about mechanics than about story... Portal has a great simple mechanic and their phrase "now your thinking with portals" is genius..

 

A little off topic ... I like the concept of your game but I've found it very difficult to play. It seems the opponents get too close and you spend the whole time chasing them with your mouse instead of shooting them. Maybe you need to increase the distance that combat takes place at and change the FOV to cater for this. The AI seems to be able to shoot me from all kinds of angles too... I think you need to make it react slower!

Back on topic, I think writing a storyline is quite a bit different to writing a story. IMO I don't think you need a great story to drive a game like this, just a storyline that makes sense. If you think about it a typical soldier/pilot/etc doesn't know much about the "why" of what they are doing. I think if you define your worlds and backstories, and put a heap of work in to mission design, the actual creative/story-writing elements need not be very complex.

 

I totally agree...

 

True. For an ongoing world, you don't need a storyline. What you do need, however, is a very deep backstory. Since its also an open world, that backstory would require a lot of interesting and varied elements for the ongoing world to play off of and make use of.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Emotion-Games-Craft-Emotioneering/dp/1592730078

read this book a while back - it talks in depth about exactly what you are asking (how to make a world seem "deep" with characters that you care about and an environment that seems like it existed before you came there)

 

Honestly, the last book i would read about proper writing would be one coming from the game industry.

If you do some proper research, it shouldn't be a problem getting some reasonable ressources. People have been telling stories since quite some time.

 

I think that's the point though. Although I'm sure it's a matter of personal opinion I find with these kind of games its more interesting to have an encyclopaedic style reference than to have deep and emotional dialogue and cut scenes. This way I can research why the Axon Singularity don't use shields and why they are bitter enemies of GenFleet if I feel like it, and get down to kicking their butts without too much interruption when I don't.

But what I'm most interested in is missions which make sense. If just intercepted a smuggler whose only cargo was the coordinates of some unknown system, then I'd like to be investigating said coordinates within the next few missions.

EDIT: I think its attention to detail more than writing skills that are required here, if my mission briefing ran something like:

"A fleet of Axon Corvettes have been detected heading towards the delta quadrant, we're the only ones close enough so its up to us to investigate. We won't be able to stand up to the Corvettes in a pitched battle so this is strictly a run and gun. We need to scan these 'vettes and get out as quickly as possible, cause as much damage as you can, but be ready for hyperspace within 3 minutes."

Objectives: Scan all Corvettes.
Bonus Objectives: Destroy one Corvette.
​

I'd be pretty happy. It's not much work to do this for one mission, and there's nothing very creative about it. It is however a lot of work to do it for 50 or so missions, whilst also making them tie together with each other and with the back story.

 

I like how you worded this "existed before you came there"... Even though the game was made last year... when inside and playing the game it should feel like it's been that way for hundreds of years .... Something as simple as having older people, ruins, and some dialog can maybe help trick the mind into feeling like this universe has been running without for a while...
(I added the book to my wishlist...)

 

I like where you are going with this too. It's makes the player explore a new part of the "map" but just a taste.... and I like how you mentioned the missions being relative to the plot or direction of the story... When I played WoW I felt like every couple of hours I was trying to "kill 10 of those" and "find 10 of these" ... sometimes it would make sense (someone would put together the parts and give you an item) or something... but sometimes it seemed really arbitrary.

I think there is a ton of fun in "exploring" and for that, you really need the personal touch of a level designer/artist/etc. I'm now thinking there needs to be a harmony between procedural generation and a personal touch...

 

I recently found old "Fighting Fantasy" gamebooks from the 80's to be amazingly inspirational. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy

List of books: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fighting_Fantasy_gamebooks

"House of Hell" from 1984, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Hell

Sounds awesome for a survival horror dungeon crawler. All the books, even the ones of genre's I'm not into, seem really creative.

 

In response to the original title, it's a good idea to study writing techniques, for all genres: action, horror, comedy etc. Learn what makes a good piece of dialogue (and no discussing this with George Lucas- but now's not the time to cringe at his 'skills' in that department xD).

Study what people often say in conversation- although this doesn't always apply directly. Try and guess how people would respond given the situation, and most of all, make what the characters are saying relevant to the scene- the setting, the people around them, even the temperature if you can!

It's got to fit in to your orchestrated scenario, but it can't sound awkward. Make sure it sounds natural, and that it flows smoothly.

There are some people who somehow are just naturally great screenplay writers (remember that- you're writing an interactive play here). They seem to be able to adapt the dialogue to fit wherever possible, and you should try and do the same.

 

Much as I loathe Quentin Tarantino, the dialogue in his movies has always fascinated me. I have no idea how he manages to make it seem so natural and unscripted.

 

I can tell you one way of getting story ideas. Watch a ton of movies/anime/series or read comics and manga.
And avoid watching movie that doesn't have an interesting plot. Focus on the ones that reviewers agrees that the plot or concept or characters are great.

Although, I must say coming up with good stories and character is not easy... otherwise, it wouldn't be so hard to write few New York Times Best Seller fictions, right?
Also stories require research... some author have to spend months if not years researching on the location or industry that he's writing about, in order to deliver the stories the same way you see it in your mind.

If you couldn't think of a movie or anime with a great story, watch an anime called "Stiens;Gate" and you should know what to look for in good stories

 

Nice vid. Thanks for sharing. He's a tad dry, but I liked his exploration of characters. Very practical uses.
Gigi.

 

Carmine,

I was like you, except worse. I didn't believe story was important. But, last summer, something happened. I had set out to do one of those special Ignite presentations. It was supposed to be easy. A quick little 5-minute talk, but it turned out to be the speech from hell. See, the slides advance, automatically, every 15 seconds. So, the whole thing has to flow, moment to moment, and I couldn't lose my place, even for a second. And, when it came time to do it live, ... well ... I flubbed it.

It was a wake-up call - a slap in the face. And that's when I realized I needed to learn about stories. But, what do I know of stories? In school, I was taught that a story is: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Toss in some characters, and some how, it's a story. But, all my life, I had been following the wrong recipe. See, the real recipe is this:

1) a Question or Challenge
2) an Emotional Struggle
3) a Galvanizing Conclusion (that causes you to act - preferably with a twist)

Now, I'm a geek - a programmer by training and trade. Like you. But, that's just 3 simple steps. That's a recipe even I can follow! Let me show you with a story:

"I didn't know what a story was. But, then I learned it's just a question, a struggle, and a conclusion, with a twist. And, now I'm a story teller!"

Sure, it's a dumb story, but that is how it began. I would take a dumb idea and stick it in the recipe, and walla! It was 10x more interesting. It worked! I used it in emails to my boss, when inspiring my team, at sales presentations, and even with my wife and kids. I practiced stories everywhere, with everyone.

In some nerdy way, it was like the scene in Rocky. I practiced day and night. I read and wrote and talked to myself in stories. I used em everywhere, until they became second nature. And when the next big event came up, I was ready. I knocked it right out of the park!

Amazing! I learned to tell stories. A simple geek like me.

I'm a story convert. Last month, I released a Unity app that is nothing BUT stories. It's become my business model. And, yet, it was just 1 year ago that I actually believed, ... 'Stories aren't essential for games.'

Read the links and checkout the app in my sig. Practice stories EVERYWHERE. And, one day, you will wake up and realize, you too have become a story teller.

Gigi.

PS - See all the stories in this reply? Read it again. The recipe is simple. A sentence, a paragraph, an email, ... almost ALL information can be conveyed as stories, if you try. And, it works - people remember them!

 

I generally have to agree with those on this thread who have made the argument it isn't realistic to think you can just "pick writing up" at a whim and be good at it. Like any other skill, particularly creative skills, it takes years of practice and refinement to develop. But, since everyone knows how to spell, and operate a keyboard, everyone feels they should be able to write good stories. And so we end up with a lot of boring, derivative, uninspired trash plots for games. Good writing is a real skill and takes a lot of work, somehow people just don't recognize that.

Rather than writing your own storyline if you feel you're not well qualified to do it, do the same thing a good writer who doesn't feel qualified to program a game would do. Hire someone who is good at the skill you lack. The way to keep them on project is to pay them. Set up payment milestones that you and the writer agree on to keep everything on track. If you don't have the money to pay them outright, consider bartering and trade work with another developer who is a good writer but needs a programmer. The reason talented people "flake out" on collaboration projects is they're not invested in them personally, and they don't see remuneration in the foreseeable future. Paying them, or trading work on a game they are passionate about (because it's their project) largely solves both these problems.

My suggestion, I hope all the best for you and your project!

 

Quen is a really bad example, because we would talk about someone listening music half a years, collecting songs and arranging scenes and story around it.

How to make it natural? I don't think his actors have that straight rules to follow and they are dam good actors also (expect Till Schweiger - I'll never see IngBasts cos he's in that film)...

Another way to do such "work" is to start with kind of nothing... I did that years ago when composing music. I was out of ideas that times and so I had to find a way out. I made a game out of it. I was creating most silly goals like "make whole song just with Roland 808 drumcomputer sounds).

That way people come to their ideas and storys.

I think it was the Batman Begins, godfather of soundtracks Zimmer was told to make a mindblowing soundtrack for a scene. It ended with a single deep contrabass line. Key scene 3.30 min ->

 

Although I do vaguely feel like you are about to sell me a set of encyclopaedias.