Writing For Games - Oct 2nd, 2005

This week I've been consumed with the subject of writing for games.

On Wednesday I was on the judging panel of the Fantastic Queensland's Writing for Games competition (http://writingforgames.fantasticqueensland.com/) with Shainiel Deo and David Grant. Together we reviewed the five finalists who pitched their original game concepts to us. I was really impressed with the quality of their pitches - each one was cool and it further cements my belief that Brisbane is the hotseat of Aussie game development.

On Sunday I had the honour of giving a workshop titled "Writing for Games" with Gordon Moyes and Darren Baker. This was part of the Brisbane Writer's Festival (http://www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au/) held this week, and the workshop was a lot of fun. Gordon is the Development Director at Pandemic Australia (http://www.pandemicstudios.com.au)

and Darren is the co-owner and Technical Director of Wildfire Studios (http://www.wildfirestudios.com.au), the creators of the hit casual game Tumblebugs (http://arcade.reflexive.com/downloadgame.aspx?CID=21198&AID=310). On the subject of writing for games, having a staff writer is a bit of a rarity in the games industry at the moment. But having experienced the huge response to Destroy All Humans! (a game that used a professional writer) it's apparent that this will have to change. If you want to make a Triple A game, you'll need quality writers - the same way that developers realised that if they wanted fun games they needed dedicated game designers. The time when the game script is handed over to a junior programmer or tester to write isn't over yet - but it soon will be.