Paging Bob and other ITP Game Designers…
Just had my first class of Dialogue and Narrative Creation in Electronic Games last night. This is through the Dramatic Writing Dept. of Tisch and is being taught by Gordon Farrell. So far so great — we’ll be using Empire Earth (which Gordon helped write the story) as our means to develop narrative ideas in a game setting, and we’ll be reading Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Video Games… which Gordon says is a must read for anyone interested in the field. I think this class is being taught again in the fall… so Bob, and any others at NYU reading this, might want to consider the class. I’ll post a review at the end of the course. I will also mention that Shadow of the Colossus got ripped apart in discussion. Gordon seems to know his stuff as someone who understands the gaming industry and dramatic writing.
Yeah, I already took the course this (last?) semester. Tell Gordon I said hello. It’s a decent class for understanding the nitty-gritty of level design and understanding some of the programming aspects of games, building triggers and defining areas, etc. If you’re an RTS man it’s definitely easier to get into the course. Obviously, my obsessions lie in other genres, so it took me a while to find my bearings. I’m still working on-and-off on the scenario I built there, set in Vietnam.
As for SotC– well, at least they weren’t ripping apart “Metal Gear.”
Ripped apart how?
An MFA from Yale, dramatic theory? Well, my curiosity is piqued. Would he mind if I sat in for a class?
Frank: Ripped apart as in Shadow is all beauty and offers little more. I don’t remember verbatim the conversation, but several students agreed about how the game lacks compelling game play/story.
Bob: Nice about the Vietnam storyline… was thinking about adapting The Things They Carried for mine.
Pratt: You should visit but it’s going to be a lot of sitting in front of computers… maybe you should come for the last class.