The Game Narrative Toolbox (Focal Press Game Design Workshops)

Learn tips on how to create compelling game storylines.

Four experienced narrative designers from different genres of game development have banded together to create this all-inclusive guide on what it is like to work as a author and narrative designer in the video game industry. From concept to final testing, The Game Narrative Toolbox walks readers through what role a narrative designer plays on a development team and what the requirements are at each stage of development. Drawing on real experiences, authors Tobias Heussner, Toiya Kristen Finley, PhD, Ann Lemay, and Jennifer Brandes Hepler provide invaluable advice for writing compelling player-centered stories and effective dialogue trees to lend a hand readers make the switch from writing prose or screenplay to interactive.

Thoroughly revised, the Second Edition includes up to date content reflecting the industry’s up to date developments. Along with revised and up to date chapters, this new edition features two additional chapters covering more advanced topics which might be applicable to the lessons learned from the original chapters.

Accompanying each chapter are exercises that allow the reader to develop their own documentation, outlines, and game-dialogue samples to be used in applying for industry jobs or developing independent projects.