The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design

I understand now why this is studied in many uni courses. This is a thick badboy full of incredibly insightful information.As a game developer, I have been interested in moving more towards writing and production. If that's something that interests you, then this is your bible.

As someone who's studying games design (college and now into my 2nd year at uni) this book is brilliant for those who need extra guidance or some idea of the writing side of the industry. I will be recommending this book to fellow students and adults who are interested in the games industry.

Bought for my son who said it was very good and very accessible.

Well, as I study game design, I found this book really interesting, It covers what I need to known about writing a design document and how its work in the industry, maybe not a must but definetly a recommendation for everyone who are interesting in Game Design.

This is a really good book. I'm just starting out studying games design and development, and this book has been the perfect guide. I return to it often. The design document guidelines are brilliant. I highly recommend this book.

This book was first published in 2007, and it's really starting to show its age now in 2022. The video game industry has changed a huge amount in the interim, and a lot of attitudes towards storytelling that you'll encounter here are quite outdated. It does feel like it was written for a different age.The book was written at a time when there were still only a handful of video games that had what would be considered today 'effective storytelling'. Although 2007 was the year of the original 'Bioshock', it was still a good few years until 'The Last of Us', 'Uncharted 4', 'GTA V', 'Red Dead Redemption 2' (among many others), which are now considered high-points in the development of video game narratives. The 2010s were the decade that video game narratives really started to mature. The best narrative-driven games nowadays rival movies and TV series for depth of characterisation, structure and thematic material. However, this book doesn't really go any further than a two-dimensional approach to characterisation and completely omits any useful discussion of story structure. Any aspiring video game writer would be much better off reading one of the many books on screenwriting or storytelling available today.If you're completely new to writing or video games, you might find some useful tips or insights into the industry. But anyone seriously trying to become a video games writer today would be better off looking elsewhere or waiting until an updated edition is published.

Got this for my nephew who does nothing but play computer games. I wanted to inspire him to do something more with this and to my surprise he started reading the book and told me how interesting it was.

bought as a gift