SAExREV: Story to Screen: The Joy and Agony of Storytelling in Games

Storytelling for games hinges on a paradox: games give players the freedom of players to affect a virtual world, but storytellers focus on controlling a fictional world. Game designers constantly wrestle with preserving their vision and letting players feel at least an illusion of control. This workshop introduces some of the tools for storytelling within this paradox; it requires no prior technical skills.

The workshop begins with a guided discussion of trends in interactive storytelling, using adventure/detective games to demonstrate the challenges of the medium. You then will collaborate to develop a game high-concept and short interactive script to explore the tension between story, interaction, and gameplay. Lastly, you will be introduced to the Unity game engine, where you will import assets and craft a short narrative experience.

By the end of the workshop, you will better understand some of the issues with writing game narratives and have a short, playable interactive sequence.

Glen Spoors is a Senior Lecturer in Game Design at SAE Perth. His doctorate was on the regulation of meaning and emotion in video games, and he has taught extensively in media and game design across ECU, UWA, and Curtin. His creative work crosses music, games, fiction, and art, with a focus on mythic, urban, and literary fantasy, and a penchant for the surreal and monstrous. He is currently working on Hollowbine, a small detective video game; Io, a supernatural fantasy tabletop RPG; Rapanoikhi, a collection of short stories; and The Maiden Ring, a cycle of concept albums.