Tag: Comics

Sweet Validation (And I Don’t Mean Parking)

by Chris Tihor, posted in blah blah blah

I was reading over an excellent interview on Gamasutra with game designer Chris Avellone (he of Fallout 2, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment fame), when one particular question caught my eye:

“What about in terms of the differences between narrative in film or books, versus narrative in games? It seems like there’s some key differences that a lot of games don’t really seem to pick up on.

CA: I think that people [in the industry] are appreciating scriptwriting talents more, especially as games become more voice-acted and cinematic. I [think that for] anyone pursuing narrative design, scriptwriting is the best way to hone your craft, because it’s a lot of what you’re going to be doing. It teaches you all the brevity; using the environment to communicate a situation, as opposed to just the flat-line vomit of text, like Torment had. Which we had to do at the time, but that’s more of a novelistic approach to writing, which isn’t necessarily the best fit for games.

Also I think comic book writing lends itself to training you to write dialogue for games, just because you have to think so visually about what’s happening in the environment. I really enjoy writing comics. For Star Wars [Knights of the Old Republic II], for example, I found myself thinking about the process a lot differently. About how the shot was framed, what was being shown, and how that reinforced what the characters were saying and [their interactions].”

Those of you who have seen my talk, Rummaging in the Geek Culture Toolbox, may have noticed that I made some of the same points in that presentation, particularly in the section on writing for comic books. I’d like to take this opportunity to say: it’s a pretty great feeling to see your theories confirmed by an industry professional whose work you respect and admire.

Walking on clouds will now commence for the foreseeable future.

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A Skedaddle to Seattle

by Chris Tihor, posted in blah blah blah, Presentations

Last week, I participated in the second annual IGDA Summit in Seattle, Washington hosted by the International Game Developers Association. I’d made it out to the inaugural Summit last year, but this year was my first as a speaker. My talk, “Rummaging in the Geek Culture Toolbox“, was a look at all of the great things that came out of  the workshop with the same title that I ran during the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS) last November in Vancouver, BC. The main goal of both was to explore the potential of using different forms of geek culture (in this case Role-Playing Games and Comics) to help in creating games, with a focus on writing and narrative design.

The talk went really well, I thought. Following the talk was a really interesting panel discussion of the subject with Wendy Despain, Richard Dansky, and myself. It was great to get the perspective of game writing veterans, and it gave me a few new ideas to pursue. The questions from the audience were also thought-provoking. Overall, very inspiring for me and hopefully entertaining and useful for the audience. I’m already considering doing another talk/workshop that would expand on the themes from the last one, maybe even looking at a couple new forms of geek culture to explore.

If you missed the talk, it was recorded and will be posted on to YouTube in the near future by Casual Connect. I’ll pop a link up here when that happens, unless I watch it first and find it too embarrassing. In that case, I may never mention it again. 😉

The rest of the Summit was terrific. I got to meet up with a ton of other game creators, old friends and new, exchange ideas and stories, and generally have a great time. I’ll be giving a brief talk summarizing my Summit experience and giving reasons why you should come out to Seattle for the next one. It’ll be happening during the August Level Up/IGDA Victoria monthly meeting next Monday evening. So if you have any questions come by and ask away.