Writing for Video Games

Offered By: The University of British Columbia via edX

Course Description

Overview

Acquire the globally in-demand skills necessary to succeed as a writer in the fast-growing world of video games.

As the gaming industry matures, excellence in writing and game narrative has become increasingly important to the success of both major studio titles and independent games. Through this interactive medium, writers and game developers are telling stories in new and exciting ways. To meet this need, studios are hiring increasing numbers of writers and narrative designers.

In this Professional Certificate Program, you’ll learn the tools and techniques of writing for video games in a comprehensive program designed by successful, working game writers and teachers. From story and character development to worldbuilding and interactive narrative, this Certificate will help you excel in a business that requires creative, flexible team players.

If you choose the verified track, you will gain additional access to interviews with game industry experts as well as targeted writing assignments that will help you build a portfolio of work suitable for applying to a wide variety of industry positions, or assist you in moving into a writing role in an existing video game company. In our final course, Working as a Game Writer, verified learners will receive direct feedback from our faculty on their final portfolios.

UBC’s School of Creative Writing has been a global leader in writing education for more than 50 years. We are innovative pioneers of multi-genre writing instruction, both in-class and online, and have been offering courses in video game writing since 2017.

Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: Video Game Writing Essentials

Learn the essentials of writing for video games, from how games are developed and what game writers do, to the ways game stories differ from other kinds of stories.

Course 2: Writing Video Game Characters

Learn how to make effective, memorable video game characters, from protagonists and antagonists to NPCs.

Course 3: Writing Video Game Scenes and Dialogue

Learn the fundamentals of writing cinematics, cutscenes, and in-game dialogue.

Course 4: Worldbuilding for Video Games

Learn the fundamentals of building video game worlds, from a writer’s perspective.

Course 5: Interactive Narrative

Learn how to use player choice and interactivity to create compelling game experiences

Course 6: Working as a Game Writer

Learn what it takes to work as a video game writer: from resumes to writing tests to contracts and NDAs.

Courses

0 reviews
5 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
View details

Writing for video games is truly a new frontier, a place where writers and game designers are still learning, innovating and pioneering bold approaches to telling stories.

This course is your introduction to this frontier. We'll explore interactive storytelling as well as touch on the history of video games and the kinds of games that have been developed since the medium was born.

We'll discuss the complex, collaborative process of game development and hear from working game writers about their jobs in the game industry. Then we'll dig into the way game narratives are built, where they come from, and how they are changing.

Verified learners will access additional game industry interviews, assignments and discussion topics, connecting with a community of other writers and game enthusiasts.
0 reviews
5 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
View details

Increasingly, game designers are realizing that cutscenes, cinematics and character interactions through dialogue are not just breaks from gameplay, or ways of providing exposition. They are integral to the player’s experience of a game. Talking is action. Dialogue is gameplay.

In this course we will explore how to create compelling, vital scenes, and how to use dialogue to support gameplay, deepen character, and advance the game’s story.

Early career game writers will often get their first experience writing dialogue for NPCs, especially the infamous barks and taunts. We’ll show you how to make this dialogue work, when it should sing and when it should be invisible.

Verified learners will access additional game industry interviews, assignments and discussion topics, connecting with a community of other writers and game enthusiasts.
0 reviews
5 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
View details

You might spend two hours with a character in a movie, but you can spend hundreds of hours interacting with the player character, antagonists and all the non-player characters (NPCs) in a video game. Getting character right is a vital part of getting the game right.

This course will teach you how to create a player character who fits into the mechanics of a video game and all the limitations of the medium, as well as how to create memorable player characters and how to deepen and develop them.

We’ll discuss how characters relate to gameplay, working with existing intellectual property (I.P.) and how a great game needs a great villain. Finally we’ll dive deep into the world of NPCs, exploring the tremendous variety of characters who can populate a video game, and how to make them distinct and interesting.

Verified learners will access additional game industry interviews, assignments and discussion topics, connecting with a community of other writers and game enthusiasts.
0 reviews
5 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
View details

A game’s setting is second in importance only to the game’s player character - and some say it’s more important. Game designers must create a compelling new world that players will want to explore and inhabit for many, many hours.

Game writing is a collaborative process, and worlds are designed with input from art directors, level designers, and even marketing teams. But writers have an integral role in making these worlds feel rich, deep and believable.

In this course you’ll learn to use the tools of environmental storytelling, lore, readables and audio/video logs to help create a memorable game setting.

Verified learners will access additional game industry interviews, assignments and discussion topics, connecting with a community of other writers and game enthusiasts.
0 reviews
5 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
View details

What is it like to work as a video game writer? How do you even apply for game writing jobs? Is it true that you might have to take a writing test?

This capstone course puts everything you’ve learned in the previous courses together. Each assignment has helped you produce writing samples that are suitable for a portfolio. Now we’ll show what to do with it.

We’ll explore what it takes to get a position as a video game writer or narrative designer, including how to get experience that will make you stand out. We look at what the hiring process is like, what sort of writing tests you may be asked to perform, and how to connect with people in the industry.

Verified learners who complete this course will receive feedback on their portfolio from the instructor. Verified learners will also access additional resources, including game industry interviews, assignments and discussion topics, connecting with a community of other writers and game enthusiasts.
0 reviews
5 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
View details

The primary difference between video games and other art forms is interactivity. Players embody the characters in a game; instead of watching the protagonist make choices, they actively make choices for the player character.

For writers, choice takes on a different meaning in games that allow players to control the outcome of the plot. How do you ensure that game choices are meaningful, have consequences, and also don’t require an impossible amount of work for the game design team?

In this course we will explore how choice works in games, how branching plots work, and how to manage them with tools such as pinch points, bottlenecking and story silos. We’ll look at characters and dialogue, then get you authoring your own interactive narrative with commonly available online tools.

Verified learners will access additional game industry interviews, assignments and discussion topics, connecting with a community of other writers and game enthusiasts.

Taught by

Peter Boychuk, Kim Sparks and Andrew Gray