Write and keep track of your complex game script using flowchart software.
Video games have come a long way from the "jump over barrels thrown by angry ape" or "yellow circle eats dots while avoiding ghosts." Many of the video games today are more akin to interactive movies, with in-depth worlds and a full cast of characters going through an emotional rollercoaster of trials. This is due to an incredible amount of game development, which all starts with the writing of the script. With a little time and a lot of patience, writing a video game script can be a thoroughly rewarding experience.
Instructions
Developing Your Game Script
1. Determine the genre of your game. Decide what format you want the game to be: role playing game or space shooter? It may prove to be a difficult task to attempt to write a script for a genre that you are not familiar with.
2. Create the background information of your world. Determine if your game takes place on Earth or on a distant planet named Xenu; back in the 1400s or in the year 3023. Develop any cultural differences that will affect the story, and any varied races that will play a part in your game. The more thought out and deep your world is, the better.
3. Draft an overview of your game. This should be a prose document that covers the various major plot points of the game. Tell the story of the game, from the opening image until the credits roll, and focus on including any significant events that unfold. If you have a game that has multiple endings, this is not the place to focus on the different choices that lead up to these different endings. Simply write the "best case scenario" plot and ending.
4. Write the character bios and descriptions. With all major characters, including protagonists and antagonists, make a detailed synopsis of them. In addition to what their appearance and personality are like, discuss what makes them tick, what there motivation is, how they fit in to the world and any unique traits or abilities. Also use this time to describe their physical attributes. Is your character a ninja with camouflage skin? Or maybe an alley cat with a Mohawk? Regardless of your characters' backgrounds, this is the spot to map it all out. The developers need as much information as possible to create your character, so if you are not able to provide drawings of how they should look, describe them as best you can in words.
5. Create a flowchart of events. With the great complexity of your game will come a great many decisions that your player will come across. Each of these decisions is a branch: choose to do "A", then "C" will happen; choose to do "B", then "D" happens. Depending on the level of open-endedness that you want your game to include, these choices will affect how the plot unfolds from there on out. A flowchart will greatly help you map out the possibilities and the different branches in story flow. A variety of programs like "EDraw Flowchart" or "Crystal Flow" are available for purchase either online or in any electronics store.
6. Map out any subplots. Subplots, or as they're called in games "sub-quests", are deviations from the standard story that add depth to the game, but not necessarily to the overall story. Each one of these sub-quests should have a synopsis written in prose of how it gets started, what is involved and how it is ultimately resolved.
7. Create the cut-scenes. The cut scenes are any in-game "movies" that normally interrupt game play, and move the story forward. In most games today, cut-scenes are necessary to help tell the story. On occasion, cut-scenes are occurring simultaneously with the action that you are still in control of. Map out any of this in the cut-scene section.
8. Create a treatment for your script. This is the meat of your script, where you lay out all of the different intricacies in your game in chronological order, essentially telling the entire story. This step should not be attempted before the subsequent steps have been completed in their entirety, as you will be utilizing all of the elements to lay out each scene as we go through the story. Number each scene simply (i.e. "Scene 1"), and include the scene's location, which characters will be involved in it, any special sound effects used, any physical limitations of the characters at that point, interactions that occur, treasure/items available, music playing, action events that happen during it and, of course, the player's goal for the scene.
9. Write any dialogue of the script. Video game script is similar in many ways to the script of a film. The main difference is that instead of telling the story from start to finish, as you would with a movie script, you are telling the story through the different dialogue in sections. Map out the location each dialogue section takes place in, who is involved and what is said and done. Each section that includes dialogue with any Non-Player Character (NPC) is written in each section and referenced to the various branches in your flowchart. For example, if your hero has a choice at the fourth branch in the flowchart in Scene 1, he can choose one way, and it brings up a string of dialogue that you would entitle "Scene 1: Dialogue 4A". If he chooses the other option, then you would title the section "Scene 1: Dialogue 4B".
