Writing for Video Games

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.