Teaching writing for videogames

Abstract

Though recent years have seen an increase in scholarship exploring the links between games and the classroom (such as gamification and game mechanics in education), far less research has engaged with the practical challenges involved in the pedagogy of games writing itself. In this article, I explore the unique challenges that arise when teaching creative writing for non-linear and ludic contexts. When our exposure to more traditional forms of storytelling structures such as those in film or literature is so much greater than our proficiency in creating branching story structures, the introduction of player or reader agency to a piece of fiction requires a massive shift in process within a practitioner. Students are still trained from a young age to understand stories as following certain rules based on linear and non-interactive media contexts. These rules are at times contradictory to what is required when writing games. Students of game writing often fall into familiar and observable patterns as they become proficient in the requirements of interactive practice for the first time. Throughout this article I reflect on these pedagogical issues through my observations teaching interactive storytelling, and examine the importance of exposure to peers from other creative disciplines for game design and game writing students.