National Game Writing Month in July?

[Perihelion]

I'm thinking about doing my own personal National Game Writing Month in July to churn out an awful first draft for a game script. Would anyone be interested in doing this with me? It'd be like NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for the uninitiated), except for games. So more like Script Frenzy (the script-writing version of NaNo), I guess. Maybe a goal of 20,000 or 25,000 words. What do people think is good? I'm thinking 20k since that's what Script Frenzy does, or rather did before they stopped doing it.

You can write in whatever format you like, but I recommend writing it like a play or screenplay. Basically, dialogue + stage directions. It'll be much easier to edit in that format than coded into the game, and you can translate everything to cutscenes later.

Edit: Since some people aren't making text-heavy games, let's say you can set your own goal instead of having to do 20k. I would say 20k is the recommended starting point for a standard RPG (it's about the length of a shortish movie screenplay). Also remember that it includes stage direction and possibly descriptions of events or gameplay or dungeons or whatever. You can do whatever you want with it. The important thing is to make stuff.

 

[Sailerius]

I could use the excuse to finish my VSA scripts.

 

[Perihelion]

Sweet. NaNoWriMo has a rule of no existing projects, but whatever, everyone can write anything they want. We can make a subforum for it if we have enough interested people or just keep track of word counts on this board.

 

[Byron]

I AM ON BOARD THIS CRAZY SHIP!

 

[Xhukari]

True that NaNoWriMo has a 'no-existing projects' rule, but that is a totally different beast; whose equivalent would be stuff like Ludum Dare and not this Script Frenzy thing.
I've never written a script for a game before, but 20,000 words sounds like a huuuuuuuuge game. Since you said script and mentioned about play notes, I am presuming this more so for cutscenes and dialogue rather than overarching storylines; which is why 20k seems like a lot to me.

It could be just that I'm working on a game that is more light on dialogue than an RPG...

 

[Perihelion]

20k is about the size of a short movie script, and remember that it includes stage directions and summaries of things that happen. You can include dungeon or gameplay descriptions or whatever in that as well. Alternatively, why don't we just say that people can set their own goals? If you're not writing a text-heavy game, a shorter script is fine. The important thing is to make stuff.

 

[mawk]

this is basically exactly the kind of thing I need to get more practice with to be less terrible at summarizing settings and plots and so on and et cetera. count me in!

 

[Perihelion]

Great! Also, I'd like to point you guys towards a useful outlining method if you want to do some outlining before starting. It's called the snowflake method and involves you starting from a one-sentence summary and expanding from there.

http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/a ... ke-method/

It's aimed more at novelists than game writers but may still be useful.

 

[Mega Flare]

Im gonna try to do this. Been wanting to get back into RPG Maker for the last while sooo writing a story would really help... but main problem I'm like working 70 hour weeks atm :X so dont really have much time to do it

 

[Daxis]

Funny

On sunday till today I've written 20000 words of a new fiction (using a well fleshed out and established setting of another idea I had)

Apparently I'm really prolific when I disregard flow, plot, making likeable characters, and proxy an idealized facsimile of myself as the Main character.

So I'm prolly out. But then again, One of my classes just ended and I have only one test left for the other class for half a semester so I might do something, who knows.

 

[Xhukari]

I skimmed/read some of that link, Periheli. I like the initial ideas of the constructing a snowflake, but it goes a bit novel-specific. So essentially I'll just focus on the more snowflake side of things; outline all major plot points, then go through each point sequentially adding more detail to each one before going over the points to rinse n' repeat as needed...

 

[Perihelion]

Yeah, I like the idea of starting from the big picture and getting more detailed as you go. It is pretty novel-oriented, and I'm not following it exactly, but I think the general approach is good. It forces you to have a well-structured plot.

Also guys, I made another thread for discussion on the event board:
viewtopic.php?f=305&p=905788#p905788