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The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design

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• Authors are top game designers

• Aspiring game writers and designers must have this complete bible



There are other books about creating video games out there.
Sure, they cover the basics. But The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design goes way beyond the basics. The authors, top game designers, focus on creating games that are an involving, emotional experience for the gamer. Topics include integrating story into the game, writing the game script, putting together the game bible, creating the design document, and working on original intellectual property versus working with licenses. Finally, there’s complete information on how to present a visionary new idea to developers and publishers. Got game? Get The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design .

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2006

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About the author

Flint Dille

48 books10 followers

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5 stars
66 (20%)
4 stars
106 (32%)
3 stars
124 (38%)
2 stars
21 (6%)
1 star
6 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
Profile Image for Jodie.
49 reviews20 followers
September 30, 2018
So there are some good tips and knowledge in this book. It would be great for people interested in writing for games.
However, it is quite dated. Mostly in its really uncomfortable gendering of developers and players. In some cases it says things that are just wrong about players and the market, even for ten years ago. It also has a strong leaning towards the genre of shooter games and ignores the breadth of game genres. Whilst a book can only cover so much it would have been much stronger if it had avoided pushing the reader towards these incorrect assumptions.
Profile Image for Chris Marcatili.
175 reviews3 followers
August 15, 2015
This book should really be entitled 'Beginners' Guide to Writing for Games.' There were a lot of chapters explaining the absolute basics of characters and storytelling elements in games. The kind of stuff that anyone with enough passion for writing and/or gaming will probably know already.

By the end I still have no solid understanding of what game writers and designers actually do. This important information - what to do as a writer for games - is mostly glossed over, with way too much focus on irrelevant stuff like how to get along with team mates in a project.

There were some really useful tools and templates, as well as a few good nuggets of advice. But these were few and far between, with plenty of fairly irrelevant filler content in each chapter. If you're going to read this, be prepared to skim.

Finally, there were a lot of editing issues with this book. Which, for a writing guide, doesn't instil confidence.
Profile Image for Divyanshu Maithani.
73 reviews21 followers
May 20, 2023
There are some decent takeaways but most of the concepts will already be known by avid gamers.
Profile Image for Amanda Farough.
8 reviews9 followers
October 31, 2009
By far, one of the best books I've ever read on writing, let alone writing for games. The templates and action items are enough to keep any aspiring designer busy until they're ready to get started on the collaborative process.

I've read it twice. Cover to cover. Fantastic.
Profile Image for Bryce Marshall.
172 reviews
May 20, 2022
DNF. I made it about 40% of the way through which was a struggle. This book shows its age with terminology, ancient references, and sexism, indicative of the industry at the time (and ongoing 🙁). You can skim through and grab some good points but there are much better books out there.
Profile Image for Michael.
506 reviews25 followers
April 2, 2009
This book plainly and clearly explains what it takes to write for video games from a business perspective and the actual writing of the game. I found it very helpful.
Profile Image for Nikki.
1,995 reviews7 followers
February 28, 2020
Very useful even if a little dated. The practical writing prompts can help people who want to write(not just video games) to start thinking like the professionals.
Profile Image for Emily Jung.
12 reviews
September 22, 2023
It was good, had some nice things in it and some basics. So if you're not that strong into the narrative game, you should try it out. Also I really enjoyed the casual writing style from the authors and the inspiring words here and there^^
January 17, 2024
Good if you're new to games AND writing but if you have experience with either this book becomes too shallow to gleam anything from.
I found it to have a very narrow lens at writing for games, it felt stifled and stuck in its ways.
Profile Image for Marcie Lacerte.
13 reviews
March 9, 2017
A decent book outlining the fundamentals of game design and creative writing, but innovative insights were few and far between.
Profile Image for Gabi Roehm.
1 review
August 4, 2022
Very helpful and laid out wonderfully! I will come back to this to use their templates when I write my video game
Profile Image for Krzysztof.
355 reviews13 followers
July 30, 2014
This is a pretty useful and insightful book, but lets get one thing out of the way: there's nothing "Ultimate" about it. Taking just around 200 pages, the book focuses on Writing first and foremost, and for writers wanting to get into the video game industry this is clearly a good resource. But Design gets the short end of the stick, to a point where I think the entire guide would benefit from cutting out those parts and focusing on the authors' forte.

The best parts of the book concern the day-to-day realities of working in the video game industry. Although the book is eight years old now, and certain things have changed dramatically, most of it is still up-to-date - which is more a symptom of how rigid and inflexible the core of the industry is, than a credit to the authors' advice (while solid, there's also nothing inherently timeless about it). If there's one reason to read it, that would be my pick.

An included game proposal helps to see how all the different elements that were talked about in the book are joined to create an actual document. That's also a helpful resource, and the idea for the game they describe there isn't bad, either! (though it does strike me as amusing that what they described in 2006 as an innovative game is pretty much par the course in 2014 - they basically describe a more combat-oriented and open-world Amnesia: The Dark Descent)

Everything else is fine, but not revolutionary. Still, I can recommend this book if you can borrow it from somebody (like I did). The prices I've seen on this one are rather high, and I can't say that this 260-pager is worth it.
Profile Image for Anushka Aritri.
39 reviews9 followers
July 24, 2014
Was a pretty solid read for me. As a newbie who was looking for a good comprehensive guide on Game Writing and Design - I got various my time's worth. The honest insight, the rich narrative full of game references, the very useful templates and milestones that the book covers, really is relevant to the aspiring game writer or design that is about to embark into the gaming industry.

The only thing - if I must be nitpicky at all about the reading experience - was that at times the writer went off on a slight tangent, and that the content could have been organized differently. However, I still maintain that I took a lot more away from reading it than if I had opted not to.
157 reviews
June 5, 2010
I read the first 20 or 30 pages and found them reasonably engaging and informative. The book faced two problems in sustaining my interest, however. The first was that it read very much the same as a million other writing advice books. The second was simply that it is hard to find advice--no matter how good--interesting in the long term unless you are faced with a specific project or problem to which to apply it. At this point in time, I am not. I may return to this book in the future, hopeful with better results.
Profile Image for Ryan Relyt.
3 reviews
Want to read
May 29, 2014
I'm very good with video games and I have a wide imagination so when I grow up I want to be a game designer. So recommend this book for people with great technology experiences, and a great imaginative mind. When I was a little younger I was always told you creative imagination of building or making is unable to do. This is what I say to that if you can think it then it's possible even if it's small like a model.
Profile Image for Adam Vine.
Author 17 books96 followers
May 29, 2014
Ultimate intro guide to story writing for games. Should be in any upcoming story-teller's arsenal, though, along with the DC Comics guide, Alan Moore's book on writing for comics, and King's "On Writing".
3 reviews
September 30, 2023
This is a succint and a practical book on the subject with real examples. A great introduction to writing and design in games. It has been a while since the book came out but it is still relevant in 2019. If you can find this at a bargain price, you will not regret it. This is a hidden gem.
Profile Image for Micah.
1 review
May 24, 2012
This was a pretty good view of the process of creating a game -- from the game designer's perspective. Don't expect any code here.
8 reviews
September 6, 2014
I enjoyed this book. it gave a lot of food on game design, I am surprised how similar it is to create writing.
Profile Image for Cortez_jk.
213 reviews32 followers
December 27, 2015
I didn't have to read much. I was only assigned to read a few chapters. What I did read I did enjoy. It's a good insight to another genre that I am fairly new to.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews

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