多位开发者分享关于游戏编剧或游戏文案的从业建议

原作者：Marie Dealessandri 译者：Willow Wu

很多人在学习剧本创作、在Twine（一个互动小说创作软件）尝试写作或者选择主修英文专业，都盼望着有一天能够成为一名游戏编剧。游戏剧情创作这条路没什么捷径可走，而且业内针对这一领域的培训课程少之又少。

GamesIndustry.biz的编辑James Batchelor先前主持了一场EGX Rezzed Digital活动，谈论了与此相关的话题。参与讨论的嘉宾有自由编剧&叙事设计师Rhianna Pratchett，最新的《古墓丽影》游戏就是出自她之手；Inkle联合创始人Jon Ingold，他为Heaven’s Vault这个游戏创造了一种全新的语言；Mediatonic创意策划Ed Fear，新游戏Murder by Numbers就是在他的指导下完成的；以及Failbetter Games的编剧&叙事设计师、编辑Olivia Wood。

-你们是如何成为游戏编剧的？

各位嘉宾进入这个行业的方式各不相同，这意味着对于那些有志成为游戏编剧的人来说，还是有很多不同途径可以尝试的。Rhianna Pratchett和Ed Fear都有新闻从业背景。

lineage 2 revolution（from pocketgamer.biz）

“我从来都没想过要成为一名游戏编剧，”Pratchett说。“我之前在PC Zone工作，Larian那边的人联系我说他们需要一个英语母语的人来给《超越神界》（Beyond Divinity）的剧本润色。然后我就去那家公司了，他们的游戏我都挺喜欢的，我就问他们说：‘嘿我现在在做这个啊，你们还有没有其它工作要给我的？’我把能做的事都做了，为的就是累积一点经验，提升自己的能力，这真的非常有效。”

Fear解释说新闻工作其实是一种很好的训练方式，因为你不得不定期、持续地写稿。

“我知道自己想要做游戏，也很喜欢写作，最后我找到了一份工作——为Develop杂志撰写文章，”他说。“给杂志供稿是一种形成定期创作习惯的好方法。我觉得这能帮助我提高出产率，平息我内心的尖锐噪音。”

几年之后，他加入了发行公司Curve Digital，成为一名制作技术人员——确实与写作无关，但这是一个很好的入行方式，可以让他“偷偷摸摸地进入写作领域，”——这是他的原话。

在游戏领域，从非意向工作做起是比较常见的入行方式，比如QA和游戏测试，很多新人就是从这两个职位开始的。但是把写作当成爱好也能为你的职业生涯带来机遇，Olivia Wood和Jon Ingold就是很成功的效仿者。

“我刚开始是和一个在推特上认识的人一起创作的，游戏起名叫Lethophobia。那时我的正式工作是编辑，”Wood说。“我用的是Failbetter StoryNexus创作平台。”

这就成了她与Failbetter的接触开端，后来她以自由职业编辑的身份为这家公司出力。从这以后，她就正式进入了游戏写作领域。Ingold的职业生涯起始于00年代，跟一群他称为是“黑客&艺术家”的人一起合作，Her Story主创Sam Barlow和Failbetter创意总监Emily Short也是这样开始的。最初，Sony Cambridge雇佣他为关卡设计师，他接触不到任何写作工作，但后来他遇到了Joe Humfrey，一起合作成立了Inkle。

“我们一起成立了Inkle，这样我们就能创作自己想做的那类游戏，”他继续说道。“在成立自己的公司之前，没有人会付钱让我帮他们写游戏剧本，所以我只能自己为自己打工。”

-游戏行业有哪些不同的写作职位？

被称为“游戏编剧”（games writer）的工作其实有很多种，而且这并不是行业内唯一的写作类职位。叙事设计师（narrative designer）也是一个很常见的职位，但具体职责要取决于工作室本身。

“没有人了解叙事设计师实际是干什么的，”Wood说。“在Failbetter，考虑到我们的故事表达方式，你不成为叙事设计师是无法进行剧本创作的。在其他公司，叙事设计可能是另一个人负责的，而不是由写故事的人负责。所以这是一个非常奇怪的头衔，如果你看到一条叙事设计师招聘信息，你必须要阅读详细要求才能明白这个工作是要做什么。”

Pratchett补充说：“如果你认为编剧就是传统意义上的那样掌控着剧本、人物、和情节发展，那么叙事设计师更关注则是故事的讲述方式、故事是怎么呈现给玩家的。所以说，他们一只脚踏进了写作的阵营，一只脚踏进了设计的阵营。”

这些职位的特点也各有不同——并不是所有的创作者都参与主线剧情。

“你或许会需要在关卡中插入对话来呈现即时剧情，就比如Lara Croft会在关卡中跟自己对话，”Pratchett说。“Bark是指源于AI、或者是同伴的短句对话，他们只是在告知你周遭有什么事情发生，或者是战斗中的状况。”

Ingold告诫台下的观众，游戏编剧所涉及的写作工作比你们想象的要少，不要抱着自己的文字会成为全场焦点这种期待去做这份工作。

“现实中并没有那么多的纯文字创作工作，因为所有的东西都是分散式的，需要和其它的东西融为一体，”他说。“如果你参与的是一个大型游戏项目，就会有一个重量级的人物去设计主要的故事节奏和角色，因为这些都与游戏的根基设定息息相关。

“最底层的就是那些撰写游戏知识条目的人员——比如一些远程合作公司，他们并不需要特别了解游戏本身的内容。

“然后在这中间就是各种各样的人，有的负责过场剧情，有的负责把短对话融入到关卡中。各个环节、各个方面都会存在叙事元素，每个人都能拿到其中的一块。甚至那些帮关卡设计师制作界面的程序员也能对故事的呈现产生影响——他们不会把自己视为文字创作者，但毕竟他们是游戏的垒砖人，最后的叙事效果很大程度上还是取决于他们。

“其实能接触到文字创作工作就已经是很罕见的了，而不是让你简单粗暴地把东西塞进一个形状极为搞笑的盒子里。”

-游戏编剧的创作自由多吗？

如果你很幸运，能真正找到一份文字创作工作，那也不代表你能够按照自己的意愿进行创作。创作自由多少还是要取决于你的工作。

“游戏设计师创造空间，然后编剧就负责在这个空间里填上文字，”Ingold说。“有时候这些空间很简单，有时候很复杂，这完全取决于公司的规模和你手头上任务的复杂程度。”

Wood补充说：“如果是一个独立游戏工作室，你可能有很多游戏设定需要构建，同时你也要承担很多份工作。Chris Gardiner（Failbetter的首席编剧）跟我们讲解了《无光之空》（Sunless Skies）整体发展方向，然后其他人就各自说一下想写的情节，之后就可以动笔了。只要不跟游戏背景设定或者风格产生冲突，你几乎是想怎么写就怎么写。自由空间很大。我觉得你在大公司是不可能有这样的条件，除非你是公司中的权威人士。”

在3A项目中拥有自己的话语权并不像在独立游戏那么简单，尤其是对于成熟的系列游戏来说。但你可以利用主线剧情之外的地方来制造小亮点。

“你不能凭空给Lara Croft增添一个可以在游戏中到处乱跑的兄弟/姐妹，除非这个IP是你的，”Ingold说。但是，也许你可以让Lara写一封信，在信中不经意提到她有一个兄弟/姐妹，然后把它藏在某个架子上——或许通过这种方式，他们就能接受。这就像是政治游戏：阻挡你实现创意的人越少，你的掌控权就越大。”

Pratchett负责的是《生化奇兵：无限》的bark系统，他解释说，次级叙事(secondary narratives)是展现编剧个性的好地方。

“我跟主线剧情没有任何关系，”她说。“我有自己的这一小块地方。它或许不是游戏中最吸睛的部分，比不上宏伟大气的过场剧情，但至少也能给玩家带来乐趣。

“在游戏行业，编剧们是处于一种边缘地带。所以你可以通过次级叙事在这些不太引人瞩目的地方展现自己的个性。我在《古墓丽影：崛起》中也是这么做的。我把我父亲在我出生那天晚上的经历写成了一个故事，然后把一部分情节应用到了Lara的父亲身上，这真挺有意思的。”

-全职编剧和自由编剧，各有哪些优势？

就跟游戏行业中的其它多数职业一样，游戏编剧可以是公司全职雇佣，也可以是自由职业。这二者各有优缺点，哪一类人更适合你，这得取决于你自身的情况以及偏好的工作方式。

“我个人是比较喜欢团队工作，火力全开的感觉，但有一个问题就是你可能感觉被困住了，”Fear说。“当我跟团队一起做项目时，要花上好几年的时间，而且手头上只有这一个项目。我的生活似乎都被它占据了，产生了严重的负面影响。

“做自由编剧的时候，我能够同时做不同的项目。如果你在不同项目上扮演的是不同的角色，或者项目是不同类型的，你就可以时不时地切换下思维。但我对它们的感情并不深，因为我们之间毕竟有一段的距离。所以，只能说这是一把双刃剑。”

Wood目前是Failbetter的全职编剧，同时也以自由编剧的身份做着其他事。

“虽然我喜欢Failbetter提供的安全感，但自由职业让我的头脑保持高速运转，因为我可以在多个事情上发挥我的才能，”她说。“如果你只做自由职业的话，你可能会感到有些孤单。全职工作其实是非常轻松的，因为你有病假工资，有假期，而自由职业者是没有这些的。

“当我还是纯自由职业者的时候，有时我会一干就是好几个月，甚至是周末都会连续工作，就有点陷入疯狂状态了。所以除非你是一个极度自律的人，否则自由职业可能会让你很不好过。”

-给那些有志成为游戏编剧的人提些建议吧。

下载Twine或Inkle的写作系统Ink，这些是很好的上手工具。你并不一定要去攻读叙事相关的学位或者去上写作课程，因为这并不能说明你就是一个优秀的文字创作者。Wood表示，她更在乎的是看到简历有附加一个小游戏成品，而不是你上过什么学校。

“为什么是小游戏成品，一是因为坚持把一个游戏做完是一件极为不容易的事；二是如果我想利用午餐时间来看些东西，我就能看出这个游戏在短时间内是否能吸引玩家的注意力，能不能让我投入。并且这也能展示出你能不能在这样短的内容中做到有头有尾。”她解释说。“如果是个8小时流程的游戏，那我不会去看，因为我没时间。”

别忘记把你的项目发到网上，比如Itch.io，或者直接利用Twitter这样的平台。参加像IFComp这样打着 “文字主导电子游戏”招牌的比赛，也是一个不错的主意。Pratchett补充说作为一个编剧，你需要持续提高自己的写作技巧。

“不管是去上课还是自己尝试写作，你要找人看你的作品、听取反馈，然后持续地写作，训练技巧，”她说。“然后就是关于人际网络。显然，眼下并不是开展社交活动的好时机，但是在正常情况下你应该去积极参加GDC、Reboot和Nordic Game这样的活动。在那里你可以面对面地跟开发者交谈，看看他们正在制作的游戏。

“然后就是多玩游戏，增加自己的阅历。读书、看戏、看电影、听广播、看电视——通过各种类型的作品来了解叙事，而不是仅仅是依靠游戏。不同体裁的作品有各自的独特写作技巧，你可以转用到游戏上。作为一个文字创作者，你只需要对这个世界保持兴趣、保持心态开放，尽可能多地阅读故事、观察形形色色的人。”

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

A lot of people learn scriptwriting, try things out on Twine, or major in English in the hope to become, one day, a games writer. There is no straight path to games writing and very few courses solely dedicated to this part of the industry.

GamesIndustry.biz UK editor James Batchelor yesterday hosted an EGX Rezzed Digital panel discussing the topic. It featured freelance scriptwriter and narrative designer Rhianna Pratchett, known for penning the recent Tomb Raider entries, Inkle co-founder Jon Ingold, who created a brand new language for Heaven’s Vault, Mediatonic’s senior creative designer Ed Fear, who recently directed Murder by Numbers, and Failbetter Games’ writer, narrative designer and editor Olivia Wood.

How do you get a job as a games writer?

The panellists all had different paths into the industry, illustrating the many possible options when trying to become a games writer. Rhianna Pratchett and Ed Fear both came from a journalism background.

“I never set out to be a video games writer,” Pratchett said. “[I worked] at PC Zone and Larian contacted me because they were looking for a native English speaker to polish up their script for Beyond Divinity.

“I [then] literally went to companies whose games I liked and said: ‘Hey, I’m doing this now, do you have any work for me?’ I did everything I could to get a little bit of experience, a little bit of credit, and that worked really well.”

Fear explained that journalism is a good way to train as a writer, because it forces you to write regularly and consistently.

“I knew I wanted to make games, I knew I also wanted to write, and I ended up getting a job at Develop magazine,” he said. “Magazine writing is a good way of [writing at a regular cadence]. I thought it might help me become more productive, and silence my inner critic.”

After doing that for a couple of years, he joined publisher Curve Digital as a production technician — nothing to do with writing then, but a great way to get a foot in the industry and “weasel [his] way into writing,” he said.

Starting in a role that doesn’t reflect what you actually want to do is a common way into games, with QA and game testing often at the forefront of this. But writing as a hobby can lead to career opportunities as well — a path that mimics Olivia Wood and Jon Ingold’s approach.

“I was in a job as an editor [when] I started writing a game called Lethophobia with a friend I made on Twitter,” Wood said. “And it was using Failbetter’s StoryNexus system.”

This started a conversation with Failbetter, which then hired her as a freelance editor. From there, she made her way into a writing position. Ingold started his career by making text adventure games in the ’00s with what he called a “community of hackers and artists” — this is also how Sam Barlow and Emily Short started. From there, he was hired at Sony Cambridge as a level designer, where he didn’t do any writing work, but met Joe Humfrey, with whom he ended up creating Inkle.

“We set up Inkle together so we could do the kind of games that we actually wanted to do,” he added. “Until I set up my own company, no one would pay me to write for games, so I was forced to set up my own company.”

What are the different writing jobs in the games industry?

“Games writer” can imply many different things, and it’s not the only writing work available in the industry. Narrative designer is also a common position, though its meaning varies vastly from company to company.

“One of the problems is no one knows what a narrative design actually is,” Wood said. “At Failbetter you cannot write without being a narrative designer, just because of the way our stories are told. In other companies, the narrative design might be handled entirely separately from the person who sits down and writes. So it’s a very weird title, that if you see a job application for, you have to read what they’re asking for rather than the title.”

Pratchett added: “If you think about writers as doing the traditional story bits, largely governing script, character, plot, and development, narrative designers are more concerned with the ways in which the story is told, the way the story is communicated to the player. So they have one foot in the camp of writing and one foot in the camp of design. That’s how it broadly falls.”

Then there’s specialties within these positions — not all writers just sit down and write the main story of the game.

“Level dialogue [is] the moment to moment narrative that you might have, for example Lara [Croft] talking to herself during a level,” Pratchett said. “Bark is the short lines of dialogue that come from usually AI, sometimes party members, and they’re just really telling you about what’s going on in the world around you, maybe what’s going on in a fight.”

Ingold warned panel viewers that being a games writer involves less writing than you imagine — don’t go into the job thinking that your words will be the star of the show.

“There isn’t really that much writing actually going on, because everything is so distributed and integrated with everything else,” he said. “If you work on a big game, somebody really very important gets to design the major story beats and what the characters are about, because all of that is so tied up with what the game fundamentally is.

“And then right down at the bottom are people filling in the lore book entries — quite remote contractors who don’t necessarily get very much input into the game at all.

“In the middle, there’s this huge spectrum ranging from people who write cutscenes to people who integrate the bark with the level. Writing and storytelling pop in all over the place and in all different aspects, and everyone gets a handle on it somewhere. Even the programmers designing the interface for the level designers have an impact on how that story is told — they wouldn’t think of themselves as writers, but ultimately they’re fundamentally how the narrative comes out.

“It’s actually really rare and very precious to be allowed to be able to do any words at all, and not just be squeezing things into boxes that are a funny shape.”

How much creative freedom is there as a games writer?

If you’re lucky enough to actually write words as your job, that doesn’t mean you will be writing the words you want either. Your creative freedom will, once again, vary vastly depending on the job.

“The game designer makes spaces, and then the writers come in and fill in those spaces,” Ingold said. “Sometimes those spaces are very straightforward, and sometimes they’re very complicated, but it totally depends on the size of the company and the complexity of the thing that you’re working on.”

Wood added: “At an indie [developer] you’re probably going to have a lot more input, but you’ll also be doing a lot more jobs. While Chris [Gardiner, head writer at Failbetter] does the whole overview of where Sunless Skies [is] going, you discuss the plot you’re writing and then go away and write it. Within that plot, you’d have immense freedom, as long as you aren’t doing anything that conflicts with the lore or the style. So there are pockets of complete freedom. I don’t think you’d get that at a larger company, unless you’re very senior.”

In AAA, having your say in the story is not as simple as it is in indie development, especially for established franchises. But you may be able to impact the lore in other ways than via the main plot.

“There’s no way you’re going to give Lara Croft a sibling who gets to run around in the game, unless you own the whole franchise,” Ingold said. “But maybe you can have Lara write a letter in which you casually mention that she has a sibling and then hide [it] on a shelf somewhere — you might even get away with that. It’s all political: the fewer people between you and getting your story idea out, the more likely you are to have control over it.”

Pratchett worked on the bark system for Bioshock Infinite, and explained that secondary narratives are usually a good way for the writer to show their personality.

“I didn’t have anything to do with the main storyline,” she explained. “I had my own little space and I was doing my own thing. It may seem like they’re not the sexy part of the game, not like the shiny cinematics, [but] it can be a lot of fun and you can get a lot of jobs supporting other writers doing that kind of thing.

“In games, writers live around the edges. So you get to sneak in little bits that feel more you through the secondary narrative. I did a little bit with Rise the Tomb Raider [too]. I put a story about my dad’s experiences on the night I was born. I sort of rolled that into Lara’s dad and that was quite a nice thing to do.”

What are the advantages of being an in-house writer versus a freelance writer?

Like a lot of jobs in the industry, games writing can be done in-house at a studio or as a remote freelancer. Both have advantages and downsides, and one may be better for you depending on what kind of person you are and how you like to work.

“I found that I like working in a team, very full-on, but the problem with that is that it becomes all encompassing,” Fear said. “When I work on a project [in a team], I’m working on that project and only that project for two years. And it becomes kind of my everything and that can take a toll on you a little bit.

“In the periods where I have done freelance, I’ve enjoyed being able to work on multiple things at the same time. They can act as a refresher, if you’re doing a different role or if the game is a different genre. [But] I felt a little bit less attachment to them, because there was a slight distance. So it’s very much a double-edged sword.”

Wood currently does both in-house writing at Failbetter, and freelance jobs on the side.

“While I love the security of Failbetter, freelance keeps me sane because I get to work on more than one thing,” she said. “But there is a risk that you can become quite lonely when you freelance [full-time]. I should also flag that being permanent is really, really relaxing because you get sick pay and you get holidays, which you don’t as a freelancer.

“When I was purely a freelancer I went a little bit mad because I would just work for months on end, even on weekends. So unless you’re incredibly disciplined, freelance on its own could be very hard.”

Advice for aspiring game writers

Downloading Twine, or Inkle’s own scriptwriting system Ink, can be a good place to start for aspiring games writers. Getting a narrative degree or doing a writing course is not mandatory, as it ultimately doesn’t say whether or not you’re a good writer. Wood said she prefers seeing short finished games attached to applications rather than what school you’ve been to.

“Finished, because finishing is the hardest thing you can ever do, and short because if I’m looking at things at my lunch and I can see whether someone is interesting in five to ten minutes, I’m happy to commit,” she explained. “If it’s eight hours, I’m gonna play a different game. I don’t have time. And it also shows you can do a build up and a good ending in a short piece.”

Don’t forget to post your projects online, on Itch.io for instance, or just publicise them using platforms like Twitter. Entering competitions like IFComp, dedicated to “text-driven digital games”, is also a good idea. Pratchett added that you need to be constantly improving your skills as a writer.

“Whether that’s doing courses or just your own experimental writing, find a peer group to give feedback, just keep writing and honing your skills as a writer,” she said. “[Then it's about] networking. Obviously it’s not a great time for networking at the moment, but in a normal world, [attend] conferences like GDC, Reboot, Nordic Game. They usually have some kind of narrative component to them, and show floors where you can actually meet developers face-to-face and see the game they’re working on.

“And [then it's also about] just playing a lot of games and broadening out [your scope]. Read books, go to the theater, listen to the radio, watch TV, watch movies — don’t just make games your source of understanding of the narrative world. You need to broaden your narrative scope to all kinds of storytelling, because they all have their own unique skills, and they can all be borrowed and adapted for games. You just need to be interested in the world as a writer, you need to be open-minded, you need to be a sponge for stories and for people.”

（source：gamesindustry.biz ）