I noticed that there is a new ''Game Writing'' forum area now, and I am left wondering what is the difference? A good design should lead to few problems that are game writing issues. I might be mising something.

I''ve always thought that they were intergral parts of one another. Software engineering is the interface, architecture, and so forth, a subset of game design. You can''t design an interface until you figure out which one will work best for the story. Also, integration of the two keeps reality in line. If you know the numbers that the target system can handle, the story writer for the game won''t be as likely to call for an epic battle between armies 10,000 units in size.

If you differentiate between software engineering and game story writing (game writers, I am afraid, are coders no matter how you look at it) to such an extreme you will having your software engineer going for a techno looking interface with resource and unit management when the game story writer is writing a story for an action flight sim.

You have story writers (story writers), architects (software engineers), layout designers (graphics artists), and game writers (coders). All of these are intergral parts of a game design team, or a role assumed by a game designer with out a team.

writing: making words, story, plot, etc... sort of an art

design: making rules, math systems (such as THAC0), writing algorithims for how things are resolved, figuring out how gameplay will flow. Also includes making maps. Does not include actual programming. Is an engineering discipline

Game design is the process of writing the game from start to finish. You have to have a story to start the whole shebang off with. Story writing and game design are inclusive. The only reason you would need story people would be to fill in the gaps between the key events and finale (if the game has one). Aside from that there isn''t a need for a ''game story writer''. It makes no sense. I have no idea where the concept of a ''game writer'' came from, but everything I have read, everyone I talked to, and all my expericence (not a lot) has the story as the start of the game design process - conceived, roughed out, and prepared by the game designer.

Game designer writes: Character A approaches Character B and convinces him to join the quest.

Game writer writes: the dialogue that gets printed on the screen or read by the voice actor or both.

Very different disciplines. Not that one person can''t do both, but it is not always done nor is it always possible, given time constraints.

That is fine for RPGs, but not required for FPS, TPS, RTS, etc. Anyways, as a story writer you can't think about a story before the game design starts, which someone has already designed a story for, and since story is a subset of game design and story is a part of initial game design doesn't story dictate design and design dictate story so they are the same?

Edited by - Whirlwind on September 20, 2000 4:43:56 PM

You also have to factor in that the size of most games these days are enormous and will only get bigger. A new forum for ''game writing'' is only the next step in the evolution of this BB for game development. I think that in the future we''ll see more and more of the facets of game development needing forums of there own. Besides that, it would seem to facilitate a need to explore the writing process more. IMO...