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Writing for Video Games

Peter Boychuk, Andrew Gray, and Kim Sparks

Acquire the globally in-demand skills necessary to succeed as a writer in the fast-growing world of video games.

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Acquire the globally in-demand skills necessary to succeed as a writer in the fast-growing world of video games.

As the gaming industry matures, excellence in writing and game narrative has become increasingly important to the success of both major studio titles and independent games. Through this interactive medium, writers and game developers are telling stories in new and exciting ways. To meet this need, studios are hiring increasing numbers of writers and narrative designers.

In this Professional Certificate Program, you’ll learn the tools and techniques of writing for video games in a comprehensive program designed by successful, working game writers and teachers. From story and character development to worldbuilding and interactive narrative, this Certificate will help you excel in a business that requires creative, flexible team players.

If you choose the verified track, you will gain additional access to interviews with game industry experts as well as targeted writing assignments that will help you build a portfolio of work suitable for applying to a wide variety of industry positions, or assist you in moving into a writing role in an existing video game company. In our final course, Working as a Game Writer, verified learners will receive direct feedback from our faculty on their final portfolios.

UBC’s School of Creative Writing has been a global leader in writing education for more than 50 years. We are innovative pioneers of multi-genre writing instruction, both in-class and online, and have been offering courses in video game writing since 2017.

What you'll learn

  • The crucial differences between traditional storytelling and writing for video games.
  • The writer and narrative designer’s role in the game development process.
  • How to develop characters and write scenes that serve both the narrative and the production of a game.
  • How to work with art directors, programmers and level designers to create interactive narratives.
  • How to develop an application portfolio and excel at industry-standard writing tests.
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What's inside

Six courses

Video Game Writing Essentials

(25 hours)
Writing for video games is a new frontier where writers and game designers are still learning, innovating, and pioneering bold approaches to telling stories. This course is your introduction to this frontier. We'll explore interactive storytelling and the history of video games.
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Writing Video Game Characters

(25 hours)
You might spend two hours with a character in a movie, but you can spend hundreds of hours interacting with the player character, antagonists and all the non-player characters (NPCs) in a video game. Getting character right is a vital part of getting the game right.
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Writing Video Game Scenes and Dialogue

(25 hours)
Increasingly, game designers realize cutscenes, cinematics, and character interactions through dialogue are not just breaks from gameplay or ways of providing exposition. They are integral to the player’s experience of a game.
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Worldbuilding for Video Games

(25 hours)
A game’s setting is crucial, and game designers must create a compelling new world that players will want to explore and inhabit for many hours. Game writing is a collaborative process, and worlds are designed with input from art directors, level designers, and even marketing teams. But writers have an integral role in making these worlds feel rich, deep and believable.
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Interactive Narrative

(25 hours)
The primary difference between video games and other art forms is interactivity. Players embody the characters in a game; instead of watching the protagonist make choices, they actively make choices for the player character. In this course we will explore how choice works in games, how branching plots work, and how to manage them with tools such as pinch points, bottlenecking and story silos.
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Working as a Game Writer

(25 hours)
What is it like to work as a video game writer? How do you apply for game writing jobs? This capstone course puts everything you’ve learned in the previous courses together. Each assignment has helped you produce writing samples that are suitable for a portfolio. Now we’ll show what to do with it.
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Time
150 hours
Via
edX
Institution
University of British Columbia
Instructors
Peter Boychuk
Andrew Gray
Kim Sparks
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