Even Game Design Majors Outsource

How I became the writer for a game design team at UC Santa Cruz

You mean I can play games for homework?!

As I have mentioned before, I graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in English Literature. But this is not to say that I haven't taken any classes in video game design. UC Santa Cruz does have a new video game design program that started in 2007 by Jim Whitehead. I remember standing at a bus stop on campus on the first day of Winter quarter and seeing a flier encouraging students to come to the first ever "Foundations of Interactive Game Design" class. I read the flier and got really excited because I have always had just as much interest in making games as in playing them. Then I noticed that the time slot for the course was at the exact time as my first upper division literature class that is not only required to graduate but being taught by one of the most popular and respected professors in the lit department. I was crushed that I couldn't take the Foundations of Game Design class but I knew that it would eventually be offered again.
A year later the class was on the schedule again and this time I made to enroll in it immediately. On the first day the class was bursting at the gills with students thinking to get an easy A and play games for homework. Well, we did play games for homework, but we were required to write in depth reviews on them using information learned in class regarding design elements. We were also required to create a game to present to our classmates at the end of the quarter and create concept documents and progress reports along the way. As if these weren't enough to inform me I was in the right class, there was demonstration of Portal at the end of class. I was in heaven.

Taking it a step further

As the class went on Professor Whitehead encouraged students who were doing well in the class to look into the game design major. Despite being only a few classes short of completing my literature degree I did some research into Santa Cruz's game design major and found out that all the courses were for programming. I was less interested in learning how to code. What I have a passion for is creating a new world, creating visual and interactive stories. I really loved my literature classes and the game design major's heavy emphasis on the technical aspects of development did not seem like a match to the role I wanted as a game developer. So I went to Professor Whitehead after class and told him that I was a lit major with serious interest in game design as a writer and asked him where I could go to learn more about jobs at game design companies and how to get them. He directed me to IGDA, which has been a huge source of help, and told me he would look into it for me. At the next class meeting I was talking with a friend before class started when I noticed Professor Whitehead wading through students and backpacks to come talk to me. He asked me if I was serious about writing for games and when I told him I was he told me about a group of Senior game design majors who were working on an original game for their final year long project and needed a writer. He gave me the phone number of the lead designer for the team and I set up a meeting with him the next day.

Mission Impossible: Sign me up!

I met up with Jeff outside the Engineering building and he told me a little about their project as we made our way to the game lab. The game was called The Hacker and the Heroine and was a survival horror slash puzzle slash strategy game with an emphasis on dynamic narrative. One of the problems though, was that they had a back story but no dialogue. No dialogue for a game that was supposed to shift depending on conversations held between the two main characters. The guys on the team created their own AI and game engine and created most of the artwork for the game, but none of them felt comfortable writing the script. Without a script to provide an idea for the types of levels they should be designing, they had mostly been creating random levels and objects to I will provide an in depth description of the Hacker and the Heroine in my next post but I will give a simplified description for now. The basis of the game is that the Heroine is a soldier trapped in a government facility full of mutants and monsters. The Hacker discovers the Heroine's predicament and decides to help her escape by hacking cameras, security systems, opening doorways and helping her avoid or destroy creatures in her path. How the plot is revealed and how well the Hacker and the Heroine work together is based on the level of trust established between them. As the level of trust changes the Heroine is more or less inclined to take the Hacker's (players) advice and shifts how she approaches battles.
The guys on the team asked me to write a script with multiple endings and various outcomes for all conversations with free license to do whatever I wanted with the characters and plot lines, subject to approval of course. They gave me a password for the wiki that contained all the current information on the game and the basic back story. Jeff asked if I was comfortable with what they needed from me and thought I would be able to write the script and come to weekly meetings that I should come back tomorrow with an opening scene. I told him no problem and became the latest member of the team.
The script I wrote indicated five levels, each with a different environmental feel. We met up to discuss what kinds of objects and enemies should be in each level, what the boss fights should be and coordinated to make sure that game play and script were well balanced and reflected each other to create a seamless experience. Eventually we found a student named Brandon from the music major to compose an original soundtrack that matched the tone we wanted for the game. There was another team working on a separate project which had students from the art major generating content. Brandon and I used to laugh that even though it was really exciting that UCSC had a game design major, the strictly computer focused nature of the major forced the students to outsource to other majors like literature, music and art. I fully understand the importance of the technical aspects of game development, but the creative elements are also important in the creation of a well rounded game.