If you want to try writing for game I suggest you to try to know and familiarize first with text heavy and story base game, you can do it alone and test the market:
In order of complexity/gameplay
- visual novel
- dating sims
- adventure game
- interactive fiction
- walking sims
- rpg
- chatbot game
Join the respective community and then try all the available tools like
- twine
- ren py
- inform7
- etc ...
I would direct you to emily's short design breakdown of all the conversation mechanics in game, it's a must read, might give you ideas! Of course since it's covering the whole spectrum of interactive conversation you won't need all, but it will give a solid ground with practical concept and implementation for your own need.
Even though she spoke from the perspective of the IF genre, the many trope use in if are also used elsewhere (menu choice is therefore covered). The concept being both abstract AND practical it's easy to translate them to PGC as she laid out guideline that can be translated into rules, especially as she spend great time outlining the pro and con and the limit of each model. IMHO she is the sharpest designer in the whole community of dev, period.
Emily's works:
- the basics
https://emshort.wordpress.com/how-to-play/writing-if/my-articles/conversation/http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/05/column_homer_in_silicon_the_co_1.phphttp://www.tigsource.com/2009/05/14/emily-short-conversation-methodologies/ (masterclass in the comment)
- series on modeling conversation, cover all the state of the art, practical
https://emshort.wordpress.com/page/3/?s=modeling+conversation+flowhttps://emshort.wordpress.com/page/2/?s=modeling+conversation+flowhttps://emshort.wordpress.com/?s=modeling+conversation+flow- the breakthrough design masterpiece on cnversation, to read!
https://emshort.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/versu-conversation-implementation/https://emshort.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/versu-content-structure/https://emshort.wordpress.com/how-to-play/writing-if/my-articles/action-and-interaction/https://emshort.wordpress.com/category/conversation-modeling/https://versublog.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/versu.pdfhttps://versublog.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/ptai_evans.pdfhttps://versublog.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/praxis.pdfhttps://versublog.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/graham_versu.pdf- her analysis of how information, story and design merge in some game is insightful for building our own implementation in any games.
http://www.gamesetwatch.com/column_homer_in_silicon/7.phphttp://www.gamesetwatch.com/column_homer_in_silicon/6.phphttp://www.gamesetwatch.com/column_homer_in_silicon/5.phphttp://www.gamesetwatch.com/column_homer_in_silicon/4.phphttp://www.gamesetwatch.com/column_homer_in_silicon/3.phphttp://www.gamesetwatch.com/column_homer_in_silicon/2.phphttp://www.gamesetwatch.com/column_homer_in_silicon/https://emshort.wordpress.com/how-to-play/reading-if/https://emshort.wordpress.com/how-to-play/reading-if/plot-and-narrative/https://emshort.wordpress.com/how-to-play/writing-if/Chatbot
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6305/beyond_fa%C3%A7ade_pattern_matching_.php?print=1 http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132155/beyond_aiml_chatbots_102.php?print=1http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTero/20130318/188686/Creating_Better_NPCs.php?print=1http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BruceWilcox/20110623/89684/Suzette_the_Most_Human_Computer.phpOther place to find very good resources is teh GDC vault
http://www.gdcvault.com/freeCheck both game design and narrative, in fact visual art also have things that cross other and that you should know.
Start with Demarle's presentatio on writing at eidos for deus ex to have a good overview of the process.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015027/Building-the-Story-driven-ExperienceGamasutra also have a good resource on the subject although it's hard to find on your own. (see the chatbot example above)
Think that the story is still work the same, aka you use your narrative tools to build a "mental model" but the delivery is different. The pacing in game is based on event rather than time, and consider BEING (don't tell the player is a criminal, place it in the situation) rather than showing (showing is like the passive tense, it's not happening to you, that's why there is great use of "scripted event" around the player to tell story).
Writing using stake is more important, especially when the player is not define, and the stake should overalp the local gameplay goal, let say you are criminal and want to get to a man because he has evidence, the man is the goal, the path toward the man is the "progression" (which will define the level), the stake is that you must not let it go with the evidence (winning) without being captured or detected by cops (losing), Using some MEAN (brutality or stealing or charming, etc ...). even though the player is not define by a personality the context constrain his actions with consequence.
More complex writing is when the stake is layered or grey, I will advise you to play "paper please" to see how layered stake make a storytelling with events compelling without using traditional delivery. Consider where the goal is at, is it hold in a physical space, social, moral, or a mental space, this will shape the kind of mean and stake you can have in your story, even if you are doing an action game you can always translate one space into another.
For example: the character find courage (mental space) by fighting the lion (physical space) and prove herself to other (social space) at the expense of the love of his husband (emotional space). The distance between her and the lion constitute the progression in each of these space because the lion symbolized goal in other space too, so as the player progress toward the realization of the goal you can set up event that represent the story progression, for example the people start praising the hero as he collect the MEAN while her husband warn her, escalating as the goal get closer.
So you must also keep track of a definite measure of progression too, is it a collection of object (for example assembling a ragtime team of mercenary or collecting weapon and armor), is it the physical distance? Having a metric let you pace the story and also turn it into an interactive system (you can have dynamic thief that stole part of the armor which impede the progression, the path can be actively block by natural event to fight, etc ...) as long as those system feed and control the progression, by accelerating it or slowing it down, as long they don't stale it, block it or reverse it for no reason.
You will have a serious competitive edge if you understand system and gameplay. For example you can use system to create stake by balancing how resource are acquired and spend, and if you abstract all story to resource spending. I'll advise you to learn the machination framework to do this
http://www.jorisdormans.nl/machinations/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page .