Uncover Insights from 'Video Game Storytelling' Feedback

I consider myself a developer with a keen sense for narrative concepts and atmospheres. My biggest weakness has always been story structure. Within 30 pages this book got me moving in the right direction.

Getting a condensed description and set of examples for the most common elements of the monomyth was eye-opening, and my mind began immediately retooling narratives and concepts I've been working on for, unfortunately, a decade.

But what's really critical about this book is that it contextualizes the ludic element of gameplay in the narrative, something that you won't find when just reading about writing and narrative development. That axis of audience engagement with a video game is pretty specific, and it's good to have a metaphorical (and sometimes literal) diagram on how that can be critical to amplifying a game's narrative.

While the first half of the book tends to focus on the traditional storytelling components, the second half of the book ramps up to talk about how narrative impacts entire divisions of a studio, and that invaluable information is incredibly appreciated. You need to know how to be a good leader or team member that can appropriately interface with the storytelling department so that you can trust them to be a part of the team that contributes to the overall development process. Sometimes storytelling a ludology will bump. This book provides the tools to deal with those bumps and smooth them out.

If you're looking to create or work on narrative-driven games, this is a must-read.

I read this book from a friend of mine and I decide to buy it for myself is a pretty amazing book. Plus Evan is so nice person down to earth and humble instructor amazing

This book teaches you everything you need to know about storytelling and video games. I highly recommend this for anyone involved in game development no matter what your position.

Star wars fans are absolutely insufferable and they work their obsession into every facet of their lives. Even in video game books.

The thesis in the forward talked more about teamwork than it did about stories. It made no sense because it said that the story is supposed to make teamwork happen.

In the forward you find the author was not involved in many exciting games, mostly on the peripheral of popular game culture. They worked on Star wars games most notably, one of which he says it was canceled. What do you do after that, write a book?

If you read the forward they are very clear they don't want to talk about video games and they'd rather talk about Star Wars.

Every topic begins with a very dumbed down example or analogy that is totally excess.

I was hoping for a guide with very straightforward information and not having to read through somebody's analogy about Corvettes and mustangs gas in the tank and how it is somehow an analog to storytelling.

The last thing I was expecting was to have the stage set by a Star wars fan that they're going to talk more about Star wars than video game narratives. I didn't buy a Star wars narrative book I bought a video game narrative book.

Going into the first couple chapters I'm extremely disappointed and I don't think this book can recover from itself. I'm not interested in Star wars monomythematic garbage.

Bought this as a present for my husband who's into video game design - he loved it! Highly recommend.

This is a quality reference for anyone trying to write a story, be it a game or any big project. I highly recommend!