Casual Game: Delicious - Emily's Tea Garden

I've been working with some great guys over in Eindhoven at the GameHouse studio on a few casual game titles they wanted some writing help with. The first of these titles, Delicious - Emily's Tea Garden, has just been released over at the RealArcade site. If you enjoy playing casual games I'm sure you'll love this one, too, so be sure to take a look.

The game is actually the third in a series and I wrote the story and dialogue for this one.

Award nomination

Although it was announced on Saturday, I've only just discovered the news that I've been nominated for an award. At the Writers Guild of Great Britain Awards, no less. The nomination is in the following category:

Best Videogame Script

Rhianna Pratchett - Overlord
Tom Jubert - Penumbra Black Plague
Rhianna Pratchett, Tameem Antoniades and Andy Serkis - Heavenly Sword
Steve Ince - So Blonde


I wonder if I should dig out my penguin suit...

York Writers - new URL

I am a member of York Writers and we recently changed the URL of the group's website, which can now be found at this link.

Writing Awards

The Writers Guild of America announced last year that it would be creating a new award aimed at game writers. More recently it announced the shortlist, amongst which was the game The Witcher. But because I am not a member of the WGA or its New Media Caucus I was not included in the list of writers nominated.

Now, I have nothing against the other talented writers who were nominated, but it seems like the WGA are taking my share of the credit and alocating it to the writers who are their members. I realise that the awards are for their members, but in a world where we all thrive, professionally, on our credits, this seems a little wrong.

If my work had been less significant I wouldn't even give it a a second thought, but as I edited and re-wrote over 90,000 words of dialogue I think that my contribution is not something that should be glossed over.

I don't expect this post to change anything, but I felt like letting off a little steam (in a polite way).

I'm Featured on Nextcat

Nextcat is a new social networking site geared towards creative industries like film, animation and games. I've been chosen as one of the "featured talent" profiles on their main gaming page, so the least I could do is put up a link. :)

If anyone else is on Nextcat why not add me?

Plotting Talk

I gave a talk on plotting last night at a meeting of York Writers. I was pretty nervous, as many of the writers have been published, and wondered how they would take what I had to say. Thankfully, they all seemed to enjoy it and it fired up some interesting discussion afterwards, which resulted in us running over the normal meeting time.

Because of my years of game development experience, the first part of the talk was about how stories work in games and how we approach the creation of the stories to ensure that they are sound, logically. The second was how I'm bringing some of those techniques to bear for the novel that I'm writing in my spare time.

If I get the time, I may turn my notes into a Developing Thoughts article, though it may be better as a couple of articles. I shall let you know.

Stuff is happening all the time...!!

And no one told me!

Again, I'm sorry for not posting very much just lately, but my life feels full. But I'm going to take a little time to chill, listen to some music (Wishbone Ash at the moment) and write a few words.

I'm currently working on a project that I can't mention just at the moment, but it's one I'm sure at least some of you will find interesting. I'm sure something will be announced soon.

The English voices have been recorded for So Blonde: Forgotten Island and I'm so pleased with the quality. Thanks to wonderful voice direction from Martin T Sherman, the actors really delivered some wonderful performances. Our villain's voice is one of the best I've heard in a game.

I've mentioned before that I've been asked to give a talk about plotting to the York Writers group (which people are welcome to come to if they wish - it's in September; final date to follow later). Well, the more I think and research the idea, the more I think that there's quite a lot of scope for a long essay or a short book
It feels like there is a lot or grey-ness surrounding the subject as people have very different ideas about the role of story and plot, how they link together, the connection between outlining and plot and how plotting can be used as a means to an end in itself, particularly in games.
Games, it seems to me, often have very strong plots and weak stories. I think that because we're used to developing strong game logic, this helps game creators develop strong plots, too. Or, at least, very sound plots. I think that there are plotting lessons we can take from games and use them to apply to stories in other media.
While I'm still in the early stages of this - and the talk will be a useful test of some of them - I'm quite hopeful that it could be a useful exercise.

GC in Leipzig draws ever closer. I'm sure that it will be pretty tiring and very crammed with lots of meetings, interviews and such, but I'm looking forward to meeting up with some people I haven't seen in ages and some I will be meeting for the first time. If you're going, be sure to stop by the DTP booth (wherever that is) and say hello if I'm available.

Jason is moving to Wales at the weekend and Shaun has got promotion in his job.

Comic Strip Hiatus again

It looks like the comic strips are going to be on an extended hiatus for the forseeable future. So far, I've had no luck in finding artists to help me out that would maintain the kind of style I would want for the strip.

Although it isn't something I want to do, I'm entering a pretty busy period and any spare time I have I want to concentrate on writing and design projects. I know it's not what the readers of the strips want to hear, but I must prioritise in order not to burn myself out. Sorry to everyone who's been following the strips, but I'm hoping they'll return in the autumn.

Plotting

I was at the York Writers meeting last Wednesday (I'm currently updating the website so I'll post a link when it's done) where we had a guest reading his poetry - Oz Hardwick. The evening was most enjoyable and Oz's reading really gave a lot of life to his poems.

Afterwards I was approached by one of the committee members, a chap called Glyn, who asked if I'd be interested in giving a talk on plotting, which caught me a little by surprise. But as we talked about it briefly I guess that much of what I do is based around plotting. Without good plotting the kind of games I develop would have lots of holes in them and would probably have lots of dead ends and gameplay flaws.

So at the moment I'm thinking about how to approach the talk and I'm not sure when it will fit into the group's schedule, but I'll post more about it as plans firm up and give more details in case there are some who may wish to attend, if they're in the area.