It’s time we took Narrative Design more seriously.
Building better player-stories, quicker, for less money.
It’s time we took Narrative Design more seriously.
Wait, what?
The games industry sucks at Narrative Design and story pipelines. This costs almost every role in a studio time, money, and creative potential. It’s time we had some grown up conversations about how to fix it.
It doesn’t help that there’s a kind of pervasive hand-waving about it - “oh it means something different for each studio” - which it does, but it shouldn’t. It doesn’t help that half the time, story development and/or the narrative design function is left to the (‘narratively ambitious’) game or similar director instead of investing in specialists. Developers, games and their audiences, are suffering as a result.
That’s not to say there aren’t great narrative games or talented Narrative Designers (NDs) out there - that’s self-evident, but they’re an exception, not the norm. Our potential is being limited by a poor institutional understanding of what Narrative Design is, and could be. Studios big and small are still getting the basics wrong (or just criminally under baking them) - it’s time we raised the bar.
On the cusp of completing my first decade in the industry - having worked on 15-ish projects and shipped about 12 of them - I’m fed up of pushing the Sisyphean boulder up the hill. I’m ready to have those conversations. I don’t have all the answers but I’m damn certain now that I know what the right questions are.
Coming Soon…
This is an intro post, but it’s only right I give you an idea what to expect. On the docket is:
A deep dive on the narrative systems of Dragon’s Dogma 2, how they compare to those of genre-mate Elden Ring, and what the reception to both can teach us about where the open-world narrative paradigm is headed.
Harold Halibut - for which I wrote the entire 150k+ script - is out on the 16th, so I fancy some instructive anecdotes on why story is gameplay, but likewise how, why, and when to insert ‘more gameplay’ into what is essentially an interactive film.
Narrative design nomenclature. Why it’s important we strive for some semblance of standardised industry lexicon, and some starters for ten - along with some anecdotal evidence about the (both emotional and financial) costs/effects of not having one.
Creating a good story/ND pipeline. Thoughts drawn from a decade of experience on what it takes to get a team operating at full steam - and all the things that sabotage, undermine and frustrate.
Who the heck am I to say this?
Well, my name is Danny Salfield Wadeson. I’m currently a Principal Narrative Designer at Firesprite, a Playstation Studio, where I work on a (sadly unannounced) cinematic, branching narrative game, and where I also helped ship Horizon: Call of the Mountain for the launch of PSV2.
Prior to that, I worked for about 8 years on various award-winning narrative indie games such as Roki, Harold Halibut and Backbone. I also worked on a slew of more varied projects, such as an official Game of Thrones idle-narrative mobile game, a hit rogue-like deckbuilder called Meteorfall: Krumit’s Tale, and a whole bunch more.
Before that all kicked off, I co-founded an indie games studio. Won’t be doing that again any time soon.
Prior to working as a developer, I did a stint as a long-form features games journo and spent a few years working for a multi-channel network (on ‘branded integration’ for giant gaming channels) and in experiential marketing for Xbox UK’s lead agency - I got to do things like organise the games industry five-a-side tournament and decide which games went in the Legoland games hut thing.
And I studied Literature & Film at uni. I read and watched some weird shit over those years.
To wrap it up, I’ve got a background in getting shit done in the relatively unfeeling world of marketing/advertising combined with the experience of working on story and narrative design across a super wide range of genres, platforms, studio sizes, budgets and ambitions. Time and time again I’ve seen (and proven) what processes help to create story-worlds that move people and come out on time, and what processes send a team and their game into an irrevocable death-spiral - and most of the in-between.
Who is this for? Spoiler: everyone.
This isn’t only for narrative designers and writers. It’s for anyone looking to better understand the problems and opportunities that narrative design faces - and for anyone invested in having better storytelling in their games.
Although you’re going to get more out of it with a working knowledge of narratology and game specific narrative systems.
What & when?
I’m not going to rush any one issue of this newsletter out, they’ll be ready when they’re ready - but I’m going to aim for once a fortnight.
The content will vary but the aim will always be laser-focused on exploring how we can raise the narrative design and storytelling pipeline bars for all.
Thanks for reading. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Think someone would benefit from this? Tell the world!
Please let me know any thoughts, suggestions, feedback etc, like I say - I want this to be a conversation.
As a fellow ND I had a felling of "Finally someone says it!" reading this. Look forward to future writing, subbed immediately :)