Joining Creative Projects

No one in a game design team has true creative freedom except at the beginning of a project. So if that's what you want to have, you're limited to either starting a project yourself or joining one right when it is starting. And even then, as the project advances you have to make sure your work is compatible with what's already been decided, including by yourself. If you really really care deeply about having 100% creative control you would be way better off writing novels than trying to write for games.

I do think a lot of writers are also designers though, for a writer/designer it makes some sense to be the one starting a project, although everyone attempting to lead a project is limited by the skills they don't have, whether that's programming or art or what.

Sun is right, but there's another way. You could just be "too good to ignore," as they say. Show that you aren't just riding on peoples' coat tails--a common problem in this crowd is getting people who can't actually do anything, so they decide they'll just manage the whole thing, or they'll "be the writer". If that's your skill level, then no one actually needs you because that's everyone's skill level.

On the other hand, maybe you've put as much time and effort into writing as the programmers have at programming. Maybe your material is manifestly better than anyone elses' they've ever seen. Maybe they can tell just but looking at your dialog and plot that they will be better off leaving the narrative in your capable hands. In that case, you're too good to ignore, and you'll have the freedom you want.

So the question you have to ask yourself is: are you a manifestly superlative writer, or are you just trying to ride coat tails?

In my opinion the only limit to the writer's imagination is his knowledge of the games industry.
The writing process should be creative and without limits. The ideas source and handling it into words should come from the subconscious mind without any interference from the logic of the conscious mind. The subconscious usually completes the idea from a to z and leaves no space for any addition if the writer gave his mind the required time of bringing an idea into being.
Team work spirit and 2 minds better than one will push the writer to apply modification on his work. But he finished his work as good as he can get with no intention of modification.
The only limitation the experienced writer should have is the boundaries of programming and graphics his producer has. His story line should be applicable to the hardware, doable to the programmers, suitable to the artists and acceptable to the producer's project time.

Quote:

Original post by emad michael The ideas source and handling it into words should come from the subconscious mind without any interference from the logic of the conscious mind.

*skeptical*
Personally I enjoy using logic to design my stories.

Quote:

Original post by emad michael The ideas source and handling it into words should come from the subconscious mind without any interference from the logic of the conscious mind.

If you are writing something solely for yourself, and you have no need of being paid by anyone, and you have no need to satisfy an audience.

I fear that I will fall into that; besides the writing and ideas, I won't bring much to the group.

As this suggests though;
http://www.sloperama.com/advice/specs.htm
write out everything.
Get out all of your details, then once you think you have everything covered, ask for opinions on things from friends or co-workers: whether they like this idea, or prefer A to B in games. Bring up a game that is similar to the one you want to make and ask what they liked most about it, what made it stand out, and most importantly; if they would change anything, what would it be?
Do remember that it is all opinion, but perhaps they have thought of something that you hadn't that will greatly improve your idea, or strengthen a specific aspect of yours that was lacking. Maybe they will suggest something as "it would be cool if _" that completely flips what you were going for, or changes an entire portion of how the game will play for the better that you never would have thought of yourself.

Once you have a solid story, descriptions, characters, outline of how the gameplay will work, then find people to help you actually create it. If they love your idea as much as you, they may not see a need to change anything.
This in a way could be a test; describing your game to them should fire them up and make them want to be a part of creating it just as much as you. If not, then either you should probably revise your story or other points, or find someone else to work with. If they don't have a passion for the project, then they most likely won't put forth their best efforts.

Side note:
Yours friends may become annoyed by questioning and badgering for their opinions :P

Being the 'creative' person I guess can have it's downfall as you can often be seen as the 'dude who can't bring anything but an idea to the table'.

I'm writing my own script, I've always been writing things and my mind is constantly buzzing with ideas about anything. Though I'm studying graphic design, I do a bit of concept art, a bit of music comp. I've done a bit of programming, but probably nothing that is relevant to anything professional.

I'm constantly changing, adding, rewriting my script for my game (for now it's just one of my creative outlets) but I hope to one day bring it to life in one way or another, prefferably by leading a team, though money will be the big problem ;)

Sunandshadow, does the very beginning of making your game have logic? I think the process you are using creating your game is that: you give your conscious mind all the data he needs to work your main plot then your conscious mind asks silently your subconscious whom gives you every answer you seek.
Tom Sloper, I get your idea and agree with. While handling the game plot every cell in the writer's body interact with the story. His thoughts, feelings, emotions and imagination get along with his decision of making a game. Surely he intends to make an interesting and a funny game which amazes everyone.

My game designs do have both creativity and logic involved from the very beginning. For example the current design I'm working on began with a survey of the team, asking them to rate 44 gameplay genres and story elements as something they were enthusiastic about, neutral about, or negative about. From these results I took the top two gameplay results and the top two story results and crossed them (like a Punnet square) to get four vague game types. Then I did some creative brainstorming about how each type of game might be fleshed out as an interesting and original concept. I also made a list of games of each type that I had played, and what I liked and didn't like about them. And I had an example fleshed-out game concept I checked to see if there were any blank areas in my concept compared to it, and when I found one I both brainstormed about what I could possibly fill it in with, as well as checked what similar games had there.

This is very brilliant and extremely outstanding.

The whole point is that emotion is all well and good, but it has to be tempered with intellect as well. Art may entail nothing but emotion, but entertainment has to also enlighten and stimulate the intellect.

That's a fantastic idea Sun, very interesting. Out of curiosity, if you're willing to share; what were the 2 genres and 2 story elements that you came to?
(You don't have to give any details that you've fleshed out- or anything at all for that matter)

Shirker - I asked the team producer if it was ok to release that information and he said it was. [smile] So for this particular team the winning gameplay genres were Real-Time Strategy, Turn-Based Tactical, and Sim, and the winning story settings were feudal and futuristic. (It was intended to be two of each but there was a tie for 2nd place between TBT and Sim.) One thing I realize afterward was that I should have asked "magic or no magic?" in the survey, and maybe also "human or non-human major characters?" But oh well, I can just collect that data in the next round of polling.

Interestingly, AbsoluteWrite, a writing forum I hang out at, is doing an activity this week which is basically the same as the next step of this design process. They let any registered member of the site submit an elevator pitch (3-4 sentences describing a story). There were 51 entries. Now it's the voting phase - any registered member of the site can see the pitches and vote for one, and anyone who wants to can comment/critique the pitches and post those responses in a forum thread. The one with the most votes at the end will basically be the most popular one (and will win a free book or something small like that). It's much the same as the way our team is going to be voting on concepts starting tomorrow, except I use a different voting process. I have people rate each idea as something they would be enthusiastic to make, satisfied but not enthusiastic to make, or would prefer not to make. Also in my teams case I will be providing several of the concepts being voted on based on the survey results, and will be rewriting any additional concepts submitted by team members to make the style and format match.

RTS/Sim in a "steam-punk"ish magic and technology setting, sounds awesome. Were you surprised with the results? Very true, you can always take another poll. That would be an interesting mix to have a little of it all though, it could work very well if done right. Hope it goes well
(I'll stop after this, I don't mean to completely through this off topic) :P

Actually steampunk was a setting category of its own, which lost. The winners were low fantasy (magic but no elves/dwarves/etc; less-cliched or original fantasy races and mages are ok) and science fiction ala star trek. Science fiction slightly beat fantasy.

The results surprised me a little, I was surprised the spellbar/cooldown type of combat MMOs usually use lost out hard, along with turn-based combat like in most single player RPGs and also solitaire and speedpuzzle/minigame type things. I was also surprised sims were so popular, yet adventure games were not, I would have expected the same people to mainly like those 2 genres. Adventure games came in third though so they weren't extremely unpopular. But RTS and sim are very similar so it makes sense that if one was popular the other was too.

The last time I did this sort of a poll science fantasy (as in high tech + magic) also won, but the winning gameplay genre was RPG with arcade-style combat.

The winner of the AbsoluteWrite concept contest was announced. It was a murder mystery which started with a powerful image of a puzzling and disturbing crime scene and personal involvement of the main character.

My concept came in somewhere in the middle, which I was happy with considering that I made a rather large error in how I pitched the concept (as did at least 1/3 of people who submitted pitches: the moral is, always get a second opinion on a piece of writing, no matter how small, before showing it to a publisher).