1. Thanks!
Last week was one of the best weeks Confetti has ever had. It
was stressful and intense, but a big thanks from us to you!
• Observation/inspection results proved us to be high grade
lecturers for our course!
• Niall Voice, Nathan Goredema and GS8 were BIG winners at the
awards – well done to everyone nominated
If you didn’t get involved. Why not? You could have earned points and an extension for
your assignments

2. Tick, Tock!
The clock is ticking for this first academic year. I’m
making decisions about you, your performance this
year and forecasts for next year.
Have you performed as well as you could have??
How do you know?

3. Extensions vs Deadlines
Those who gave up their time to the awards and the
showcase have earned an extension to Friday.
Those who have handed in work after the Friday
deadline will be put on disciplinary stage 1 unless they
have seen me for an extension prior to the deadline.


4. Japanese Word of the Week (20)
Watashi no nihongo wa jouzu ja
arimasen...
[Wat-ashi no nee-hongo wa
tzuzu ja arry-masen]
Iie, yokatta ne?!

5. Aims & Objectives
Aims:
Students will critique others work in order to offer a critique on
their work.
Objectives:
All students will be able to examine 3 points for critique in others work
Most students will be able to examine 3 points for critique in others
work and 2 in their own work
Some students will be able to examine 3 points for critique in others
work and 2 in their own work explaining both in detail

6. Computer Game Story
Development
21 June 2010
Unit 72 Computer Game Story Development

7. Computer Game Story Development
1 Understand storytelling for games
2 Be able to produce a story for a game
3 Be able to produce game dialogue
4 Be able to reflect upon own narrative work.

8. What Went Right?

9. What To Look For When
You Review Yourself
• Did you enjoy it?
• Were you true to the assignment
requirements?
• Did you pay tribute to devices or style of plot
delivery?
• Did you learn something?

10. Did You Enjoy It?
The liberation of language combined with
imagination are brilliant for really assessing your
strengths and weaknesses in conditions like this.

11. Were You True To The Assignment
Requirements?
Did you write too much? Do you believe it to be
a good thing. Try and look at the positives of
writing too much.

12. Did You Pay Tribute To Devices Or
Style Of Plot Delivery?
Why did you choose dramatic structure rather
than 12 part journey? How would it affect the
outcome if your story was a game?

13. Activity
I’m handing out some of last year’s ‘Long Way
Home’ submissions. Using the previous slides
as considerations; please review this work on
its merits.
DO – tell me what’s good or ways that the writer can improve
DON’T – look for spelling mistakes or grammar issues
DO – comment on the effectiveness of the story against the assignment
DON’T – re-mark this work: it’s already been done!

14. How Did You Get On?
Were you too harsh? Not harsh enough? How
did your work compare to that of the
exemplar?

15. We ALWAYS Compare
“Alan Wake is much better than Max Payne”
“ FFXIII is the best RPG ever made”
“Give me Gears of War any day!”
But, why?

16. What Went Wrong?

17. What To Look For When
You Review Yourself
• Did you underperform in this assignment?
• What would you change if you resubmitted?
• Who got it right? You or your influences?
• Did you want to learn or just get to the end?

18. Sometimes We’re Blinded
FACT: Not every X-Men storyline ever written is
good
FACT: Just because it says HALO on the
packaging, doesn’t mean it’s going to be
memorable
FACT: People lose their jobs over bad production

19. You Need To Know...
... When you’ve messed up and why
... What’s happened and how you can solve
the problem
... Where your influences went wrong, or right
and how you acted on it

20. Was Less More?
I know that the very idea of using Oracle/Monitor and having
an AI focus on Cortana caused a massive plot shift, largely due
to how we had to make the story for the audience, rather than
for ourselves as writers (or fans?) of HALO.

21. A Loss of Focus
Think of the extent with which you may have lost
focus (as I did in HALO) with your ‘Long Way
Home’:
• How did you shift your focus?
• How did you correct it (if at all)
• How did you recover?

22. Activity
Look at last year’s submission again. Now go for
broke! Avoiding the obvious, have a go at
breaking this submission down into some of
the subjects we’ve covered in section 2 of
today’s lecture.

23. What Happened?
Did you make choices based on good, and bad
points you saw in the submission?
• If yes, you will make a great critique of your own
work.
• If no, you might need to go back over the
exemplar and see how you get on.

24. Here’s What You Could Have
Found In The Exemplar...
• Poor dialogue
• A lack of ending / denouement
• Brilliant characterisation (not backed up in the audio podcast)
• Strong ensemble cast but weak storyline
• Too many words, but nothing happened
• Hard to visualise – where the storyboard?
• No script or real direction of how the story will develop

25. Overview – What Have We Learned?
• You can look at positives as negatives and
vice-versa
• Your ability to step away from the story is the
best thing you can do
• A critique can come from the influences you
have used in your writing
Have we met our outcomes?

26. Next Week
Writing a critique based on existing stories and
game examples – please play a game similar to
your story.
• If it’s a relationship story – look at RPGs
• All action? See FPS’