Slay the Dragon

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Slay the Dragon: Writing Great Video Games is a book written by Robert Denton Bryant and Keith Giglio.

It's easy to read and written okay with some fun end-of-chapter assignments. It has a 'gamers don't play games for their incredible stories BUT THEY SHOULD' and 'writers are the most important devs and should always be a separate role and involved in every decision' slant. For $25, it's a pretty regrettable purchase, but whatever lol I had fun.

It assumes you are also a Hollywood flunky and know nothing about games but lots about movies and are settling for a game writer job. Unfortunately, I don't get most of his movie references used as teaching examples (I don't know the first thing about Titanic and The Godfather, so the tiniest description of character motivation or plot would help lol) and his game examples are so far beneath me. (I think everyone knows Mario jumps, especially after like five in-depth explanations.)

The content's repetitive, with the writers reiterating over and over again that games aren't like movies because the audience is involved, that games haven't reached their full potential, and that you need to interweave narrative into every aspect of the game. Their idea of the ideal game is one with infinitely branching stories where your choices matter, sentient AI, real world graphics, and no scary "meatheaded" "men of action" as characters. Anything less will obviously be less immersive, less artistic, and will scare away those highly important female gamers. There are plenty of industry quotations and example lists, which are cool. He does share some filmmaking lingo and some game writing lingo, too, which is interesting.

Bryant and Giglio are clearly Hollywood flunkies who want to push the supreme importance of writing over gameplay. They unironically use the phrases "Nerdyhood" and "acne rage." They like movies more than games and use tons of movies as examples. Their favorite, best, all-time games are Netflix VNs like The Last of Us and Telltale stuff, with some basic Mario and arcade stuff thrown in. They think Superman has no weaknesses except Kryptonite and is incapable of getting in a tense situation. I think they really like God of War, too, and think it is brilliantly written or something. They literally think Mass Effect's choices matter (with "thousands" of outcomes). They also like Anna Anthropy and Depression Quest and compare Gamergate to the He-Man Woman Haters Club.

There are end-of-chapter exercises, saved at Slay the Dragon Assignments.

I finished reading it on August 8, 2019.

Concepts

People

  • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Amy Henning
  • Anna Anthropy
  • Brian Kindregan
  • Charles Dickens
  • Charlie Chaplin
  • Craig Lafferty
  • Darryl F. Zanuck
  • David Cage
  • David Jaffe
  • Emily Short
  • Drew Karpyshyn
  • Film Crit Hulk
  • Frank Daniel
  • Haris Orkin
  • H. G. Wells
  • Jeffrey Yohalem
  • Jesper Juul
  • Jill Murray
  • John Huston
  • Jordan Mechner
  • Joseph Campbell
  • Ken Levine
  • Kevin Spacey
  • L. Frank Baum
  • Larry Hryb (Major Nelson)
  • Mike Nichols
  • Neil Druckmann
  • Orson Welles
  • Preston Sturges
  • Richard Iggo
  • Richard Rouse III
  • Sir Salman Rushdie
  • Sam Lake
  • Sid Meier
  • Stephen Dinehart
  • Steve Gaynor
  • Susan O'Connor
  • Tom Abernathy
  • William Archer

Games

  • Adventure
  • Alan Wake
  • Asteroids
  • Battle Realms
  • Bioshock
  • Braid
  • Chess
  • Diablo
  • Dead Island
  • Dead Space
  • Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)
  • Fallout 3
  • Far Cry
  • FIFA
  • Final Fantasy VII
  • God of War
  • Gone Home
  • Halo
  • Kriegsspiel
  • L.A. Noire
  • Madden
  • Mass Effect
  • Max Payne
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
  • Minecraft
  • Myst
  • Pong ( Prince of Persia
  • Quantum Break
  • Skyrim
  • Spacewar!
  • Super Mario Bros.
  • The Last of Us
  • The Order: 1886
  • The Talos Principle
  • Uncharted
  • World of Warcraft

(Slay the Dragon: Writing Great Video Games by Robert Denton Bryant & Keith Giglio, 2015.)