Heather Cerny

We have crossed over the hill....

Last week we completed Alpha. Which in game terms means we now have a working game. All the main parts are there and it is playable. While we still have quite a ways to go before we could actually sell this game, this was a HUGE accomplishment. We have come a long way from where we were at the start of the semester. In only three months we have constructed (almost from nothing) this entire entity. There are still tasks to complete, assets to implement, and bugs to fix, but the soul of the game is there. It is an amazing fete. 

I am very proud to be part of this team. Working on this project has given me great experience that I can take with me out in the world. It sometimes amazes me how talented the members of this team are and how hard we have all worked to accomplish the things that we have this semester. From guest speakers we have had in the class, we have learned that teams who build games work long stressful hours for many months to produce the titles we love to play. Hearing these stories sometimes makes me wonder why anyone would want to put themselves through it, but no looking at all we have accomplished I think I can see the appeal. You put so much of yourself into this process and to see a real tangible result come from it is amazing. And as students it feels even better, because we have had to complete our tasks on a much shorter time scale, and we still have to juggle part-time jobs, clubs, and other classes. I know I can speak for others in the class that sometimes we don't know how we are going to get it all done. 

This week alone we are prepping for Beta testing for the game, I am finishing the edit of my short film debuting next week at the student film festival and writing a research paper for one of my other classes. You think that finishing a task would be enough, but there is always another task right behind it. Something else that needs to be accomplished. I think that may be the biggest lesson I can take from a project like this. Your work is never really over. Sometimes it will come to a point where you have to declare it 'finished' in order to accomplish something else, but your work is never really done. So while I am proud of our accomplishment of completing Alpha, and will celebrate with the team tonight at our pizza party and games night, I have to look forward and anticipate what comes next. BETA! 

My Journey as a Writer 

When I first became involved in this project I was unfamiliar with what went into writing for a game. I hadn't done much writing for media projects at that point. I had dabbled in screenwriting as well as 'micro fiction' the year before, but was still learning my writing techniques for the most part. I have always enjoyed writing. From a young age I loved to spin stories of my own invention, but, as I have learned, there is a vast difference between writing prose and writing for visual media. When writing for a visual medium you have to be much more concise in what you write in order for it to played out in front of a camera say, than if you are writing a novel and the reader has to create everything in their head. When I was asked to take on the role of head writer I was extremely flattered, but I was also slightly intimidated. This type of writing was foreign to me. However, I wanted to participate in the project and the professors seemed to have faith in me, so I took a leap of faith in that regard. 

Now several months later I can say that I had a right to be intimidated. The writing that goes into a project such as this is vast. Not only must you construct a narrative story which must be weaved throughout the game play, but you must also do non-fiction writing which goes into the menus and instruction panels. My team has also been in charge of naming everything in the game. In other wards, what are we calling all the pieces of the interface, what are the individual games within the game called, does the help file have a specialized name, etc. Sometimes I find myself becoming overwhelmed because just when you think you have written every piece of narrative background, or instruction panel, or help file entry that you could possibly need, something new is brought to my attention. 

Writing for a game is like nothing that I have ever done before. I have to switch between writing styles constantly because narrative pieces are written in one style, whereas help file and instruction pieces have a very non-fiction, almost textbook feel to them. Yet I also have to constantly tailor my work, because while something might be readable for me, I have to think about the audience of the game. In this case we are making a game who's target audience is grade 7 - 10. This generation of children have, typically, short attention spans, so I am constantly checking myself. My tendency is to write longish pieces (hence the length of this blog) yet I have to remember that something long-winded won't hold the attention of the average middle school age student. I also have to watch the style in which I write so that it is understandable for the average player.

Another thing I have learned about writing for a game is that I have to resign myself to the fact that most of what I write may never actually be seen or processed by the player. While I have spent long hours writing up detailed instructions, backstory, and historical documentation, the average player will most likely skip over most of this information and just play the game. They may not care about why the player does what it does, they just want to play the game. And unless they open our in-game encyclopedia they will probably never see most of the research we have done to make sure that this game is as historically accurate as possible.

As a writer who wants her words to be seen it is hard to think that most players won't see all the hard work that I have put into the game. It will just be something they glance over while they play the game. However, my hope is that there is some kid out there who really enjoys history and will read all the facts and narrative that pop up instead of just skipping over it. While I know that a lot of the game material comes from the writing team, I also know that most of this is most likely taken for granted by the player.

However, writing for this game has not been without merit. I have learned a lot about my own writing style through this process and I think I have developed as a writer. This experience has given me lots of chances to write in many different styles and with different purposes, which can be very beneficial for later in life. I will always have to write in some capacity in my life, and I know I will always want to write in some capacity, so writing in different circumstances has helped me greatly. Even keeping this blog as a 'journal' of my journey in this project is helping to mold me into a more proficient writer. I came into this project having no idea what I was really getting myself into, yet when I leave this project I know that I will leave feeling like I have developed as both a writer and a person. This opportunity has shaped me in more ways than one and I am very grateful. 

Welcome to my blog. 

This blog is meant to be a place to discuss my experience with the Game Development project, but it seems odd to just start divulging my thoughts without a proper introduction to who I am and how I first became involved with this venture. So hello. I am a fourth year Communications student here at Trinity Western University. I am a student in the media stream, so the majority of my Communication classes have involved different aspects of media, whether these be the more hands on classes such as the filmmaking courses (which range from introduction to film, to screenwriting to post-production), or more theory and/or criticism based classes such as Television and Culture.

When I heard about the game development project, I was immediately interested to know more about the opportunity. The medium of games was one that I hadn't yet explored in my studies, but one that is important to think about when studying media. Futhermore, I was interested to have the opportunity to be involved in a professional level project, that would have a tangible result. So much of what I had done so far in University had been theoretical, and yet with this project we would be able to take what we had learned in the classroom and actually apply it to something that will (hopefully) appear outside of the four walls of the classroom. 

Now having been involved with the project since September, I can see that this expectation has great potential to actually become reality. For my part, I have been able to observe this project becoming more and more real as time goes on. Back in September we had only the basic groundwork of what the game, now known as DyeWorks, would be. Now some four months later, and with only a few days remaining before Alpha, I can say that this idea has grown into an (almost) complete entity. The narrative groundwork has been laid, with the levels and activities fitting into that narrative frame. We have all the big chunks laid out and now are just working on the nitty-gritty. 

It is almost odd to think that a few months ago this whole thing was pretty much just an idea and now we get closer to a complete, playable game every day. It reminds me in a way of how fast my time at Trinity as gone by. First year seems like yesterday and yet here I am a little more than a month from walking down the aisle to collect my diploma. When you are actively working towards a goal, time seems to fly by and the deadline looms over your head as you try to recapture some of the time that has passed you by. As we near the date for release of the game (which is also about the time I will say goodbye to TWU), we seem to find ourselves searching for more time. For some, they are searching for more time to finish things, but for me I find myself searching for more time to spend amongst this great community where we are constantly encouraged to push past the boundaries of what is expected and make new and interesting choices. 

In a way I think that is one of the great things about this game project. We are being able to create something from nothing, but we are also being allowed to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. We are being able to ask questions and play with ideas. That is one of the great things about learning in an unorthodox environment that I don't think you can get anywhere else, and one of the main reason I wanted to get involved in the first place. 

Now, with all that being said, I will sign off. Next blog I will hopefully get more detailed about my experience with writing for this particular game and what it has taught me about where I want to go in the future.