Writing Interactive Stories for Video Games & Other Formats

Explore how every story centers on conflict and a journey, driving the hero from setting out to return with both external and internal challenges.

Learn how conflict drives stories by identifying the central driving conflict and its subplots, with examples of character versus character, nature, and society.

Explore conflict types like character against self and against fate, illustrated by Pinocchio’s conscience, Simba’s self-doubt, and Oedipus’s struggle with destiny, plus technology’s threat in modern tales.

Design interactive narratives by outlining branching outcomes with flowcharts, mapping conflicts and key stages to produce a complete game script.

Explore the mythic story structure inspired by Joseph Campbell, emphasizing journey, movement through space and time, inner change, and how games use these universal elements for captivating narratives.

Explore the twelve stages of the mythical story structure, from the ordinary world to the ultimate enemy, using Star Wars as a familiar example and applying it to game storytelling.

Explore the stages of the story—from the ordinary world through the incident, mentors and allies, death-defying ordeals, the midpoint climax, to the return with the elixir in interactive fiction.

Learn how different graphic organizers diagram story arcs—from exposition to resolution—and how to adapt them for interactive narratives, including rising action, climax, and character arcs.

Explore traditional and mythic story structures using graphic organizers to map rising action, crisis, and subplots for crafting interactive game narratives.

Explore how interactive fiction creates multiple story outcomes from a single world, using a modified traditional structure with convergence at the climax and later divergence, starting with journaling.

Build living, unique characters whose choices define identity, destiny, and world outcomes in interactive storytelling that players identify with.

Explore the hero as the protagonist who grows through the hero's journey, taking action and risking for the group, guided by universal needs and archetypal roles in interactive stories.

Explore hero types, from willing and reluctant to anti-heroes, group oriented and loner heroes. Assign archetypes such as mentor, trickster, or shadow and craft unique traits for your protagonist.

Explore how backstories reveal a hero’s identity and craft your own through journaling, prompts, and a character work sheet.

Analyze how backstories are conveyed in games, movies, or books, exploring prequels, sprinkled throughout the narrative, hints, or major chapters in telling the hero's history.

Explore how a character's backstory shapes who they become, adding 3-D depth and motivation, then craft a seminal moment, the lie they tell themselves, and what they really need.

Analyze archetypes, mentors, and flaws to build believable game characters. Use three card stacks: archetypes, jobs, and traits, to craft diverse, compelling heroes.

Utilize the character worksheet to outline your main character’s basic stats, internal traits, and the questions that prompt thinking about inner struggles and development.

Build a villain with a detailed backstory, motive, and driving lie, then treat him as the hero of his own story with clear wants and needs.

Explore character archetypes beyond the hero, including villain, mentor, trickster, and shapeshifter, and learn how threshold guardians and allies test and support the hero to drive the story.

Explore core archetypes that drive story dynamics, from mentors guiding heroes and passing on wisdom to tricksters stirring action, shapeshifters shifting loyalties, threshold guardians, and heralds igniting the adventure.

Open your journal and sketch your interactive story characters, including mentor, shadow figures, guardians, allies, tricksters, and herald, and outline their backgrounds, motivations, and goals.

Treat setting as a character by defining location, time, climate, era, and social environment to shape characters, mood, and audience expectations, with elapsed time or a ticking clock.

Explore how setting shapes narrative through thought experiments and journal prompts. Learn to craft stories that adapt to diverse environments in interactive storytelling for video games and other formats.

Create and map your story’s world by defining genre, location, and time, researching real places, and detailing how setting shapes characters, mood, and plot with vivid, layered details.

Translate your outline into an interactive game script with player choices, brackets, and scene descriptors. Use formats from screenplay-like to table-style to clearly convey character and setting.