How to Write for Video Games: Using Screenwriting Skills in Game Design
How do you break into the world of video games if your background is in traditional film and television? While the demand for Narrative Designers is at an all-time high, the transition requires more than just sharp dialogue – it requires a shift in how you view the audience. To understand what is involved in writing for video games versus linear media, we sat down with Michael McCafferty, Lead Faculty for the Writing for Film and Television program at The Los Angeles Film School.
With a career spanning writing for Disney and Cartoon Network to acting in The West Wing and Rick and Morty, Michael offers a unique perspective on how performance and linear storytelling fuel the interactive worlds of tomorrow. Whether you are an aspiring screenwriter or a gamer looking to build lore, this guide breaks down the essential skills needed to succeed in the industry today.
You have a diverse background spanning writing for Disney, FX, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and more—to acting in Idiocracy, The West Wing, and Rick and Morty. Rather than just viewing these as separate career steps, how do those different disciplines—acting and linear TV writing—inform the way you approach Narrative Design today?
Acting, linear writing, and video game writing are all different vehicles trying to reach the same destination: to make someone else feel something. So, they’ve all kind of informed each other. Acting on camera is the ultimate lie detector—the instant you are insincere on the screen, it is obvious to the audience—so you learn to bring your true self to every performance.
“Acting on camera is the ultimate lie detector—the instant you are insincere on the screen, it is obvious to the audience—so you learn to bring your true self to every performance.”
With writing TV, animation, and film, you are asking the audience to let you tell them a story from your specific point of view. You are asking for their trust, and every moment on the page, you must check in with yourself and your audience to keep that trust.
“With video games, you are creating the conditions for the player to act and write their own story.”
With video games, you are creating the conditions for the player to act and write their own story. So, elements of acting and linear writing are constantly being filtered into the video game narrative as tools and prompts for the player to use (or not!).
As someone who has spoken dialogue as an actor and written it as a screenwriter, do you recommend that game writers “act out” their barks and dialogue trees to test them (or just because it sounds really fun)? What is the best way to ensure a line sounds human?
Acting out or even just saying aloud any dialogue you write is a pretty good idea, in general. Something that reads nicely on the page can instantly sound wordy, confusing, or even just difficult to say as a performer when it’s spoken. It also engages a different part of your cognitive skills, and you might catch something you missed.
Having said that, barks are a little more disposable than most scripted content. You’re writing dozens, if not hundreds, of lines that may or may not be heard by the player, depending on if they trigger a specific event and that event randomly plays that bark out of the list of options. So, it is more about having a totality of good lines for the voice actors to read on the day, and then cutting or adjusting the lines or performance on the fly.
And to be honest, the best way to ensure the line sounds human is to cast great voice actors. They will take any average or worse lines you’ve written and use their skills to somehow make you sound like a genius.
Moving from linear television to video games requires a shift in mindset. For a writer coming from a traditional film or TV background, what is the hardest habit to break when they start writing for games?
It wasn’t a habit so much as a format. I was writing a lot of cinematics and dialogue scenes in screenplay format (I use WriterDuet), just because I was more comfortable with it. But after a while, a few of the designers asked if I could swap over to their style—which was more of a Word document presentation, or an Excel spreadsheet for barks or branching narrative.
I think the thing that was hard for them was that the screenplay format presents a specific point of view for the audience. That’s extremely useful in a screenplay—if you’re looking at something from one angle in the scene you don’t need to set dress anything out of camera view—but it was too limiting for the game designers. Players can often look wherever they want during a scene, so it all has to be rendered. When I switched to the less rigid Word doc template for writing scenes, it gave the designers freedom to fill in the gaps of what was happening in the entire environment.
Animation writing often requires succinct visual storytelling. How does that economy of language translate to game writing, where you often have to convey story details through UI, item descriptions, or environmental clues rather than dialogue?
It’s actually a bit of the reverse. In screenwriting, anything that you want in the scene, you have to describe on the page. If you want a shiny sword in the scene, you better write that in the script or the animators are gonna be upset when you mention it to them after they’ve drawn the scene. But in video games, the designers will create whole worlds, characters, weapons, and objects… and you are tasked with naming and describing them.
Think about all the video games you’ve played. Anytime you pick up a sword, visit a new village, or talk to a random elf on the street—it has a name and maybe even a description. That’s the narrative writer’s job. Sometimes there are hundreds of characters, weapons, spells, etc., that all need names, descriptions, and attributes. And it’s up to you to look at the object or character models and come up with unique, descriptive blurbs about each one. So, just be careful if you’re writing a library with “rows of bookshelves with hundreds of books on each.” Someone is writing titles on those books, and it’s probably you!
In TV, the Writers’ Room drives the show. In games, narrative often serves the gameplay loop. How can a writer effectively collaborate with Level Designers to weave the story into the mechanics, rather than having it just be a cutscene at the end of a level?
In TV and film, the story emerges from the writer. They are tasked with creating the world, the characters, and the action, and then bringing it to the director, set designers, and costumers to fill out that world. In video games, the process is often inverted. A game company may already have a game loop or mechanic that they’re building the game off of. They might also already have levels and characters built when you arrive. What they want you to do is create a narrative around that which justifies the existing elements. It’s sort of like a screenwriter showing up to a Hollywood backlot where a producer has a bunch of sets, props, and actors already waiting, and they want you to write with those ingredients.
“It’s sort of like a screenwriter showing up to a Hollywood backlot where a producer has a bunch of sets, props, and actors already waiting, and they want you to write with those ingredients.“
A narrative writer has to be collaborative with the other departments in game design. It’s too easy for people to go off and create puzzle pieces that don’t fit with the whole picture. I want to talk to the designers and understand the how and why of all those elements before I start making choices about the narrative. I want to understand why they started with these ingredients and what excited them about it. This helps in both directions: hearing their passion for the project gets me excited, and it allows me to pitch them ideas that feed into or amplify that passion.
And the collaboration continues throughout the process. While my job is to fill in the narrative gaps, there are times when a designer will pitch me ideas for the story. I love that because it tells me they’re excited about the direction I’m going with their material, and they’re comfortable enough with me to step out of their comfort zone and venture an idea.
For students looking to break in right now, is the industry placing a higher value on “Narrative Designers” who understand game engines, or “Game Writers” who focus purely on character and dialogue? Where should they focus their study?
It’s useful to know about the game engines, but you’re being hired to bring life to the characters and world. The people who are building these games are brilliant, analytical thinkers. But they’re not wordsmiths, and that’s where you come in. Learn enough of the game, the engine, and the workflow to speak their language, but focus on the dialogue, characters, story, and themes that will surround and infuse the game with a magic that only a writer can bring.
Master the Art of the Story
The transition from the screen to the controller requires a deep understanding of character, pacing, and emotional resonance. Whether you want to write the next hit animated series or build the lore for an open-world epic, it all starts with a foundation in world-class storytelling.
If you’re ready to turn your passion for narrative into a professional skill set, explore our Writing for Film & TV Degree. Our program is designed to help you find your voice, master the economy of language, and build a portfolio that stands out in both Hollywood and the gaming industry.