Storyteller Interview: Evan Skolnick
Game Writer and Narrative Designer
You may not notice the story in a video game, but you sure notice when one isn't present. Unlike in film or creative projects, storytelling doesn't come at the front end. It comes after the concept and functionality have been designed. It doesn't get in the way of gameplay, it enhances it.
Evan Skolnick has been a game writer and narrative designer for comic books and games for decades. His approaches are so well respected that he literally wrote the book on game design and teaches courses in the Bay Area for game designers. While it sounds like it would be easy, it gets incredibly complicated when you factor in all the choices a player can make.
I was fascinated by my conversation with Evan for The Perfect Story and am delighted to share bonus material I was unable to include here.
Whether you are a gamer or not, this interview is fascinating!
What makes storytelling challenging for video games?
Unlike storytelling in film or TV, the narrative isn’t leading the charge. You need defined things to push again like “a third-person, science fiction action game and the main mechanics identified.” You can begin building a story for what you can and can’t do in that kind of game.
The opposite is true if game design is too far down the road. “We’ve built 10 levels with this functionality…. There are these aliens we’ve built, and they do this…” You are then playing Jenga – trying to take pieces already in existence and craft them into something that makes sense. It becomes “Let’s make this make sense” instead of “Let’s make this a great story.”
When I wrote comics for Marvel and told people what I did, they would say, “Oh people write those?” They just thought the artist just made it up as they drew. People say the same thing when I tell them I write for video games. There is an assumption that it is all easily made up. I was once hired to write dialogue for a game because the audio person had been hired and asked for the script. Developers said, “Oh you can just make it up in the booth, right?
How does the team collaborate on the story development?
Video games have been around for 50+ years. The concept of the specialized writer is only about 15 years old. Fortunately, developers are realizing this is an expert skill. People are brought onto projects earlier and added to the staff. Big studios recognize this as a core part of the collaborative development effort.
It’s hard to give the development team an idea of the story. For a long time, it existed as scripts or documents. Developers are very busy. Asking animators to take time out of their 12-hour day to read your narrative document is a big request. Animators can show animations. Artists can show environments, designers can show you how you play a level. We’ve acted them out in team meetings to get people entertained, involved, and aware of the story we are trying to tell.
Game development is dynamic. When I was working on Star Wars 1313, we’d have a narrative conundrum to solve. I’d solve it in the shower or when I was driving and come into the office saying, “I did it! I solved it!” Only to be told, “Oh, we deleted that level.” It’s this moving, changing landscape where you solve problems that no longer exist and shift the storyline.
You are basically in a rodeo riding a bull with sharp horns. The bull is the game in development. It’s changing and not standing still. You are just trying to hang on. If you are good, you will hang on. You’re told, “Get your bull to go through that narrative target opening over there.” You need to steer it towards that. You are probably going to fall off and get trampled. Because the game doesn’t want a storyline, it just wants to be a game. You have to make it make sense. This is why you can’t just take a Hollywood writer. They think they are going to write a script, hand it off to the team, and walk away.
What is the difference between the storytelling you did at Marvel and for video games?
We had unlimited budgets at Marvel compared to film or TV. Drawing 100 different spaceships on a page costs the same as drawing one. If I made the same request for a TV show, it would be an enormous ask.
As you move from comic books to movies, there are budget limitations. There are even more as you move from movies to TV to games because of technical challenges and dependencies. For example, if I want to write a game that has strong emotional content, that is usually done through the facial animation of characters. You have to consider if the development team has the capability and capacity to do that. Your narrative aspirations may not be in sync with what is possible or feasible for the game.
In the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Game, there is a point in the game where a bunch of heroes attend a funeral service. The story called for them to be in funeral black. In a movie, the actors would put on black suits and it wouldn’t be anything. But to do this in 3-D means creating a whole new model for the characters. The developers said no, they stayed in their superhero costumes. Doing that in a comic book or movie is easy. But in the animation or the game, you are writing for a very specific medium that adds complexity.
When we made comic books, everything was known. From how long it would be to how long it would take to print. The only unknown factor was if creators would do their work on time and how good it would be. In game development, it’s all unknown.
How do you get inside the player’s mind?
Storytelling is woven throughout the gameplay, not stopping the game and making them sit and watch a movie for five minutes. As game developers, we have to consider: "What will a player want to do here?" What are we denying them that they want to do? Can we let them do it? Can we find a way to make it feel not so bad that they can't do it? The story has to make sense through that.
When a game comes out now, I can watch people play the game on steamers. I can hear them as they are reacting to it. I hear their opinions. I learned so much by doing that. That kind of feedback is so valuable. Even though it is after the fact, you still learn lessons for the next time and what could be done better.
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