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Narrative Design Basics: Stories Players Help Shape
What narrative designers do, how a game's story connects to its mechanics, and the main tools used to tell stories that players take part in.
Creative Disciplines
Narrative Design
How stories, worlds and characters are built for interactive play.
Companion Characters Players Care About
How designers build allies who are useful in play and emotionally memorable, from AI behavior and dialogue to the risks of annoying or overpowered helpers.
Cutscenes Versus In-Game Story Delivery
Compare scripted cutscenes with story told during play: what each does well, what each costs, and how designers decide which to use.
Environmental Storytelling: Stories Without Words
How designers use props, layouts, lighting and small details to tell stories in a game space, and how to plan, place and test them.
Player Choice and Consequences in Story
How meaningful decisions are written in games, why they are costly to track, and practical ways designers keep choices clear and manageable.
Quest Design and Story Structure
How quests pace a game's story through goals, steps and rewards, with practical advice on structure, main and side quests, and common pitfalls.
Worldbuilding for Games: Rules, History and Place
How designers build a game setting with consistent rules, a believable history and a sense of place that players can explore and understand.
Writing Dialogue Players Actually Read
Principles for game dialogue that is short, clear and in character, with advice on skippable conversations, repetition, formatting and testing.
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