Games of Words: Writing for Computer Games with Gabrielle Alioth

Course Content

Computer games play with pictures and words. They enhance, explain, reinforce or challenge each other driving the story. This workshop looks at the interaction between image and text in story-based computer games and it is intended for people who work on or are interested in this medium. We will explore how text can be used in games, what it can and what it can’t do, and how writing can be applied to create characters, construct scenes and develop a script.

Course Outline

In the course you will discuss

• How to create characters
• How to construct a script
• How to use text

in computer games.

Participants will examine the interdependence of picture and text in given examples. They are encouraged to bring their ideas and develop and work on individual projects. They will try out different strategies in order to find and improve their own way of combining image and text.

Drawing, animation skills and game techniques are not required (or taught) as the workshop will focus exclusively on writing.

Course Outcomes

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the role that text can play in computer games, how writing can be used to develop characters and scripts and how to find their own way of combining image and word in an effective way.

Gabrielle Alioth is an award-winning Swiss writer living in Ireland. She has published novels, children’s books, short stories, poetry and plays in German as well as in English, worked as an editor and member of literary panels. Over the past 25 years she has been teaching creative writing at universities in the US, Ireland and in Switzerland namely for illustrators and animators, worked as a mentor for picture books, comics and graphic novels and co-written computer games. www.gabriellealioth.com