Slay the Dragon: Writing Great Video Games

Writing for the multibillion-dollar video-game industry is unlike writing for any other medium. Slay the Dragon will help you understand the challenges and offer creative solutions to writing for a medium where the audience not only demands a great story, but to be a driving force within it. Aimed at traditional writers who want to learn interactive narrative as well as game creators who want to tell better, more emotionally involving stories, the book is written by two creative veterans of both Hollywood and "Nerdyhood." Through lively discussions and self-paced-exercises, Bryant and Giglio step you such topics as: the "no-act" structure of video games; writing great game characters; making gameplay emotionally meaningful; and bringing your game world alive.

Robert Denton Bryant has worked in Hollywood in both marketing and production, and in video games as both a publisher and a developer. He has been executive producer on dozens of games on platforms ranging from CD-ROMs to the iPad, including the bestselling World Championship Poker and Pinball Hall of Fame console game franchises. He is the coauthor (with Charles P. Schultz) of Game Testing All In One. He has lectured in the U.S. and Europe on game writing, and currently teaches at The University of California, Los Angeles and at Woodbury University.

Keith Giglio has worked as a screenwriter and producer on such feature and television movies as Joshua, Noah, Return to Halloweentown, Walt Disney’s Tarzan, Pizza My Heart, A Cinderella Story, and Another Cinderella Story. He has written for Paramount Pictures, The Walt Disney Company, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, Walden Media, Tokyopop, and Platinum Studios. His book Writing the Comedy Blockbuster was published in 2012. He currently teaches both screenwriting and game writing at Syracuse University.