Black&White 2: Developer Diary #4

It’s time once again for Black & White Studios to embark on the fabulous journey through the development diaries so that you’ll be able to keep abreast of all the goings on in the world of Black & White 2. I’ll be your guide through the entire development process of the game and, lucky you, you get to experience it all from my rather distinct perspective.

John McLean-Foreman

When I was a reporter and still struggling to land my first job as a fiction writer, I used to work from home most of the time. My ex (and you’ll see why she’s an ex shortly) never seemed to be able to understand that just because I was in the house, it didn’t mean that I was available for conversation. It took me so long to get into the minds of my characters that any interruption meant starting all over again. So, in an attempt to truly emphasize how important it was that I be left alone, I would slam the office door in her face. Yeah, yeah, I know, I was a jerk.

I don’t know about other fiction writers, but for me to be able to write most effectively, I not only need to be able to feel the actual emotions of my characters, but I have to experience the world through the distortion of their biases. In essence, I have to become those characters, if only for a little while. It usually takes me about 15 minutes, but with focus and a bit of luck, I can transport myself into their world to the point where I can almost touch it. In those rare moments where it works really well, I can smell the earth of the forest; I can hear the sound of rain falling onto the grass; I can feel the sword as it slides under my ribs and rips open my heart… It’s a bit of a surreal experience, but from the moment that I manage it, I become completely lost for three hours at a time; words spill from my fingers as if I’m taking dictation. That doesn’t mean that what I write is always good, in fact I can pretty much guarantee that the first three drafts of anything I put to paper is bloody awful, but as long as I remain undisturbed, then I’m a step ahead.

Therefore it comes as no surprise that karma has bitten me on the ass – payback for my deplorable behaviour, you might say. Couldn’t cope with one girlfriend disrupting your mental flow ya grumpy git? Well then, time to try 50 co-workers instead. Emails, private messages, meetings, urgent questions that need immediate attention, recording sessions, things that are completely unimportant but really interesting to watch, and nary a slammable door in sight, are all part of an average day in Black and White Studios. If any of you ever want to get a job writing for a videogame developer, my advice is that you learn to shift your focus back and forth between tasks as quickly as possible. It’ll make things so much easier.

Another thing to prepare yourself for is that everyone in the office will have ideas that they’d like to see added to the story. Obviously some of them are going to be deplorable, but then, so will a whole heap of yours. The trick is that you need to be willing to discard what doesn’t work in favour of what does, and if that means that you have to dump one of your beloved concepts in favour of someone else’s, then so be it.

When I first started working at B&W studios, things were relatively easy for me. I was brought in because, well, I’m a writer. That’s my job. Add a subplot here, throw in a character arc there… Everyone involved in the story was more or less thinking along the same lines, and it was shaping up quite nicely… And then he came. His name was, and is, PJ the cinematographer. PJ was in the office for about 20 minutes before I decided that he was from hell and that I wanted him to die. It didn’t matter what I said, he thought the idea was terrible. I can’t tell you how many times I had to start the story from scratch simply because of his input. The worst part about it was that he was very frequently right. Damn him anyway. Ironically, PJ and I are now close friends and almost always agree with each other in regards to the story. It comes from trusting in each other’s skills, I suppose.

There are actually a lot of things that can influence a story in a game. First of all, you have to remember that the story is there to support the game, not compete with it. As such, you want to interrupt the player as infrequently as possible with story elements that are only long enough to get the point across in a meaningful way.

Another thing that has to be taken into consideration is censorship. Germany, as an example, has very strict laws regarding what can and can’t be shown in videogames, and while it may be tempting as a creator to give the censors the finger and go about your job, it’s not the smartest of business decisions. Germany is one of our largest markets, and if you really look at their laws closely, the main thing that they’re worried about is excessive and graphic violence. As anyone who has read my monthly comic book Patient Zero will tell you, I love to delve into the very disturbing elements of what it means to be human. There are some pretty horrible things that happen in all my work, but the thing is that you don’t need to show it, and you certainly don’t need glorify it.

On the topic of need, do you really need a story in a videogame at all? No, of course you don’t, but I believe that it can make a great game that much better. Jonty and I frequently have a conversation in which he asks me if we really need certain parts of the story in the game. My answer is always the same: No, we don’t neeeeed it, but if the goal is for the players to have an emotional reaction to the characters, then yes we do. It’s very easy to write something that suggests to the player that they are about to be attacked by the computer. All you have to do is write the scene: a huge group of Norse warriors charge over the hill screaming and waving their axes. Job done. However, if you want the player to feel outrage, jealousy, remorse, joy, or any other of a wide range of emotions that makes the Norse charge meaningful, you have to layer in the more complex story elements that will do that.

I could go on endlessly about the story, about what a rush it is to see our artists and animators bring life to characters that were recently nothing more than words, or the great actors that convey a subtlety and subtext to the dialogue, or the music that draws you into the cutscenes and sweeps you along, or even the cinematography that communicates through the slightest of camera shifts, but sadly we’ve come to the end of the diary once more. I do really love the topic though…. hmmm…. I think maybe we’ll have to return and talk about the story and cinematography… I’ll see if I can’t get PJ to teach us some of his tricks.