ABSTRACT

Despite its significant growth over the past five years, the mobile and social videogame industry is still maturing at a rapid rate. Due to various storage and visual and sound asset restrictions, mobile and social gaming must have innovative storytelling techniques. Narrative Tactics grants readers practical advice for improving narrative design and game writing for mobile and social games, and helps them rise to the challenge of mobile game storytelling. The first half of the book covers general storytelling techniques, including worldbuilding, character design, dialogue, and quests. In the second half, leading experts in the field explore various genres and types of mobile and social games, including educational games, licensed IP, games for specific demographics, branding games, and free to play (F2P).

 

Key Features

  • The only book dedicated to narrative design and game writing in social and mobile games, an explosive market overtaking the console gaming market.
  • Provides tips for narrative design and writing tailored specifically for mobile and social game markets.
  • Guides readers along with conclusions that include questions to help the reader in narrative design and/or writing.
  • Explores real games to illustrate theory and best practices with analyses of game case studies per chapter, covering indie, social/mobile, and AAA games.
  • Includes checklists to help readers critique their own narrative design/writing.

section I|2 pages

Storytelling in mobile and social games

chapter 2|16 pages

From musical mechanics to emotional beats

Story for nonstory games

chapter 4|32 pages

Not just tutorial hosts

Characters

chapter 5|24 pages

More than pretty words

Functional dialogue

chapter 6|31 pages

I seek the grail (in five minutes or less)

Designing and writing quests for mobile games

section II|2 pages

Storytelling for different demographics and genres

chapter 7|14 pages

To each their own

Writing for demographics

chapter 8|18 pages

How the folk tale got its leopard

Writing for educational games

chapter 9|18 pages

Playing with values

Branding games

chapter 10|26 pages

the continued adventures

writing for licensed mobile games

chapter 11|16 pages

Buy gems to woo your lover

Free-to-play narratives