Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering™

Chapter 1.5. Why Game Designers Often Find Writing to Be So Challenging

It's hard to master what you don't even perceive.

The last chapter

pointed out all the areas where a traditionally trained screenwriter might run into trouble when working in games. At first glance, the apparent solution is to have a programmer, artist, animator, or someone else on the development team do the writing in the game. But that approach has its problems as well.

When I step into my role as a screenwriting teacher, I repeatedly see one phenomenon that never ceases to astound me: My students rarely read the screenplays of famous films.

No one would doubt that, barring from being born Picasso, becoming a masterful painter takes a lot of study and practice. No one doubts ...