Whether it's the ranting promos of Wrestling MPire or the news reports of Popscene, the writing in my work is often accused of being "generic" and "clichéd". While admittedly true, such criticisms are typical of the ignorance that plagues the games industry. Far from a scripted movie, a game is an unpredictable experience every step of the way. By the time you've thrashed out a coherent narrative, there's very little time to be "cool" or creative. This article explores some of the many hurdles that make that the case...

Case Sensitive
It all boils down to the fact that games are full of "variables". In fact, they're the blood that pumps around a program and brings it to life. It's the name of your character, his age, his race, his gender - absolutely everything that a game will ever need to call upon. When used in text, this helps to make the world seem much more personal and realistic. It's not easy though! As you can see from the above extract, calling upon variables is like shooting a script full of holes. It takes things beyond mere "writing" and turns it into a mind-boggling grammatical equation. We're not just talking about the odd change of name either. As games like Popscene have become more prominent, my writing has had to become "context sensitive". After all, we could be talking about a man or a woman - and that individual could either be alone or part of a team. To cope with this, the game has to prepare for every eventuality. Each promo and news report becomes riddled with gaps in which to insert either "He" or "She", "His" or "Hers", "Him" or "Them", "I am" or "We are"... and dozens more variations that I won't bore you with! All of a sudden, even the simplest of sentences becomes a carefully constructed work of art...

Bursting The Bubble
What makes the process even more daunting is that all of the above juggling has to be done with pinpoint precision. Wherever the text is being placed, you can bet that there are limitations. You could be squeezing it inside a bubble, weaving it into a newspaper article, or simply slotting it into the bottom of the screen. And, if you're a perfectionist like me, you'll want to do it seamlessly! Have you ever noticed how every line in every piece of text pans out at roughly the same size? And how conversations come to a neat little conclusion for each step of the way? I can assure you that it's no coincidence! After writing the gist of a script, I then paw over every word to make sure that it meets those very conditions. If you imagine that's easy, I strongly advise you to give it a try some time. By the time you've stumbled across a winning combination, you're lucky to be making any sense whatsoever! You may be surprised to know that the process even extends to this very site. Did you know that last "whatsoever" was carefully designed to look good next to an exclamation mark? And that dozens of sentences are rewritten to make the paragraphs wrap cleanly? It's also no coincidence that the paragraphs in each article tend to be the same size. A nice opening statement, linking from the last point, elaborated on in several additional sentences - all building to a conclusive final line. Then we're out before anybody notices...

Blind Leading The Blind
As if that's not crippling enough, another reason my words are so "generic" is that a computer can never truly understand what's going on in a game. Whether it's a promo or a news report, the more detailed you are, the more likely you are to imply something inappropriate. Everything said in a piece of text has to be 100% true at that exact moment in time. I can't go off on a tangent talking about exactly what a wrestler is wearing, exactly what he did in his last match, exactly what he wants to do in his next match, etc.. Each script has to be vague enough to cover all bases - otherwise I'd be writing literally thousands of them to deal with every possibility! This dilemma is especially true of the magazine reviews in games like Popscene. There I am displaying half a dozen lines about a song or performance that doesn't even exist, and it has to sound relevant! I have to talk about "entertainment" and then move on to "artistry" without making a connection between the two (because God knows what that connection might be!). To do so would mean writing several variations of every single sentence, depending on whether you're coming out of a positive statement or a negative statement. Put simply, all the standard rules of writing go out of the window. Every fancy word or cheeky reference threatens to tear the whole script down if it doesn't hold true...

War Of Words
If you've played a mainstream game recently, you'll be well aware of what happens when you DO try to be specific. Quite simply, gameplay goes out of the window while a team of writers force you to live out THEIR story! If you want your game to read like a movie, I'm afraid it has to play like a movie too - and that means locking the player out of the process. Don't you dare go where you're not meant to go, or act how you're not meant to act! Over here at MDickie.com, however, we have the complete opposite approach. I give you 100% control of everything - from who you are to what you do. Yes, that means we have some wooden dialogue as the game tries to catch up with your story. It also means we have some shaky graphics, as the world and characters bend themselves out of shape to keep telling that story. As ever, though, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Like a bizarre group of soldiers, each part of my empire puts its life on the line to fight for the greater good. And, like everybody else, they're fighting for a word called "freedom". Now that is a cliché!