Narrative

Carlos Sanchez, previously of ProbablyMonsters, along with Jolie Menzel, Kevin Creese, Matt Boehm, and Ryan Kaufman, have launched a new gaming studio called Zunzún. This studio aims to specialize in creating "emotionally rich, single-player narrative games." Sanchez is taking on the role of CEO, Menzel is the studio design director, Creese is the studio engineering director, Boehm is the studio animation director, and Kaufman serves as the chief creative officer.

Don't Nod has postponed the release of the second installment of its new intellectual property, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, marking another delay for the launch of the game.

Stéphane Beauverger, one of the key employees at DON'T NOD, announced his departure after 15 years of work.

The budget for the forthcoming film adaptation of BioShock has been reduced, as Netflix aims to develop it as a smaller, more intimate project. According to Variety, this information was revealed during a Thursday panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. The film's producer, Roy Lee, mentioned that the BioShock project is undergoing a "reconfiguration" due to a leadership change at the streaming company. In March, Netflix appointed Dan Lin as its new head of film, replacing Scott Stuber, who was overseeing the BioShock film's announcement in 2022. Lin, known for producing the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender remake, now leads the project.

Amid a bustling market filled with an array of games, innovation is key to standing out. Magic Hazard has embraced this philosophy with its inaugural game, Memory Lost. The game takes place in a dystopian, cyberpunk-infused metropolis known as Detraxis. It is a top-down action shooter where players control an AI, referred to as the Neural Network, which is embedded within an assassin robot fighting for autonomy and purpose. What differentiates Memory Lost from other titles in the genre is its ability to allow players to adapt their gameplay by capturing memories from adversaries and obtaining their abilities. This mechanic promotes a versatile and dynamic gaming experience, enabling players to master various skills over time without the need for repeatedly creating and leveling up new characters. In an interview with Sergei Kuznetsov, the founder and CEO of the studio, he shared that the concept arose one chilly February morning. Kuznetsov and a few friends were reminiscing around a kitchen table about the games they enjoyed in their youth and the gaps they perceived in the current gaming landscape

In February, the official comic book for the Shadow Fight franchise appeared on the bookshelves of the CIS. We talked with Nikita Korzhavin, Nekki‘s business development director, about how the comic was being worked on and what task it solves for the game franchise.

More game companies are trying to incorporate AI technologies into their development processes. Ubisoft has introduced Ghostwriter, its own machine learning tool that should make it easier for writers to create interactions and dialogues with NPC.

Scenario startup, which developed a neural network of the same name for generating game assets, successfully conducted a seed round of financing. He received $6 million from venture capital companies Play Ventures, Anorak Ventures, Founders, co-founders of Oculus, Twitch and a number of other investors.

FlyinDogs is a Georgia-based team working on The Tales of Bayun, a narrative adventure game inspired by the Slavic folklore. The studio’s co-founder Ilia Maksimenko has told us about crafting a colorful yet gloomy fantasy world and diving into the sea of indie development.

Testers often do not receive proper recognition in the gaming industry. Jocelyn Baxter, the screenwriter of Eidos Montreal, decided to fix the situation. She said that most of the Guardians of the Galaxy storyline was written by those who had previously been involved in testing.

Visualization is an important tool in the hands of a narrative designer. With its help, you can quickly convey the idea to both the user and fellow developers. How to work with this tool — says HSE lecturer, writer and game screenwriter Sergey Chekmaev.

The official release of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, a new PlayStation 5 exclusive, took place today. The project received rave reviews from critics, and the average score on Metacritic was 89/100 based on almost 100 reviews. Rift Apart is called perhaps the most beautiful game for today and is praised for using new technologies, but at the same time criticized for outdated gameplay in places.

Recently, the word “narrative” has become increasingly common. Especially in the gaming sphere. Screenwriters and “narrative designers” are very much expected here. Who are they, — says the HSE lecturer and co-founder JustForward.co Konstantin Sakhnov.

Obsidian Entertainment has been specializing in RPG for many years. Despite their commitment to one genre, screenwriters have to adapt to almost every new project. Carrie Patel, the studio’s senior narrative designer, spoke about the difference in approaches using the example of Pillars of Eternity and The Outer Worlds.Patel shared her experience during a speech at the GDC Showcase.

Latitude Studio has attracted $3.3 million in investments thanks to the success of its AI Dungeon text sandbox. All the plots in the game are generated by artificial intelligence, and its creator is confident that the development of this technology will help reduce the budgets of the development of AAA titles by hundreds of times.The main investor of Latitude was the venture fund NFX.

Duncan Jones (Duncan Jones), known for the film adaptation of “Warcraft”, turned out to be a big fan of the classic quest Full Throttle. The director shared his 94-page script of the film based on the game, although he has no plans to shoot.Jones was inspired to write the script by a tweet from Tim Schafer, head of the Double Fine studio and creator of the original game.

The plot is a rare guest in construction simulators. This is a big omission of the developers, according to PCGamesN. In a recent article, the portal told how the narrative makes such games deeper and more attractive for gamers. We have chosen the main thing from the publication.

Newzoo analysts have prepared three forecasts for cloud market revenues until 2023. According to the most realistic, the segment’s revenue will grow 20 times by the specified year.

A new selection of books for developers has been released. This time it is useful for game writers.

How the game script changed – from retroactive edits to an important part of the development process: the experience of Rihanna Pratchett and Melissa McCoubrey from Ubisoft.

The plot is one of the main reasons why single titles are played. As a result, a good story today can affect sales. That’s what SuperData thinks.

For ten years, a full-fledged narrative games market has emerged in the industry: they have their own specific audience and special requirements for game design. The author of the hit What Remains of Edith Finch, Ian Dallas, explains how the expectations of players and their feedback allow the genre to develop, but at the same time they also slow down its development.

Zak Garris, the head of the development of the scenario of the interactive adventure Life is Strange: Before the Storm, told how he managed to gather a creative team to work on the plot of the game. According to Harris, he was guided by the main rule: “no jerks in the team.”

On February 1, Finnish Supercell announced that it is investing $4.2 million in the British studio Trailmix. It was founded by former executives of the London office of King, who created Farm Heroes Saga. Trailmix plans to create games with a deep plot, but working on the frituplay model.

The founder of SpaceX and the head of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, in an interview with the CEO of the Y Combinator venture fund, Sam Altman, criticized the latest Deus Ex for the plot and noted that the stories used to be better in games.

Why traditional interactive stories should become a thing of the past and what will appear in return — as part of the video cycle Game Maker’s Toolkit told Mark Brown, indie developer and editor of the Pocket Gamer resource. With the author’s permission, we have prepared a printed version of the material. We share.

We continue to post videos from the White Nights Helsinki 2016 conference. Next up is the report of the leading narrative designer of Suricate Games, Evgeny Puzankov.

At White Nights 2015, Playrix game designer Evgeny Danilov talked about what the plot is and why it is needed in the game.

The other day it became known that the St. Petersburg studio Orc Work has begun work on the second part of the Evilibrium battler. We talked with the chief producer Sergey Himmelreich about the fate of the project.

A French developer has announced a very unusual project called Hox – a runner with a plot and dialogues. About the originality and the project in our material.