Narrative Design Master Class: Write stories for Video Games

Write your story through topics such as World building, Character Development, Dialogue, Plot Theory and more

4.45 (674 reviews)
Udemy
platform
English
language
Game Design
category
instructor
Narrative Design Master Class: Write stories for Video Games
5,403
students
7 hours
content
Jan 2022
last update
$79.99
regular price

What you will learn

Understand fundamental narrative design principles

Learn World Building, everything from climate to cataclysmic events

Creating in depth charcaters working from the inside - out

Comprehensive look at writing captavating dialogue in games

Learn how to break into the Game Industry as a Narrative Designer

A video game perspective of how to create a story depending on its structure

Why take this course?

Why this course is special


This course is like no other on the market. We're going to be looking at some very interesting concepts when it comes to Narrative Design.


My Guarantee

For every student that joins the course, they will be able to ask questions about their games and how to go about using their story to help develop their game. I will be available to answer any and all questions for all of my students.


The Course Structure

The course is almost all videos. It will take between 6.5 hours to complete. After you finish this course, you will have a more robust understanding of how to write for your games.

The course is structured into 8 main Sections.

  • Section 2: Introduction to Narrative Design

    In this section, We will be taking a solid look at what is narrative design. Understanding all the fundamentals that go into writing and grasp a deep comprehension of plot theory. We will also look at game genres, player archetypes, mechanics, clarity in writing, and much more.


  • Section 3: Concept / Pitch

    Here, we look at how to generate and cultivate ideas from their initial inception to writing out a full-blown pitch document. This section allows you to create your concept that will be pushed throughout the entire course.


  • Section 4: World Building

    This is my favorite section because here, we will look at the intricacies of building a full-scale world from nothing. We will talk about climate, mood, setting, who inhabits it, is it fantasy, is it science fiction and much more


  • Section 5: Character

    In this section, we flesh out our main protagonist and give them a sense of purpose in the out newly created world. This will allow us to see which of the 4 main types of character we want to create/. We when looking at Character Psychology and the 16 personality types, along with really looking at diversity in video games and how to make it more efficient


  • Section 6: Story

    This section is dedicated to player agency, giving the player a sense of purpose throughout the entire game and respecting their choices. We take a critical look at Linear, Non-Linear and open-world games and their perspective on player agency.


  • Section 7: Dialogue

    Here we will look at dialogue and the importance it represents in-game. How to write dialogue, the 3 main types, and incorporating cutscenes into the game.


  • Section 8: Bringing it all together

    This section brings all previous sections together to understand the fundamentals of narrative design


  • Section 9: Bonus: Breaking into the industry as a Narrative Designer

    In this Bonus Section, we take a look at what tools are at a Narrative Designer's disposal to break into the industry and start their careers right after finishing this course

Certification of completion when finishing this course 

When you complete 100% of the videos in this course, you will be emailed a certificate of completion by Udemy so you can show it as proof of your expertise and that you have completed a certain number of hours of instruction in the course topic.

Screenshots

Narrative Design Master Class: Write stories for Video Games - Screenshot_01Narrative Design Master Class: Write stories for Video Games - Screenshot_02Narrative Design Master Class: Write stories for Video Games - Screenshot_03Narrative Design Master Class: Write stories for Video Games - Screenshot_04

Reviews

Alex
October 23, 2023
Although there are a handful of valuable insights in there, this extended PowerPoint presentations appears to be mostly basic information that has been drawn from other online sources and/or freshman textbooks. There's a nagging suspicion that this course could have been put together by someone who has never worked on a game. Would have appreciated more concrete examples and downloadable templates (and it's a bit disheartening to see that this presentation on games writing is riddled with spelling errors).
Luca
October 11, 2023
Beautiful course that really helped me out a lot. I couldn't use it right away, but now that the time has finally come for me to start working on my games, it was my go-to course to re-watch and start applying.
Amazigh
August 31, 2023
oui c'etais vraiment bien mais il manque un peu d'explication et de montrer le but de chaque information
Sergio
August 27, 2023
I always try to provide a positive and balanced review when asked to do so. I recognize how difficult it is to make tutorial videos / courses, but when asked, I always share my honest opinion, based on my experience with the course. After taking the course, I’m amazed at the rating it currently has (4+ at the time I took the course.) - I found no value in the course whatsoever. I expected to find a “Master Class”, where the instructor shares “how to scenarios” based on years of experience… THIS WAS NOT THE EXPERIENCE I FOUND. I found the presentation to be very similar to a PowerPoint presentation, where the author seems to have taken general excerpts from a textbook of some sort and is simply reading very high-level academic concepts as instructional tips. I was extremely disappointed and as I progressed, I couldn’t wait to finish the course so I could stop wasting my time. I very much regret purchasing this course, as I got nothing out of it. I’m not telling anyone to “not” take the course - your experience may be different and based on the ratings and some of the testimonials, some people actually like the course. That was NOT my experience. I didn’t ask for a refund, because I simply don’t like doing that, but I do regret that I wasted my time on something that is not what I thought it would be and provided me no educational value. I gave it a 1 Star, because I couldn't give it any less.
Srinath
August 9, 2023
Yes, I love this course, however, I wish the character section of the course could have been before world-building so that in the world-building assignment the world could have been created based on the character arcs/personalities, etc.
Elizabeth
July 29, 2023
This course was an excellent match and I learned so much! Thank you for inspiring me to push further in game design!
Gid
July 5, 2023
This by far was an amazing course. It taught me many things about what i wanted to learn. So my interest has been constantly locked in by it
Sam
June 15, 2023
It's a bit casual. The bases are covered, assignments are useful and it's fine for total noobs, but can't really be called a 'master class'. I learned most of this in my first 48 hour game jam. I was expecting something a lot more detailed and rigorous, with more supporting materials. The demo graphics have typos or are completed with lorem ipsum and the presenter doesn't always speak clearly.
Jonathan
June 7, 2023
Yes, so far it has been interesting. I have fealt the course so far has been informative and what i was looking for. I am thinking about perhaps becoming a narrative designer and this course feels like a good introduction for me. I feel it is accessible so far since it uses videos and text. I can follow along and use my screen reading tools to access all information so far.
Andrew
May 28, 2023
i found this very interesting and informative. There seems to be a deep range of topics covered in detail, all of which i found very informative. i will return to this for pointers again im very sure.
Mister
April 19, 2023
I understand why you have the 'tutorial' stuff at the beginning for those who know nothing about writing. I would have broken this up into Beginner and Advanced portions So those of us with experience in writing could have skipped the "What is Plot", "What is Science Fiction", portions and gotten straight to the Narrative Design portions.
TamTu
April 10, 2023
Working in the industry already, there were a few things not entirely relevant but nice to get a quick refresher on. I enjoyed the assignments as it helped me look at certain things in a different angle and opened up more ways for me to approach things. Using this to develop a world-building project from scratch is very recommended as it'll help you maintain focus on what you learn and how to directly apply it to something more tangible. Thanks for your time, Emilio!
André
March 11, 2023
O curso em si é muito bom, talvez o fato de eu já trabalhar nesse ramo e saber sua rotina torne mais difícil as aulas me impactarem ou surpreenderem, o que de forma alguma reduz sua qualidade. Certamente para leigos ou iniciantes gerará um grande ganho de conhecimento;
Jaime
March 9, 2023
The course has lots of content for industry novices. The assginments are really well placed and thoughful. Some videos are highly text based so my recommendation would be to have the PDF file of the slides. But overall a great course.
Jonah
January 10, 2023
This course is a good primer for the concepts of narrative design, but it doesn't expand on any of the minutiae. It sort of just goes over disciplines that you should learn to master the skill, but then never covers any of the finer details. There is no engagement, and at times I wonder what the point of the assignments are if the instructor isn't providing any feedback. Am I doing it right? I don't know. The only feedback is from other people taking the course, and throughout what I did finish of this course, I got one piece of feedback over six assignments. Two of my assignments are even still listed as incomplete, despite being completed and sent in. I'm not sure if this is a problem with udemy itself, or if the instructor is meant to mark the assignments as completed, but as they are both considered incomplete at this point, finishing the rest of the course seems moot. I won't be able to complete 100% of it, so 70% will have to do. Overall impressions are that this is a good reading list of topics, but if you're looking for any kind of feedback, or any kind of engagement, this is not the place to find it. This is not a substitute for traditional learning, and I gained very little from what I did complete of the course. As another note, I ended up quitting at Assignment 7, when you are tasked with writing a scene of dialog, but you aren't allowed to use the characters and world we've spent the previous six assignments writing about...you're given strict rules about characters and setting, a bunch of hard military soldiers in a sci-fi military scenario...sorry, but I don't write that, why would the instructor not just allow me to utilize the characters and setting we've been going over creating for the entire course? I felt that this assignment was too rigid, and allowed for nothing to be learned or gained, and also squashed the concept of personal creativity in a weird and sudden way, leading to my decision to quit this course before completion.

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2407998
udemy ID
6/11/2019
course created date
4/3/2020
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