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Writing for Games: Theory and Practice
Focussing on the independent videogames sector, this book provides readers with a vocabulary to articulate and build their games writing practice; whether studying games or coming to games from another storytelling discipline. Writing for Games offers resources for communication, collaboration, reflection, and advocacy, inviting the reader to situate their practice in a centuries-long heritage of storytelling, as well as considering the material affordances of videogames, and the practical realities of working in game development processes.
Structured into three parts, Theory considers the craft of both games and writing from a theoretical perspective, covering vocabulary for both game and story practices. Case Studies uses three case studies to explore the theory explored in Part 1. The Practical Workbook offers a series of provocations, tools and exercises that give the reader the means to refine and develop their writing, not just for now, but as a part of a life-long practice.
Writing for Games: Theory and Practice is an approachable and entry-level text for anyone interested in the craft of writing for videogames.
Hannah Nicklin is an award-winning narrative and game designer, writer, and academic who has been practising for nearly 15 years. She works hard to create playful experiences that see people and make people feel seen, and also argues for making games a more radical space through mentoring, advocacy, and redefining process. Trained as a playwright, Nicklin moved into interactive practices early on in her career and is now the CEO and studio lead at Danish indie studio Die Gute Fabrik, which most recently launched Mutazione in 2019.
Structured into three parts, Theory considers the craft of both games and writing from a theoretical perspective, covering vocabulary for both game and story practices. Case Studies uses three case studies to explore the theory explored in Part 1. The Practical Workbook offers a series of provocations, tools and exercises that give the reader the means to refine and develop their writing, not just for now, but as a part of a life-long practice.
Writing for Games: Theory and Practice is an approachable and entry-level text for anyone interested in the craft of writing for videogames.
Hannah Nicklin is an award-winning narrative and game designer, writer, and academic who has been practising for nearly 15 years. She works hard to create playful experiences that see people and make people feel seen, and also argues for making games a more radical space through mentoring, advocacy, and redefining process. Trained as a playwright, Nicklin moved into interactive practices early on in her career and is now the CEO and studio lead at Danish indie studio Die Gute Fabrik, which most recently launched Mutazione in 2019.
288 pages, ebook
Published May 23, 2022
48 people are currently reading
287 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 8, 2023
This is a fantastic book for anyone interested in delving into writing stories and developing narratives for games. She provides a solid theory for storytelling and story structures and how these basic elements fit into the development of games. I love that Nicklin also thinks about the various ways in which people learn by including case studies, and a practical workbook with exercises designed to allow the reader to apply the knowledge they gleaned.
March 12, 2025
great accessible and informative volume with a politically conscious framing of the game development process! really useful resource i'm glad to have on my shelf for my games crit (and maybe someday for games writing!)
September 25, 2022
Personalmente, un manuale perfetto. Teoria e pratica combinate assieme, fatte ricche dell'esperienza varia e complessa di Nicklin. Che non mi ha fattə sentir sbagliatə, per una volta, solo perché ho una formazione narrativa e letteraria non canonica. Consigliatissimo ❤️
June 3, 2022
This book says it's aimed at:
- students wanting to get into writing for games
- writers coming to games from other media
- people with experience interested in another perspective
In fact, the author herself identifies with the second category and the text is written in an "advice I'd given myself 5 years ago" way. The most interesting and refreshing parts of the book are all to do with her theatre background and experiences with other forms of art.
Notably, one group that isn't mentioned is solo devs, hobbyists, or designers on small teams who also write. The book does, unavoidably, talk quite a bit about design, but it's always couched in disclaimers like "look, I know the book is about writing and make no mistake, this is not writing, but you should still be aware of it even though it may be out of your control" - which I found off-putting after the first couple of instances.
Which is too bad, cos there's quite a lot here that's worth sharing with my (non-writing) students in my game (non-writing) prototyping class:
- exploring learning methods and setting up your own curriculum and exercises/targets
- approaching feedback and critique (adapted from Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for getting useful feedback on anything you make, from dance to dessert)
- psychological vs sociological storytelling (via Tufekci)
- designing for empathy, and the dangers therein
- the role of MVPs (minimum viable products) and horizontal & vertical slices
- having a clear vocabulary (Nicklin's distinction between story and narrative might not be universally accepted but, as she likes to say, "that's OK" - what matters is that it's clearly formulated)
- useful reference lists, e.g. of process-related questions to be kept in mind when embarking on a project
- curated links to other books and resources for specific areas (production/prototyping, dramatic writing, creativity etc)
On the subject of story structures and narrative design, Nicklin points out (and I agree) that not all games need to be Hero's Tales, and directs us to a few different different perspectives (Ibsen, Brecht, Boal) which I need to read more of. Unfortunately, her video game case studies aren't as inspiring. Except for Inkle's 80 Days (where she sums up a GDC talk), the other two are sooo far away from what I think of as interesting games. It's kinda sad to go from avant-garde theatre to "make interactive soap operas" ...
Ultimately, Writing for Games isn't as approachable as it presents itself. The repeated handholdy "here's how to read this book" bits don't really help. Unless you're in the exact target group of people looking to get hired as writers on small-ish game teams (and even then?), you might find yourself, like me, frustrated by superfluous contextualising and the occasional poorly-edited sentence. Still, there's enough useful material here, and it's worth 4 stars if only for the Stewart Lee references.
- students wanting to get into writing for games
- writers coming to games from other media
- people with experience interested in another perspective
In fact, the author herself identifies with the second category and the text is written in an "advice I'd given myself 5 years ago" way. The most interesting and refreshing parts of the book are all to do with her theatre background and experiences with other forms of art.
Notably, one group that isn't mentioned is solo devs, hobbyists, or designers on small teams who also write. The book does, unavoidably, talk quite a bit about design, but it's always couched in disclaimers like "look, I know the book is about writing and make no mistake, this is not writing, but you should still be aware of it even though it may be out of your control" - which I found off-putting after the first couple of instances.
Which is too bad, cos there's quite a lot here that's worth sharing with my (non-writing) students in my game (non-writing) prototyping class:
- exploring learning methods and setting up your own curriculum and exercises/targets
- approaching feedback and critique (adapted from Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for getting useful feedback on anything you make, from dance to dessert)
- psychological vs sociological storytelling (via Tufekci)
- designing for empathy, and the dangers therein
- the role of MVPs (minimum viable products) and horizontal & vertical slices
- having a clear vocabulary (Nicklin's distinction between story and narrative might not be universally accepted but, as she likes to say, "that's OK" - what matters is that it's clearly formulated)
- useful reference lists, e.g. of process-related questions to be kept in mind when embarking on a project
- curated links to other books and resources for specific areas (production/prototyping, dramatic writing, creativity etc)
On the subject of story structures and narrative design, Nicklin points out (and I agree) that not all games need to be Hero's Tales, and directs us to a few different different perspectives (Ibsen, Brecht, Boal) which I need to read more of. Unfortunately, her video game case studies aren't as inspiring. Except for Inkle's 80 Days (where she sums up a GDC talk), the other two are sooo far away from what I think of as interesting games. It's kinda sad to go from avant-garde theatre to "make interactive soap operas" ...
Ultimately, Writing for Games isn't as approachable as it presents itself. The repeated handholdy "here's how to read this book" bits don't really help. Unless you're in the exact target group of people looking to get hired as writers on small-ish game teams (and even then?), you might find yourself, like me, frustrated by superfluous contextualising and the occasional poorly-edited sentence. Still, there's enough useful material here, and it's worth 4 stars if only for the Stewart Lee references.
March 15, 2023
This book on game writing is a solid guide, starting from how sharply (but also with nuance) it defines its subject matter and the surrounding reference vocabulary (need that!) to providing a detailed workbook to extend your practice (which, as the author emphasizes, should not be defined by your current job or career).
I read this book in many short sessions, both because it's so good I had to leave it and collect the suggestions from every page and elaborate on them and also in order not to finish it too soon and end in a desert of inspiration.
In the last three years, I have been teaching a short university course on narrative design, and now this book is a perfect integration that has become my first suggested study. I had a part on game writing in my notes for the course and this has zapped it!
The author is just lucid about the subject matter in general, and you’ll find help in just a sentence, like in “applied games as an *affordance*”: this resumes my 10 years of great difficulty in realising effective applied games. Again and again, I read a sentence and went “oh yes she says it so clearly”.
There obviously are many years of research in this book on the game writing theme for which you’ll find structured references for going more in depth.
A “hidden” agenda of this book that is yet another great feature is that it's pushing game writers to bring a wider worldview into games, beyond mechanics, formalisms and patrol’s barks, bringing to it knowledge that may come from a transdisciplinary practice.
I had the fortune in 2022 of working with a theatrical company on creating a board game performance and thanks to the discussions with a dramaturg I progressively found out how the notions and refined process and critical tools of theatre media can be very useful and inspiring for the work in narrative and game design in games. I was delighted to find that the study of theatre is a frequent reference for this book! And this also makes a point about how better the experience of game design and writing can be if inspiration is taken from other, sometimes more mature, media.
The book is not cheap, but it provides a slew of high-quality material; I believe it's worth its cost already just for the definitions and the introductory part. But if you intend to explore game writing and narrative design and its role in games of any form, this can be a reliable, updated guide and source of inspiration, and I don’t know of anything that can compare to it on its topic.
I read this book in many short sessions, both because it's so good I had to leave it and collect the suggestions from every page and elaborate on them and also in order not to finish it too soon and end in a desert of inspiration.
In the last three years, I have been teaching a short university course on narrative design, and now this book is a perfect integration that has become my first suggested study. I had a part on game writing in my notes for the course and this has zapped it!
The author is just lucid about the subject matter in general, and you’ll find help in just a sentence, like in “applied games as an *affordance*”: this resumes my 10 years of great difficulty in realising effective applied games. Again and again, I read a sentence and went “oh yes she says it so clearly”.
There obviously are many years of research in this book on the game writing theme for which you’ll find structured references for going more in depth.
A “hidden” agenda of this book that is yet another great feature is that it's pushing game writers to bring a wider worldview into games, beyond mechanics, formalisms and patrol’s barks, bringing to it knowledge that may come from a transdisciplinary practice.
I had the fortune in 2022 of working with a theatrical company on creating a board game performance and thanks to the discussions with a dramaturg I progressively found out how the notions and refined process and critical tools of theatre media can be very useful and inspiring for the work in narrative and game design in games. I was delighted to find that the study of theatre is a frequent reference for this book! And this also makes a point about how better the experience of game design and writing can be if inspiration is taken from other, sometimes more mature, media.
The book is not cheap, but it provides a slew of high-quality material; I believe it's worth its cost already just for the definitions and the introductory part. But if you intend to explore game writing and narrative design and its role in games of any form, this can be a reliable, updated guide and source of inspiration, and I don’t know of anything that can compare to it on its topic.
November 5, 2025
I am writing this review a whole year after having read the book. Truth be told, I didn't fully appreciate it at the time.
Since then I played some games where narrative storytelling was a focal point and I caught myself recalling concepts I learned from the book, seeing them play out in real time. I went back and forth with in-game response choices, probing how the game handles user agency (or its illusion). I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the theory applied and how easy it is to miss what design choices may drive each response.
I do remember being annoyed at one design choice - rerouting different player responses to lead to the same outcome - as I believed it stripped the player from agency (hence the illusion). It was one such an occasion that triggered my memory when encountered in game. But having played with the choice itself, I now understand how it works, why it works, and why it doesn't completely strip us of agency - after all, many games that are centered around storytelling involve the player's conception of the character as much as they involve their own worldbuilding.
Since then I played some games where narrative storytelling was a focal point and I caught myself recalling concepts I learned from the book, seeing them play out in real time. I went back and forth with in-game response choices, probing how the game handles user agency (or its illusion). I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the theory applied and how easy it is to miss what design choices may drive each response.
I do remember being annoyed at one design choice - rerouting different player responses to lead to the same outcome - as I believed it stripped the player from agency (hence the illusion). It was one such an occasion that triggered my memory when encountered in game. But having played with the choice itself, I now understand how it works, why it works, and why it doesn't completely strip us of agency - after all, many games that are centered around storytelling involve the player's conception of the character as much as they involve their own worldbuilding.
November 21, 2025
A wonderful practicioner's guide that is full of useful heuristics, challenging exercises and effective points of view. Dr. Nicklin is clearly a stone-cold pro, neither accommodating of the dregs of bullshit that surround games writing discourse nor mincing words when it comes to misconceptions and lazy practices.
She contextualizes her advice and knowledge with both industry experience and knowhow nearing (probably reaching) expertise in a wealth of other narrative fields. Her best-known work, Mutazione, speaks for itself, and it's refreshing to see that such a contemplative, self-aware and crafts(wo)manlike person was behind it all along.
I daresay this is the only games writing book one needs, if one indeed needs such a book; even storied writers are likely to benefit from the outright and eloquent statements of many a good habit, or the gentle reminders of simple but effective principles.
She contextualizes her advice and knowledge with both industry experience and knowhow nearing (probably reaching) expertise in a wealth of other narrative fields. Her best-known work, Mutazione, speaks for itself, and it's refreshing to see that such a contemplative, self-aware and crafts(wo)manlike person was behind it all along.
I daresay this is the only games writing book one needs, if one indeed needs such a book; even storied writers are likely to benefit from the outright and eloquent statements of many a good habit, or the gentle reminders of simple but effective principles.
April 5, 2023
Absolutely fantastic. One of the best books I've read on game development in general, never mind the relatively unexplored territory of game narrative specifically. Planning on recommending this in my own class on narrative design.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews