An Interview with Falmouth Lecturer, Eoin Murray
1. What genre of writing is most effective/popular in regard to the performance of games on the market?
That’s a very tricky question, mostly because the environment is so swiftly evolving, game developers are constantly trying new things and occasionally with a little serendipity you’ll strike lucky, and everyone will want to carry on emulating and refining that original concept – for example mechanics like the ‘over-the-shoulder’ camera in Resident Evil 4 or the free flowing ‘Arkham combat’ of the Batman games. With genre though, there’s always going to be a desire in gamer to ‘do things they’d never normally do’ as Don Carson put it; ‘therefore fantasy, action/adventure and role-playing games always do well.‘
However, smaller genres like character-driven walking simulators or even horror games are still gaining popularity. And, together with all this, consider the age of your intended audience – while shooter games may be the most popular with sixteen to twenty-four year olds, puzzle platformers might be the favourite with fifty five to sixty four year olds (or so Statista tells me). So, long story short, all genres have an audience, so run with where your passion as a creator leads you.
2. What was the initial career desire of yours when studying your degree?
Ahh, originally, I wanted to be a publisher or literary author – and then swiftly realised that was because I thought it was the best way to become successful. Luckily, I had supportive tutors who gave the freeing advice to write what I enjoyed, and this evolved into writing comedy and critical essays on video games – the latter has only gotten stronger in me, and I like to think I can still get out the occasional funny line in narrative.
3. What are the basic differences between narrative for games in contrast to fiction narrative?
Well, the most important difference is in your audience; they have agency, and you must consider how to tell a story to such an active player. Now, that isn’t to say people reading books or watching TV aren’t active, they are, but to a lesser degree. When you have players who might choose what direction the story goes in or how they wish to interact with the story-world you’ve developed, you must go to great lengths to plug all you ‘story-holes’ and make sure they don’t get themselves soft-locked or mess up narrative progression by tackling things out of order.
You’ll also want to balance storytelling and gameplay – if you have the player complete level after level and only tell the narrative through cutscene after cutscene then you’re creating a strong disconnect between your gameplay and your story. So, make use of those levels! Tell the story through the environment as much as the dialogue; every level design, character design, soundtrack choice and even the kinds of obstacles you put in the players way can tell the narrative in as much detail as a Cate Blanchett Lord of the Rings style monologue, and keep your players engaged at the same time!
4. How crucial is the presence of creative writing within game development or are there other aspects which have a greater importance?
Ahh well that’s a debate that’s been and gone... mostly. See, back in the day, academics argued back and forth as to whether the ludo (play) aspect of a game or the narrative aspect of a game was more important; in the end, they agreed both really matter. It’s much the same now within the industry in that both hold vital important to game development, now more than every we have an audience who are hungry for narratives that video games can tell best; they want, and in some cases expect, a story to be told to them as they play.
But it’s always worth considering that not every game has narrative ambitions that a creative writer could fulfil. What is important though, is that if you are developing a game with a strong narrative component, your writers must be involved from the ground up and meld the story to the mechanics and environment for the best player experience.
5. What guided you towards wanting to lecture and is this the end goal or would you like to have a different career in a few years time?
In truth I sort of fell into it as I was completing my MA in Wales. The school had some budget for a student teacher, and I was asked if I wanted to handle a seminar; being a poor student I jumped at the chance and realised I loved teaching! Helping get ideas across and watching student’s grasp concepts and improve is a really fulfilling profession to me. Of course, I also love being able to talk about game narrative and digital writing for hours on end with a captive audience, and if I can inspire just one into further academia or industry, then I’ll consider my time well spent. In truth I’m very happy where I am, though I’m hoping to get back on that creative horse as soon as and turn that novel draft I’ve hidden under the bed into something worth reading!
Edited by FalWriting