Game-devs I have a question:

What's is a regular or recommend workflow when developing a game that has a good/elaborated background story.

Let's say you are developing a game like Metal Gear or Resident Evil.

Where does the writing of the story get in? At the beginning? Your write the whole story or at list the majority of it before putting the game together?

And what's the writing style for a videogame story? You write it like a book? Or is more specific for a game?

I mean, your character Jason meets a boss and fights it: do you write: "Jasons finds evil genius hideout and meets him" or instead "the player gets to the boss and the fight starts"?

Sorry for the long question.

Read up on gameDesign Documents, im a shitty designer but they might help.

I would say it all depends on the team and size of team.

For a small shop it could be either but for a large one I would presume that the story is more or less done when content creation starts but they might already have a game engine and some trials or examples, at least for specific parts.

For a really big production you want it to be seamless. For a small indie you can get away with much more.

i guess you first write several iterations of an exposé... a one page paper describing what goal should be achieved. For communicating your business and game idea.

Then you write a rough concept. Analyse your target audience, finding out what they like in a game. Then you gather the requirements to meet the goals you've found out of the user research.
You may add some sketches and moodboards, technical planing and an estimated budget and time schedule.

Then you go out and search investors. Because you'll need just like in the movie business alot of money. 80 million dollar upwards. After you pitched your idea to an investor and you've got the money you start writing fine concepts. Write stories and do caracter design. Test it on real audience and adjust it. When your done with writing concept for everything it goes into development. Animation, graphic design, programming etc.

After 3-5 years of development it goes into beta testing. And the marketing from your publisher like EA Games starts to advertise your product.

Thanks everyone.

Being more specific, I was thinking a small studio, or a one-dev studio.

The comparison with those games was about the importance of the story in the game, not about how big the production is.

If you were to make a game, or you and other person, when would you write the story? What would be the writing style? And how much of the story would you write before start building the game (creating assets, game mechanics and so on)?

I know there's no one right answer to this, I just wanna know what would you recommend or what have you done.

I personally develop the base engine first but have a base line story to work with, ensure I can get everything functional like player movements, collision and the like, then I flush out the story further.

And I write my stories in a branching way, so build a few paths and if your story is linear, decide on the one that seems more interesting.

Haven't released anything as of yet because I get to nitty gritty about stuff but have tonnes of back burner projects that have followed this.

(My tips probably aren't great tbh)

@antorqs I can reccomend you the book About Face. It's a book about building digital products. And it'll give you a schedule or blueprint on how to structure your design process. Totally worth it!

https://goo.gl/wzUylC
About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design: Alan Cooper ...

For your question about creativity. Gather a list of questions that you like to have answered. And go on research for the most popular "indy" games. Or mobile games on the playstore. Categorize game and reward mechanics and stories. Contact those developers. Show interest. Join a indy game association where you can ask for advice.

As my storytelling teacher said: "there is only one story and some variations."
1. The hero gets introduced. 2. He isn't the hero yet. 3. Something terible happens. 4. Hero tries to be hero. 5. Fails. 6. Friends help the hero to overcome his doubts. 7. End fight the villian. 8. Hero wins and get the princes. Or dies if it is a tragedy. And if the Hero makes super stupid mistakes along the way it is a comedy. If the Heros friends dies it's a thriller. You see one story different variations.