I believe in the axiom that you can break the rules intentionally only after you’ve studied and mastered them. That’s what I’ve been telling my storytelling students who came eager to show the world how the three-act structure is outdated, and they have this revolutionary solution to demonstrate that. But no miracles happened, and their stories worked only after we applied the rules — or never.
But a couple of days ago while I was working on this case study for the book, where the authors, just like me, came to gamedev from a different art field, I formulated another statement I would convey to any aspiring narrative designer if they asked my advice:
You can break the rules if you bring your own set.
BYOR: Bring Your Own Rules. By that, I mean not some invented fantasy, but a tried and tested set from another practice. What we see as a result in game design are some of the most interesting projects: think Journey, Disco Elysium, Genesis Noir, 1000xRESIST, or Thumper.
So now I’m curious, fellow gamedevs:
Where do you come from and what set of rules have you brought into your games? I will be happy to share your quotes and stories with readers.
Week 7 0f 12: kinda lagging
There’s a lot to do at work, so I have much less energy even to finish this case study. But we’re really at the finish line and the cover design preview looks great! I’ve also been thinking what makes the rather simple task take so long and I’ve just realised that I lacked some sort of instant gratification. Switching from book writing to work then back, it’s no play, you know. I need a distraction that can fuel me, and it can’t be shopping for the best deal on that specific last-year New Balance model all the time. It can be making stuff, just not in the writing department, like coding a small app (well, whom am I kidding, it’s Claude who codes and I’m just standing there with my whip). So, as soon as I have this “let’s write X more paragraphs so I can get back to making that thingy” on my mind, things speed up. I call it “procreastination”.
In the running department, I probably should check when the race day actually is, to warm myself up at least in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, I used my breaks when I need to switch to another type of activity, to audit my personal media and, as an experiment, decided to focus on Substack. If there’s one thing I want to grow, it’s this newsletter — it’s exactly the kind I like to receive myself. Don’t worry, the shitposting on Bluesky isn’t going anywhere!
See you next week,
N.