Can some help me out?

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0 comments, last by sunandshadow 10 years, 1 month ago

Hey Guys,

Can some link me to example of how a game script would look like? I already seen how motion pictures (movies) script look.

Thank You!

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Game scripts differ depending on whether it is a linear game or an interactive game. For a linear game it is very similar to the way a movie script looks, except that there may be additional notes about what in-game action triggers a script segment to start, and script segments may have optional or alternate parts that are used if the player has or hasn't fulfilled certain conditions through previous gameplay. Also linear games may have small interactive dialogues, and the script will say how the game's state should change based on the player's choice in the dialogue (gain or lose items, gain or lose stats, move something that was blocking the player out of the way, transport the player to a different area, etc. If a game has both cut-scenes and scripted scenes, the dialogue segment will be labeled as to which of these it should be. Sometimes linear games have a global timeline, and everything in the game from textures used on items to items existence and positioning to NPC dialogue may have a different version depending on the current point in the global timeline.

Googling for examples of scripts generally won't get you anything but the words, because most game scripts available online are player reconstructions. But if there is a game where someone has made a project out of hacking the save file, those are often very educational about how the real script is working behind the scenes. Final Fantasy 7 is a particularly complex linear game that has been studied a lot by fans; a walkthrough for the game will explain many of the consequences of in-game choices, and there was a thing called the Black Chocobo project where someone studied the save file and wrote a save file hacking engine. Or, you can try searching for open source or creative commons games, many of these make their scripts public.

Interactive games have more complicated scripts, using flow charts, spreadsheets, and ID numbers. Not all interactive games work the same way; some use state machines, some use quest modules which each have their own local timeline (like the global timeline described above). Skyrim is a recent example of a highly interactive game. Again, you can find the most information about how the script works behind the scenes by looking in the wiki, which often contains hackery instructions for how to force the game to fix a bugged quest.

I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.

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