Written By February/March 2010 : Page 8

Written by Denis faye TaKe fIVe Pinboard Cowgirl Amy Hennig is no geek-chic scribe. in film theory and pro- duction at San Francis- co State University. At the time, storytelling didn’t play a huge role in game creation, so in- stead of indulging her literary aspirations, she took work as an artist animator creating “lit- tle pixel people made out of three colors.” She quickly saw artistic opportunities in games that she felt wouldn’t be available to her in the movies. “Even at such a liberal, progressive bastion as San Francisco State University, I could see the hierarchies I would be stepping into in the film industry,” she says. “What I could poten- tially hope for seemed so limiting, creatively.” So she dropped out nig as she weaves among the darkened halls and huge, glowing monitors that populate her company’s Santa Monica offices. She’s explaining why she passed on the glitter of Hollywood for a career writing and designing electronic enter- tainment. “There’s not a lot of set rules and hierarchy. It’s a fluid meritocracy, which is what I liked about it.” Yet, the Old West hardly comes to T mind in these high-tech catacombs, and Hennig’s office, with its pop cul- ture ephemera–packed shelves and wall-to-wall pinboards plotting out structure for her more recent project, the award-winning Playstation 3 game Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, might say geek-chic scribe, but it certainly he game industry is a lot like the Wild West,” insists Naughty Dog creative director Amy Hen- doesn’t scream cowboy. That said, a lot of shootin’ from the hip went into creating the criti- cally acclaimed Uncharted series. The 90 minutes of narrative nestled among Uncharted 2 ’s game play might be well-crafted and cohesive, but to al- low for the fluctuations that constantly happen in this evolving industry, it was also largely written on the fly during the year that the game was developed. And although Hennig wrote most of it, if anyone else on the team came up with the right words at the right time, be they designer, artist, or programmer, she’d plop them in front of Final Draft and tell them to start typing. Charting a Course Henning got her start in the gaming industry in 1989 to finance a master’s 8 • WGAW Written By february/march 2010 of school and took a job as an art- ist at Electronic Arts. From there, she worked her way up the digital enter- tainment food chain. While working for the game company Crystal Dynam- ics, she took on the director’s chair for the popular Soul Reaver series. Among her duties was the task of writing the narrative, despite never having written a game before. “It was just something I could do,” shrugs Hennig. “I guess if I’d face-planted, that would have been that, but I did okay.” This talent as a double threat at- tracted the attention of Naughty Dog, which hired her in 2003. “Rather than trying to attract Hollywood talent and teach them about game design, we hired Amy,” explains Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells, “primarily because of her experience as a game

Take 5

Pinboard Cowgirl Amy Hennig is no geek-chic scribe. The game industry is a lot like the Wild West,” insists Naughty Dog creative director Amy Hennig as she weaves among the darkened halls and huge, glowing monitors that populate her company’s Santa Monica offices. She’s explaining why she passed on the glitter of Hollywood for a career writing and designing electronic entertainment. “There’s not a lot of set rules and hierarchy. It’s a fluid meritocracy, which is what I liked about it.” Yet, the Old West hardly comes to mind in these high-tech catacombs, and Hennig’s office, with its pop culture ephemera–packed shelves and wall-to-wall pinboards plotting out structure for her more recent project, the award-winning Playstation 3 game Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, might say geek-chic scribe, but it certainly doesn’t scream cowboy. That said, a lot of shootin’ from the hip went into creating the critically acclaimed Uncharted series. The 90 minutes of narrative nestled among Uncharted 2 ’s game play might be well-crafted and cohesive, but to allow for the fluctuations that constantly happen in this evolving industry, it was also largely written on the fly during the year that the game was developed. And although Hennig wrote most of it, if anyone else on the team came up with the right words at the right time, be they designer, artist, or programmer, she’d plop them in front of Final Draft and tell them to start typing. Charting a Course Henning got her start in the gaming industry in 1989 to finance a master’s in film theory and production at San Francisco State University. At the time, storytelling didn’t play a huge role in game creation, so instead of indulging her literary aspirations, she took work as an artist animator creating “little pixel people made out of three colors.” She quickly saw artistic opportunities in games that she felt wouldn’t be available to her in the movies. “Even at such a liberal, progressive bastion as San Francisco State University, I could see the hierarchies I would be stepping into in the film industry,” she says. “What I could potentially hope for seemed so limiting, creatively.” So she dropped out of school and took a job as an artist at Electronic Arts. From there, she worked her way up the digital entertainment food chain. While working for the game company Crystal Dynamics, she took on the director’s chair for the popular Soul Reaver series. Among her duties was the task of writing the narrative, despite never having written a game before. “It was just something I could do,” shrugs Hennig. “I guess if I’d face-planted, that would have been that, but I did okay.” This talent as a double threat attracted the attention of Naughty Dog, which hired her in 2003. “Rather than trying to attract Hollywood talent and teach them about game design, we hired Amy,” explains Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells, “primarily because of her experience as a game Designer, but the fact that she’s a gifted writer is a bonus.” Fortune Hunting Her primary responsibility at Naughty Dog has been overseeing the Uncharted series, an homage to the pulp genre centering around rebel-with-a-heartof- gold treasure hunter Nate Drake. “We decided that we wanted to emulate the classic, pulp action-adventure genre from turn-of-last-century pulp novels, to Saturday matinee series, all the way to the adventure films of the ’80s,” Hennig says. “We wanted to play in that sandbox and with those tropes, but in a way that feels fresh, with a contemporary hero. We’re not trying to tell a retro story.” While most games of this ilk are little more than opportunities for players to shoot bad guys and perform perilous stunts from the relative safety of their living room couch, Hennig and her team deliberately crafted a narrative that leaves little room for alteration. Sure, you have plenty of chances to plug villains and blow stuff up but, like it or not, you’re just along for the ride as Nate and his fellow adventurers interact, learn from each other, and actually have character arcs—something you don’t see too often in video games. They couldn’t give players too much say in the narrative, otherwise the classic, lovable rogue Nate Drake might run the risk of losing his classic, lovable roguishness. “He had to be a fullyfledged, relatable character, not like the silent protagonists you find in some first person games where your avatar is looking through the characters eyes and it’s up to you to impose the personality,” says Hennig. To accomplish this, the game intersperses play with a “wide linear” narrative. Many games feature a branching narrative, meaning the player calls the plot shots, thus allowing the story to branch off in many different directions. In Uncharted 2, which tells the story of Nate’s quest for the mythical kingdom of Shambhala, you solve puzzles and engage in plenty of action, but you can’t really influence the outcome (unless you die, of course). “It’s a crafted Experience,” says Hennig, “but within that space, we want to give the player lots of choice about how they approach an event, whether they want to go in there stealthily or guns a’blazing. “We’re telling a character-driven story, and that doesn’t happen that much in games,” she adds. “It’s linear because I don’t think you can quite capture that experience and pace that’s so important to a classic action-adventure movie if you loosen the reins too much.” Making sure players didn’t feel led around by the nose was a challenge. The vignettes between game play were kept “short, sweet, and relevant.” Also, the team creating the game play and the team creating the narrative had to be one big happy posse. “If game play and story are disparate, then we’re just leaving it up to luck for them to blend together,” explains Neil Druckmann, a game designer on Uncharted 2 who pitched in for the writing duties along with several others. “Whereas, if we’re letting the story inspire and limit the game play and vice versa, we get something that’s working hand-in-hand.” Hennig and her team outlined the narrative early in the project, but they made a point of keeping it loose as to allow for the game play creation process. “It’s the nature of game development,” says Hennig. “Good game development is all about iteration, which is opposite to film or television where you need to nail it, get it in the can, and go.” Often times, other parts of development didn’t go as played, so they needed to be ready to rework the narrative and, in particular, the dialogue. “Maybe we thought a level would be really cool, but then it wasn’t, so it became five minutes long, not 30,” she explains. “Or maybe the schedule wasn’t quite panning out, so suddenly we had to cut or shorten levels. The narrative has got to be flexible because maybe I had an important story event in a level and now it’s gone. Where’s that story event going to occur and can it be changed? If you write in the screenplay in a rigid, traditional way and you think you’re just going to record it, you end up deviating from the game play experience the player should be having. “It’s a holistic, mental juggling process where, as things shift and change under you, you have to keep all the strands of this web in mind and think about what you’ve foreshadowed and what you’ve paid off. We cut this piece, so is this piece still going to work? The fact that we flesh out the dialogue as we go helps us react to a lot of that stuff. But it is kind of like working without a net.” Although it was Hennig’s job to keep the narrative tight, she was more than happy to open up writing responsibilities to whoever wanted them. “We don’t have the luxury of a group of writers like in TV,” she says, “so the effort is spread across the entire team. Anyone who’s interested can make suggestions. I guess my job is to be a head writer, in a way, to shepherd the whole thing. I do most of the writing, just by necessity because we’re all so busy, but that doesn’t mean someone else might not take a stab at a scene or suggest revisions on anything I’ve written.” It’s a common situation in the industry. “Video game development isn’t as clear cut as the film industry,” explains Evan Wells. “A lot of people wear a lot of different hats. People are still trying to figure out the best way to incorporate writers into their mix to elevate the art form.” “It’s all about the vagaries of schedules and resources,” Hennig adds. “And we’re not working against a proven formula. With movies, it’s kind of a known quantity. It’s very schedulable. For us it’s not. We’re writing new software and writing new engines every single time we make a game. There are a ton of unknowns. You have to be willing to go on faith and deviate as you go.”

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