I am always looking for ways to expand my skills, seeking out new techniques, and finding different challenges to tackle. Attached is an assignment I completed for a game writing class I took for professional development which asked me to take one of four childhood games and, keeping all the rules and mechanics, rewrite the game's story to make a totally new narrative that still that works within the game's predefined parameters.
Here is a truncated version of the assignment for this piece of writing:
Pick one of the following games and create a story concept for it:
Checkers – rules here!
Chinese Checkers – rules here!
Go – rules here!
Trouble – rules here!
Imagine that you’re telling a story, but you’re telling me a story while also writing out the set of instructions that come with the game. “These are how the spaces in the game work and this is the story-reason why they behave that way.”
Mechanics unique to your game need to be explained through the story, but mechanics commonplace to gaming at large, like using dice to determine how far you can move, drawing cards, etc, often times don’t require an explanation.
Read how I transformed the game Chinese Checkers into an action-packed space race where players compete to go down in history here.