Did video games inspire/influence anyone else to write?

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mhdragon

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I remember my very first stories. One of the very first ones I wrote was a fanfiction of Crash Bandicoot when was like 8. It was basically Crash going through a game like adventure with levels and bosses with the antagonist being an I.R.P (Invincible Robot Pirate, my 8yr old brain made up the name but it's basically a robot pirate from Rayman 2.

When I was in my high school years, a friend of mine introduced World of Warcraft to me and that inspired me to come with a novel series idea. I have planned around 5-6 books in my head and haven't really done anything with it. I'm now 28. I went to college for a creative writing degree and then a masters program for writing genre fiction. However, I dropped out because my mentor did not like my idea. So I am kind going on this journey by myself.
 

HD Simplicityy

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I've not been here in many months... whew

Anyway, games have inspired me a lot to start writing. Its not the only reason however. Some life circumstances also caused it, and over the last three years...now it's been about that long...I've really come to enjoy writing.
 

CoffeeBeans

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Video games and writing have a bit of a give-and-take relationship for me. My current nanowrimo novel was inspired by a video game, but I've also used video games or playthrough of games as a way to explore my world and characters. Some people sketch or paint their world to explode their ideas, but I'm not very artistic, so video games for me!
 

Fullon_v4.0

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Games have definitely influenced me. I'm also 28 and have seen a lot of good stories (well...played a lot of good stories) in my time.

My current series is in a dumbed-down sense a mesh of Persona and Final Fantasy. I love the character interactions, and watching the action in those games gives me ideas for how events go in my stories. The music in both are pretty dope too xD
 

cmhbob

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Back when I played RPGs a lot, I was also reading a lot of TEOTWAWKI post-apocalyptic pulp, so I started a couple of stories of my own. Never finished them though. I got about 10k words in one called the Twilight Patrol, based on Twilight:2000.
 

lilyWhite

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To put it bluntly: I love JRPG-y tropes, so that probably bleeds into my writing.

Some of my favourite stories have been from video games, and not just JRPGs. I've also gotten a lot of my ideas while playing video games, and not always just from "oooh, this element is cool and I'd like to do a story all about it!" or "what if the story had gone this way...?" Something about playing video games helps kindle my creativity.

I'll admit that with one of my current WIPs, there's a plot element inspired by the concept of random encounters. It also has chapters that, in hindsight, are kind of like Mass Effect 2 loyalty missions. And probably the biggest influence on the story is the Lufia series, particularly the second and its remake, where the protagonist travels the world, is joined by a colourful cast of companions, and helps those in need wherever they go. (I even named the Goddess of Death in the story Reminea, a nod to Lufia's Sinistral of Death, Erim.)
 

Kjbartolotta

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The game Xenogears continues to be a high bar of Sci-fi WFTery I aspire towards.
 

Harlequin

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They influence *how* I write, at the very least. Particularly the way I construct romance arcs, and also action scenes. A lot of RPGs have to separate action from dialogue, they don't integrate well in games, and I notice that I do this. Here is your chat scene. Here is your fight scene. Here is your love scene the night before the final battle.
 

Bufty

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I've played hundreds of RPG's over the years. Hopefully keeps the imagination and brain working but I can't say I specifically recall any of them as having 'inspired' me to do anything writing-wise.
 

VeryBigBeard

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Yes and no, like others here.

I played a fair number of games growing up, particularly RPGs--more so than now, when what gaming time I have is increasingly RTS/4X--and some definitely inspired some my... earlier... attempts at writing. The problem that often comes up is that video games, at least, are a visual medium and also an interactive medium. A lot of times, when I've been in workshops and met other people who were inspired by games, their writing is very, very visual, and indeed that tended to be true of my first attempts, too, as I think it is for many writers because it's easier to just describe what we see happening in our mind than it is to describe the full range of human thought, which is what a novel does better than almost any medium.

Eventually, I went to school for games writing, and consequently have written some stuff for indie projects (none of which ever went anywhere--it's a hell of an industry). I like game development, and still do it occasionally, but it's a very different craft. My earlier game attempts tended to be too dialogue-heavy, even too internal, and I still catch myself drifting into the kinds of interior monologue and soliloquy that work well in novels but which are death in games. As I got more practiced with game design, I got more interested in the interactivity, in creating story without words (I'm particularly fond of using sound as well as dance), and, IMO, that's where a lot of the most interesting stories are being made in games--thinking of things like Passpartout here, or The Sexy Brutale, which uses interactive time to tell its story. Journey tends to be my touchstone for this kind of thing--Jenova Chen is a genius. It's not that you can't have words in games--absolutely you can--it's just they have to work with all the other systems, systems which are arguably even more powerful than words alone, at least within the visual medium where video games are played.

What's happened more recently is I've been taking some of my earlier attempts at games and repurposing them as novels, because that's probably what they always were, and at the time I just gravitated to the medium I thought was cooler because I like making maps and levels. So my answer to the thread question is yes, quite literally. But the adaptation, such as it is, is pretty total, because I'm removing the core of gameplay and adding character POV, which utterly transforms the way the world is perceived (and gives me a lot more control, which I find a lot more awkward these days than I did when I first started writing). Really, they're whole new stories and I'm mostly just borrowing the worldbuilding.

A game is the player's story. A novel is a character's story.
 

Richard White

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Well, I will admit that playing D&D in 1979 might have influenced my decision to shift to a history major (for better or worse).

I can't say playing a video game "influenced" my writing, but my first professional novel was a Gauntlet Dark Legacy media tie-in novel.

I am also currently writing short stories for Green Ronin's "Freeport" RPG tie-in library.

(And, if they ever get around to it, I am not responsible for the carnage as I fight my way to the front of the line to get to do a Horizon: Zero Dawn tie-in. Nope, I have no idea how all those other tie-in writers had all those accidents. *whistles innocently*)
 

D. E. Wyatt

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Quest for Glory I is pretty much the entire reason I got inspired to write.
 

Ludwig

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In some capacity. I'd always had a love for writing, but playing a lot of narrative-heavy games has definitely intensified my desire to write. When I'm defeated, or think about giving up writing, I remind myself of all those games I've played - ones that made me laugh, cry, and smile, and think, 'I really want others to experience the same thing through my work'. So, in the long-haul, gaming has definitely helped keep me inspired.
 

Charke

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RPGs also inspired me to write and I have struggled for years to avoid writing like an RPG. Combat does not happen in turns. You don't have hit points. One person is not higher level than another. It's been years and I think I've mostly moved past it but it's hard to escape your past.

- Mark Charke
 

Spicyqueso

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Actually final fantasy has a huge influence on a lot of my stories. I loved the early stories, character development, and the fantasy realm. I sometimes watch videos of some game play to get myself in a writing mood :)
 

Norman Mjadwesch

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I wasn’t influenced by video games per se, but I was certainly interested in writing rules for gaming systems (30 years later, I still am). Those rules became equations and algorithms that recreated historical outcomes of recorded events (WW1&2, various sports), which I have used as detail in my novels. My first novel and one of my WIPs were structured around the bones of those algorithms and then filled in with characterisation and loads of research concerning lifestyles / disease / scenery.

In all truth, I cannot say that my obsession has been a good thing. I can say that it gets more than the odd look from people who find out what I do.
 

GoSpeed

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My greatest source of inspiration and for content comes from Second Life. Not technically a game, but more of a shared virtual world / sandbox. There is a tremendous amount of creativity and roleplay spread across numerous communities there. Many of my characters are based on friends I have made there.
 
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Simian

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Oh I always wanted to try second life but I'm worried it may take over my "primary" life. Do you find it hard to balance the two?
 

rwm4768

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Video games have been a huge influence for me. I fell in love with the fantasy genre in part because of Super Nintendo RPGs.
 

guyjin37

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Video games have been a huge influence for me. I fell in love with the fantasy genre in part because of Super Nintendo RPGs.

Are you me?

SNES RPGs were where it's at. They really taught me about the potential of the format for storytelling!
 

The Second Moon

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I find that the video game that I played most recently sneaks its way into my writing. For example: I was playing MarioKart 8 a lot and in that game there are karts with hang gliders. Well, in a car chase scene in my story an inventor put a hang glider on his car (the car was a plastic toy car and the inventor was shrunken).

I also made a restaurant manager dress like the restaurant manager in Pokemon X/Y. Yes I still play that and Pokemon Sun/Moon. BTW, I'm going to brag here and say that I've found three shiny Pokemon in X and one shiny in Moon. (sorry, I have no one else to brag to but my sister. ;))
 

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Video games have definitely been a huge influence for me. I play a bunch of fantasy mmorpgs, which is probably one of the reasons why I'm such a sucker for medieval-type fantasy. I've used some of the names of the attacks and skills in those games in my own writing. Also, just the sheer number of players with so many unique usernames are a great resource if you have trouble thinking up a good name for your characters.
 

Moardragons

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A short story I wrote (one of my favorites, actually) was inspired by a few Dark Souls bosses I crunched into one demigod-like character.

Video games are a separate medium, for sure, but I think they deal with themes in a similar way to books. I was always inspired by how the Souls games and Bloodborne connect the themes and motifs of the individual games to the imagery, world, and gameplay. It's so satisfyingly cohesive.

Sometimes, with my books, I like to think "This is a book about fire and moonlight, the same way Dark Souls 1 is a game about death and sunlight." Or, "this is a book about water and passion, the same way Bloodborne is a game about bodies and dreams." It helps me think of ways to tie the book together like the games are tied together. Every image, every sound, every moment is a deeper exploration of the same few ideas.
 

Primus

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Absolutely. The Mass Effect series, particularly ME2, revealed to me how much power a purely character-driven game can have on storytelling. It made me realize, and convinced me, that characters are superior to plot. You can have the most basic and generic plot, but if the characters are believable and emotionally compelling and diverse, then the story in no way suffers (also helps that the world-building is fascinating too). Its quality is elevated and worth imitation.
 
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