The Poet’s Corner - What is a gamescript?

Poet's Corner
Written By Ryan

Welcome to the poet’s corner!

This week’s topic will be about what is a gamescript, as some of you might be wondering from yesterday’s team weekly update.

Before we begin though I would like to point out that last week server time made it seem like I posted on Tuesday, but was right on time (11:59 according to my computer) on Monday, where I live. Today I started writing earlier so I can share a fresh piece of poetry with all of you :) .

Back on topic, a gamescript is something hard to define. American football fans define it as “scoring margin at any point in a game” (Rayborn, 2016) and game programmers as the code which makes things happen in the game. The one I refer to is more on the writing side, that is the written form of game scenes.

As you can probably tell, this is a very niche thing, which is not absolutely necessary for all games out there (think of Tetris), but is helpful so a team knows what to do in a particular portion of a game. “Yeah yeah, but what is it Ryan?” you must be asking, well I’m not sure there is an official definition and if there is I haven’t come across it, so I’ll give you mine instead.

A gamescript is a weird crossover chimera-like thing between a playscript, post-it note reminders and explaining what’s going on to a three year old.

- Ryan Munoz, 2020

Yeah… That didn’t help much did it? Showing an example is probably better in this case. So I will be doing a gamescript example of what I believe to be one of the saddest and most tragic scenes in game history, I ask you keep tissues on hand and consider this is just my interpretation of the scene:

Acronyms:

  • SFX: Sound Effect.

  • FX: Effect. (usually visual)

  • NPC: Non-player character.

End of world 1-4

Story: Tragedy hits our hero as he is informed of the princess whereabouts.

Plot: After our hero vanquishes the monster guarding the castle, an unexpected character clears up a misconception regarding the princess.

Conditions: The player must touch the axe at the end of the level.

Location: The evil boss’ castle.

SFX: Victory tune begins (8s).

IF Boss was not defeated:

FX: The bridge collapses progressively from left to right, Boss moves its feet back and forth (2s) and drop towards the lava until it’s off-screen.

FX: Protagonist moves left, dropping into a lower floor and continues to advance until it’s right next to NPC.

NPC: (Onscreen) THANK YOU MARIO! BUT OUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE!

Here’s the video if you want to see the scene.

See what I mean? It’s literally describing what’s going on other people of the team know what to do. So in our example:

  • A sound engineer would know a ‘Victory tune’ was necessary.

  • An animator is informed a movement animation is needed for Mario (the protagonist) and the Boss.

  • A character designer knows he needs to make Mario, the boss and Toad (NPC).

  • A programmer is aware what needs to happen before the scene plays and that there is a conditional, so the scene plays differently is certain conditions were met.

While it isn’t always the case that the scene is written before it is programmed, it is helpful for a team if the script is made so there is a mutual agreement on how a scene plays out. The level of detail necessary, or even the need for one, very much depends of the team’s workflow. Some might need specification of how many pixels a character needs to move while other’s might not even need the length of time a tune is played.

It’s important to note that while mostly useful for cutscenes, the gamescript has more uses. For instance, when doing a menu you can indicate the positions of items and what animations play at what time and for how long with a gamescript.

With this I hope you not only got a better feel for what is a gamescript but also that the process is not so much the game designer being like this:

That’s one good looking Shalkspeare

That’s one good looking Shalkspeare

But more like this:

Think Shakespeare is discussing with his coworkers.

Think Shakespeare is discussing with his coworkers.

And now this week’s poem:

Adrift

A leaf of maple,

Adrift the river it goes,

May the journey be gentle,

Its destiny unknown.

A cherry blossom petal,

Adrift in the wind’s embrace,

Does it find a place to settle,

Or its thoughts erase?

A icy rock,

Adrift in space,

To the stars it talks,

And gives the planets chase.

Thanks for reading. See you next week!

Bibliography

Images:

Videos:

Ryan

Head of Writing and Programming

Previous

The Placed Note-Being Self-Taught

Next

Weekly Update