Forever thinking about this tweet thread with game writing exercises from Katie Chironis, currently a Principal Designer at Bungie, previously the Design Director at Riot Games. If you can do these game-writing exercises well, you are a God-tier narrative designer, and I will move Heaven and Earth to work with you.
(Yes, I'm doing narrative today, why do you ask??)
#1
I choose to slay you!
Become einherjar!
Better by blade than age!
Serve you mead, later.
Taste thy battle-sweat!
Sleep on the red snow!
I feed the eagle!
I am the swan of blood!
Hagakure thirsts!
Tomoe's favored trick!
Blood-worm of the east!
Split thy war-garb!
Your time comes!
Hakagure, my blood-ice!
You Munin-feed!
You will not grow old!
Here is your deathbed!
Fall before me!
Iaijutsu!
Shed wolf's wine!
#2
Training-Basic - Everyone gets to ride one of these in training, though I have no idea why they devised a scheme specifically for that. I guess experienced warriors use it ironically.
Crash test - The yellow disk is actually called the Secchi disk, it serves as a fiducial marker to show scale on crash test dummies. No, they don't usually applies those to vehicles, but here it is. And now you know!
DDR - Red lines on grey-green? That's strichtarn. The East Germans used it to look different from the Soviets. As a camo pattern, it's marginal at best. But as a branding tool? Now that's a different talk!
Red Barricades - This is supposed to look like factory red primer. Not entirely certain whether it's in use these days, but it still evokes the feeling that it just came off the assembly line, like a tank in Stalingrad.
Razzle-dazzle - Some egghead was convinced that dazzle camo didn't work on ships because they were slow. That a motorcycle lives in an entirely different environment didn't seem relevant to him, so there you have it. My eyes hurt.
The Devil - They got theologians, semantics experts and calligraphy masters to create a paintjob that's nothing but blasphemies for the Opposition. I don't know why, you're already getting shot on sight.
The Prestige - So you know how warlords gold plate their rifles and such? This is what happens when the same logic is applied to a motorcycle. Hope you enjoy it.
Sterling Silver - Yes, it's coated in actual silver, so it has mild antiseptic properties. I'm sure anyone you run over will appreciate it. It also means that the bike is entirely safe from werewolves and vampires.
The Bronze Age Warrior - My suggestion to add a plume to make the name stick was shot down by animal rights activists. Still, the muted color is a classic look.
Traffic-Oh - The bright colors of motorcycle-riding traffic cops, knights of the highway. Everyone dreaded seeing this hi-vis blip on their rearview mirror.
TOXIK - This color scheme is just far enough from the cop scheme to avoid trouble, but close enough to look like them in the mirror. Kids using it to scare car drivers did not engender more love for bikers.
XTREME - Branding everything as EXTREME was a trend back in the lost 90s. I asked one of the cyborg Methuselahs about it. She said it should "remain lost."
Hedgehog Blue - Technically, this scheme was created to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a video game icon, but that was before we had actual blue hedgehogs.
ROYALTY - We don't need to grind mollusks or something to make purple anymore, but everyone agrees that it's a very nice color. They say it blends in well at night, which I see as a downside in terms of parking.
The Impression - They machinegunned a bunch of paint cans to get these random splatter effects. You can say that it's unique, I guess.
Wizardry - Rumor has it that they found the last old coot doing panel van art to airbrush the wizard on the tank.
Charcoal - Buildings, ECM, enemy sigint - there were a lot of reasons to go back to motorcycle couriers for communications during the City War. They used this matte coating for discreetness.
Bleeding Edge - the artist spent some time looking for a color mixture that matched the color of his oxygenated blood.
Two-Faced - the accounts that a bank robber painted his getaway car like this to confuse the witnesses are purely apocryphal.
Beater - So you found it in a ditch, all rusted over, but it still runs? Wack.
#3
NPC: So, I'm not an uncle and neither am I drunk, but I can do this, I can teach you how to fish.
NPC: First, walk to the shore of the lake. It's right in front of you.
NPC: Do you see that rippling circle? That's a good fishing spot.
NPC: The fish don't actually call it that. They congregate close to the surface to plot.
NPC: Now, take a stock of your inventory. You should have a fishing rod on you.
NPC: God, I hope you didn't come to fish without a rod.
NPC: Put- grab the rod in your right hand.
NPC: Great, you can hold things. This will come in handy later.
NPC: Looking at the fishing spot? Rod in hand? You're ready.
NPC: You should feel comp-Elled to fish. To catch some Eels.
NPC: Well done, the dice is cast. Er, the net is cast. The finishing line...?
NPC: Sure, whatever. Watch the bobber. It's the floaty thing.
NPC: It's brightly colored, because fishermen are attracted to colorful things.
NPC: Wait for the bobber to earn its name. Wait for it to bob.
NPC: Already?! Damn, it's bobbing! Pull back!
NPC: Pull, damn you!
NPC: Et voila! You caught your first fish!
NPC: Told you holding things would come in useful.
NPC: There comes a time in a young gender's life when mere jumping is not enough.
NPC: Even extended-turbo-double-jump isn't enough.
NPC: Let me tell you about backflips.
NPC: This will impress some folks!
NPC: So, uh, jump, but try to go backwards instead of forwards.
NPC: No, you just jumped back!
NPC: You have to hold the desire to jump back the entire time.
NPC: Ah, there you have it! What a backflip.
NPC: Now, if I can find my rocket launcher, I can tell you about the last super-sweet jump technique...
NPC: OK, this is going to get philosophical.
NPC: Sometimes, things move slowly - but that's just in your head.
NPC: Your brain can't handle all taking in all the detail.
NPC: What can you do? Well, first, you must escape the regular line of thinking.
NPC: Peer deeply behind the veil, right into yourself. I needed Ayahuasca to do it, but I'm sure you can do without.
NPC: Imagine your inner being presented as a menu.
NPC: The main menu, if you will.
NPC: Concentrate on your options. That's how you can change yourself.
NPC: We're going to change how your perceive the visual world.
NPC: See? So many choices!
NPC: From my meditation experience, I can tell you that seeing the world in simpler terms can speed up the way you process things.
NPC: Maybe you don't need such wide resolution. Maybe you're burdening yourself with too much detail.
NPC: Either way, it's your head, you make the choices.
NPC: I can only leave you with one final bit of advice: don't make Venmo for dogs.
#4
These woods have a sickness. Three times three in wolf packs. Two-score wolves per pack. Nature wouldn't harbor such symmetry. But there's nothing natural about these forest wolves. They sacrificed their young, their old, their weak. For endless youth. For frivolous hunt. For indulgence. Kill them. Kill them all. Bring back their pelts to warm our young, our old, our weak. We do not indulge.
#5
VO: It started with Neom. The idle rich, weighted down with their wealth, unmoored for reality. Building a mile-wide city in the desert, a thin strip of life where none should be - nobody sane would do it.
VO: But they did. And once He3 replaced oil, a new cadre of rich morons rose up. At least the Habsburgs could blame incest. But these guys had their brain rotted cheap pop-culture pap, hiding behind irreverence out of fear of creating something sincerely and getting laughed at. Their souls shorn clean seeking approval on social media.
VO: A volcano island. Built of doughnuts. The absurdity of the idea pales in front of the inhumanity of the effort. One mouth going hungry to please the orbital elite is too much. I won't tell you the estimates of what buying that much wheat did.
VO: There's further depths to this iniquity. How do you prevent the donuts from rotting, melting, sagging? Why, treat them with hardener. Dip them, one by one, in specially formulated goo. The Germans had their work cut out for months, pumping that stuff out.
VO: They didn't test it in sea water, you know. The hardener still holds, but it leeches into the water. The only way this tragedy would be bigger is if we had left more aquatic nature for it to kill.
VO: So many died for this abjectly immoral idea. But reconning comes. Go. Make the volcano run red with blood.
