Create your own scenario - Writing for Games

Game scenario writing is more than a game; it can also be a great career. The next STC Puget Sound meeting will help turn your interest in gaming into a career writing game scenarios. Local game scenario writers Mark Schuldt, John Sutherland and Hal Milton will explain how to create narratives, game mechanics and scenarios. They will also discuss how to make the mental switch from technical writing to game writing and the state of the video game industry.  

Speakers:

Mark Schuldt is a Seattle game designer who started writing game content at 18. He has created several popular games such as “Ancient's Chronicle,” “Six Bullets and a Blood Red Sun” and a “Silver Sun,” as well as developing the RPG mechanics system called MS6D6. He is starting the game development company, Outer-Orbit Games, with some college friends. Mark has Bachelor degrees in History and Christian Theology from Whitworth University and a Master’s of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. 

Hal Milton has worked in games for over sixteen years in a wide variety of roles. From game design, audio design, proposal and franchise development, direct implementation to management.  Starting at Origin Systems, he's worked for or with almost every major publisher in the world including Electronic Arts, Infogrames/Atari, Wizards of the Coast, Microsoft, Sony, Ubisoft, THQ, Activision, Sega, and many others. He's developed content for almost every platform available including the burgeoning social, mobile, casual, and freemium spaces. He's currently employed with Disney/Playdom as a creative lead on a new, secret social title

John Sutherland worked at a variety of technical writing jobs before starting a career in game writing at Microsoft in 1996. His work there included all three versions of Combat Flight Simulator, a massive multiplayer game based on Norse mythology called Mythica (with Hal Milton) that was never released, Mass Effect, and Alan Wake. He pioneered a structural approach to game writing that was controversial before it became normal. In 2010, he left Microsoft to form his own company, VidGameStory.com.