The Need for Revision in Video Games

During my graduate school residency before Thanksgiving, I had some “epiphanies,” if you will, about the process of revision. It’s interesting how each residency I’ve attended ends up taking on a theme, and that theme happens to be the area of writing I need the most help with. I’m fairly sure my perception and my progress on the learning curve of “writing” help to shape this theme. That others who attended the residency came away with a completely different spin on the 10-day gathering. But that’s what revision is about. Examining a massive blob of stuff and whittling it down into a meaningful experience. Whether it’s a short story, a poem, a novel, or a video game.

Kirby Gann lectured about the revision process, specifically the implicit aspect of revision. He suggested using summary as a tool. Condense your short story into a single sentence or two, your novel into a short paragraph. Figure out what’s actually important to the story and revise with the summary as a goal.

I’ll state my disclaimer here. From what I’ve read about game development, the idea of revision, especially relating to the story of a game, is probably fairly impossible. What I’m able to do sitting down alone in the dark corner I’ve managed to carve out for my writing may not be applicable to writing in video games, but it should be, and it will be if games want to progress. I’m also not trying to say that anyone in the gaming industry is ignorant of revision, and that I’m the shining light that will illuminate the process. I’m a student and I’m just trying to apply what I’ve recently learned to a problem I find in my other hobby: gaming.

I want to look at No More Heroes specifically, since I’ve recently finished and been disappointed by it. What is that game trying to say? There has been plenty of fascinating analysis done on it, but couldn’t the game have been improved if someone sat back and said, “Wait a minute, what are we trying to tell the player here. Let’s focus on making the entire game point toward that goal.” That doesn’t mean that every game has to be simplistic. Even complicated labyrinths of prose can be distilled down to a short summary that can be used as a tool to clarify. After all, an increase in complexity requires an increase in clarity, or the creator risks all that work becoming a muddy mess. (When I said I was going to look at No More Heroes specifically, what I meant was I am going to drop the name and then continue on with a revision rant.)

And just to underline my hypocrisy and the importance of revision, I’m going to post this without going through the process. What I should do at this point is look over what I’ve written. Distill the post into a single sentence and then revise using that summary to give the post structure and clarity. But I’m lazy and that’s not going to happen. Instead, I’ll give you a link to the revision procedure (Word document) I created for myself. It needs revision as well.