In short, I grew up in a small town called Bålsta in Sweden with my mother and brother. At the age of two I started playing games with my mother and grandmother, mainly The Legend of Zelda: a link to the past. I started reading at a young age and never looked back. As a kid I became obsessed with fantasy literature and soon storytelling overall. I spent my teen years researching various types of media and how they told stories, what makes them good, bad etc. My late teens and early twenties were devoted to psychology, learning how people function and how to create more realistic characters and interactions. I spent two years studying to become an English teacher due to my family's irish/british heritage, but left university as I fundamentally disagree with how the Swedish school system is handled. I then worked various jobs until I stumbled across the Game Writer discipline at the University of Skövde. That feels like enough of now, it's most of the major events that tie in with me becoming a narrative designer.

Understanding psychology helps you understand why someone would do something, or not do something. What pressures are needed to create a realistic situation. What faults are common, uncommon and such. What kind of person is able to do the kind of things that are needed in the story and what circumstances are needed for them to continue down that path. Such things for example. When a person would lie, help another, be mean and so forth.

Absolutely.

I began studying at the University of Skövde back in the autumn of 2014. The discipline is that of Game Writing. It is a mix of practical work focused on both writing and game production as well as giving the students the basis needed to continue for a masters degree and further research within the area of game development/social effects of games and what not. I personally spent a semester in the US as an exchange student, studying writing, psychology, graphical design and game development in my time there. I don't really know how it is in China, but in Sweden we have quite a lot of personal responsibility when it comes to studying, so if one wishes to excel in any manner it requires a lot of personal discipline and self-study.

Beside that, I have worked to represent the school in various ways. Both as an ambassador representing the school and holding lectures at local high schools about game development and writing respectively.

In Sweden there were two official ones through the course work. In the first and second year. A ten week work period, where we are assigned groups consisting of 15~ people and told to create a game. Due to the randomness and significantly differing skill levels of the people in the groups, the quality of the projects tend to vary greatly. In the US, we created a bunch of prototypes over 18~ weeks. Every two weeks we were assigned 1 to 3 partners with whom we would create a prototype. Beside that, there have been several game jams, most not connected directly to the school.

Yes, there are quite a few differences. That is actually one of the better parts of the education in Skövde, they do put quite the emphasis on that. There is the classical story telling model of The Hero's Journey, which works really well with storytelling for games. It has been used for over a millennia, it is a structure that is quite ingrained in storytelling overall, especially western storytelling. But, the interactiveness of games change how one needs to write and build worlds drastically. If one makes a very linear game it is much more closely related to classical creative writing, however when the game has branching paths in games such as The Witcher, how one needs to work changes drastically. There is a lot of qeighing pros and cons when it comes to that kind of writing, how much work can a narrative designer put on other disciplines to create this experience, tell this story, as such we often need to find ways of telling these stories effectively and through environment, not unique to games but in ways more prevalent than in other media.

An example of trying to not overburden other disciplines: If you complete a quest, what things should affect the world in what ways? As we use branching paths when conveying such a story we need to decide how often and to what extent the story branches off. Will not killing the wolfs cause them to attack farms, meaning they kill off farm animals thus causing a famine later in the game? Will being rude to a NPC cause a ripple effect closing off a quest for you later in the game? How much will the world change, how can we show it, do we need more/new/changed graphical assets? Will the game play differently? All these things and many more need to be considered in various degrees with every choice a narrative designer makes.

There is also something that differentiates game writing from classical writing in a major way. We need to work with people. Writing a novel, we can do whatever we want, in whatever pace we want. That isn't possible when working on a game. We need to work within the scope given, with the talents around us and within the often too short deadline given to us.

The University puts certain emphasis on experimental storytelling, design and such in the last year of studies. They enjoy talking around those kinds of games, although often in a more incorporeal sense than would be optimal. And paper research work is part of over half of the courses with a final semester dedicated to a larger research study paper.

It depends on the project. Most often I have found that one of the more effective way of conveying story is world building. Because we can tell stories without writing in the classical sense is why I am a narrative designer rather than just a game writer. We use environmental storytelling, inferred story and other tools at our disposal to tell stories when we can/it is needed. Some stories/games lend themselves to the classical storytelling methods, while others need to use more innovative ways of telling to be properly conveyed.

When it comes to telling a story myself, I enjoy working with deep world building and branching storylines of varying degrees. It is quite a lot of work, it requires an eye for detail and when it comes together just right it is quite the amazing feeling. When it comes to enjoying a story in a game I am quite open, but the ones that stick to me are stories that are very well told such as The Last of Us. Also, games that allow you to work hard to gain more story, such as Virtue's Last Reward are quite enjoyable, not only can you figure out what is going on yourself before you finish the game due to the way all the details hang together, but they also give the average player the information needed to understand what the somewhat complex storyline.

But to be honest, when it comes to storytelling I try to master as many forms as I can. So I tend to enjoy everything that is a challenge and has the potential to be good.

I personally enjoy them quite a bit, the ones I have played which would be your first two examples. But then again, I do have a weakness for puzzles, I've always enjoyed them. They do a very good job of telling a story while not undermining their gameplay, in fact they interact with one another quite well overall. It is quite noticeable that they follow the more eastern way of storytelling, where the journey is the focal point. I think that works very well for games and is something more western developers need to incorporate within their storydriven games in my opinion.

Yes, I believe so. There are games that try to use the stream of consciousness as a literary device. Trying to depict a characters stress levels, more often than not. How well it has been used can be discussed, more often than not I find the effect falling flat.

Symbolism is used quite freely in games and for good reason, games have also created their own symbolism and automatic reactions/connotations within players. One of the more obvious examples are red barrels. Most gamers know what they mean, even if they haven't stumbled across it themselves. You shoot a red barrel, it explodes. It was so commonly used that when playing a game where there is a red barrel that does not explode it will confuse players to no small extent.

When it comes to synesthesia, I am unsure. It feels more like a side effect than anything else, not something we can control as it manifests differently within people. A simulation game to represent synesthesia might be possible to create, but I am unsure as to how we would use it in game development. A lot of literary devices are used within games, both intentionally and unintentionally. Humans have a rather uncanny ability to tell when a story is bad, as such it is often not too difficult to tell when things are put together with thought or not.

It went very well during the game jam. At times there were some issues due to language, but this didn't pose a larger problem than communication does in any game jam, even domestic ones. At least that is how I felt. There was a lot of give and take and I feel as if it worked quite well overall.

That is quite close to it, yes. I believe that the one tangible thing that is larger than us is storytelling. Our entire evolution is based on storytelling. Conveying information is essentially telling a story. In ancient times, conveying what is dangerous and safe allowed us to survive. Then it allowed us to create, to not only become greater than our individual selves but also build upon everything the human race has been and thus we are able to strive forward. Even our brains are created for storytelling. It is much easier for us to remember stories than "plain" information. Give someone the minimum information needed and they will struggle to retain the information, put it in the context of a story and they will easily recall that same information. So, as such I believe that storytelling is the essence of our current and continued existence.

It is not the easiest concept to explain, but I hope it makes some sense at least.

When it comes to narrative vs ludology, I think it is not as much a question of versus as it is a question of what is best for the game. A game such as Tetris has no actual need for story, it doesn't elevate the game or really make it better. It might make it more appealing to some audiences, but the game in itself would not be elevated. In much the same way, without its strong story and world building The Witcher would be a very boring game. And were we to look to Telltale's The Walking Dead, without a proper story there isn't a game at all. Games like Shadow of the Colossus and Journey have simple mechanics as well as a simple story being told, what is important in those games are the world building and what can be interpreted. I would say that what we need, as creators and an industry, is to realize that the best thing would be to work our games through so that the narrative and gameplay do not end up at odds with one another, that they enhance the experience of the other.

First and foremost I would say consume media. All kinds you can get your hands on. Read not only instructional books, but any and all kinds of fictional books you can of various genres. By reading good and bad things you will begin to realize instinctively why things work/do not work. Consume both "high" and "low" media. Sit coms, bad movies, shakespeare, musicals, comic books and anything you can get your hands on, for the same reason as before and also because it will help widen your repertoire a lot. I would suggest going outside and listening to people, sit in a cafe, on the train, in the park. Dialogue is among the more difficult literary devices to perfect and people who are beginners tend to falter there. Also, study things that aren't writing, everything from tourism, psychology, architecture, social structures and history will help you create more engaging stories. When it comes to books, go for the types that cover the aspects of storytelling that you know you are bad at/don't like, it will help you become a more rounded creator. The book Wonderland, Stephen King's On Writing, The Art of Game Design, Writing For Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Game Narrative Toolbox are some of the ones that I use more regularly.

The best advice I can give however is this: Do it. Write. Create. Do it, it'll be bad at times, the result won't be what you want. But do it. Then do it again, and again. You will see improvement.