[FREE] Unlocking Gaming Secrets: ChatGPT, Game Narratives, and Battle Passes in a Weekly Recap Extravaganza!
Discover the Power of AI, Mastering Game Storytelling, and Navigating the Battle Pass Landscape - All in One Action-Packed Update!
Preface
Hello free readers! Today is my first free post designed specifically for free readers. These posts will act as a recap of the things I’ve written about over the week, but also provide enough context on the pieces so that this article is able to stand on its own.
Site Changes and Updates
So obviously this week was the first full week of paid articles. I’ve honestly been really happy with how the articles have turned out and have been enjoying the formula so I plan on keeping it this way for the time being.
I bought and registered bitsnpixels.org so now we have our own domain. Yay!
I’ve got some upcoming pieces planned with guest writers which should be really fun. So look forward to those!
Update on Twitter Ads With ChatGPT
This week I’ve spent a lot of time fiddling with ChatGPT and the twitter ads page. I’ve had very little success with the program so far. The ads drive about 8 people to the site a day which is better than nothing, but still no additional subscriptions have been driven. All in all its not that expensive to run the ads so I see
The red line is when I started running ads, so you can see it’s kept the web traffic up much higher than the average. So it’s doing something, but the analytics is broken and we haven’t gained any subscribers in the last week. Brr.
Writing Game Narrative
I started out the week talking about writing game narrative. I’ve been working as the narrative designer for my groups game Project 8. Its been a lot of fun, and reminded me how much I enjoy writing fiction. I talked about the pros of focusing on writing text that the player will see early over planning. I also talked a lot about the challenges faced for trying to write narrative while a game is actively being made, changed, and iterated on.
Writing narrative for a game feels a lot like writing a manual for a car while the team is still deciding if they would rather have it be an airplane or a skateboard instead.
I talked about the solutions to the problem, and why it is best to get narrative prototypes out early. I also talked a lot about working in tandom with the level designer in order to make the narrative and the level feel informed by each other. Using my process of just walking through their level and asking questions about the spaces relative to the narrative. Filling in all the question marks with lore and background. Then having them make changes based on what I’ve learned.
Using ChatGPT To Boost The Newsletter
Inspired by a post online I thought it might be fun to get ChatGPT’s take on how to grow the newsletter, and actually invest some money into the system. I talked in depth about the kinds of things I think ChatGPT is good at, and the stuff it’s not. As I said earlier this whole process was really fun, and a great learning experience. But I don’t think I would call it a success. Through this process I set up a virtual mailing address, virtual phone number, and wrote ad copy for twitter. All stuff I had never done before. It was a huge confidence booster just to have the AI to tell me to do the stuff I had wanted to do, but never committed to.
Battle Passes
After that I took a reader request for an article and talked about battle passes. To Summarize I am largely in favor of battle passes. They keep a lot of artists working when they otherwise wouldn’t be, and they keep the games alive and breathing which keeps them relevant and fun. However if gameplay mechanics and weapons are locked behind the battle pass I find that to alienate the less intense player base.
Games Production
After that I talked about games production. I actually have much more experience with games production than with games narrative. I talked about how the process is very chaotic and it can be exceptionally hard to plan more than a few days at a time. But to trust the process, and the team.
The producer is the group Doctor. You grab your stethoscope and check each of the members of the group as the project goes on. You sometimes have to deliver bad news, sometimes things have to be amputated for the project to survive. But like a doctor can’t control the organs of the body, you are not going to control the people in your group.
I talked about the mindset of being the group doctor instead of the group leader. Which to me is the most important thing when getting into SCRUM project production.
Style > Substance
By far the most unhinged article I wrote this week was the style over substance article. Which in a way is fitting I guess. I started out gushing about how my favorite pieces of media tell very simple stories, but in very unique and interesting ways. Then it turned into a full on review of hardspace shipbreaker. That game is amazing and sets the sci-fi blue collar vibe with a precision microscope. I also took the opportunity to gush about Redline a movie I watched for the first time this week, and have been obsessed with. I talked about how these properties are often more interested in building the world around the plot than the plot itself which makes the properties feel more alive.
Overall this week was fun. I certainly struggled on a couple of days to put something out. My big mouth never seems to have any issue once I get started though.
So look forward to the guest writer for the upcoming week, and a review of the Resident Evil 4 Remake! WHICH I SWORE I WOULD PLAY.
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