natalyeli

Hi Tim!

I've always been very impressed with your mad writing skills. Grim Fandango has the greatest writing I've ever seen and in my opinion it's on par with the writing of great movies and TV shows (which is rare for games). Having amazing voice acting also helped a lot. I've since enjoyed the writing in your other games like Psychonauts and Broken Age, and it seems like one of your stronger game design skills.

So anyway, my questions about writing:

1. How did your writing get to this level? Did you study screenwriting at some point? Did you have a structured method for improving such as a writing group or a routine?

2. When writing a game script, do you write the dialog out right away or do you do some preliminary writing that's separate from the game in a non dialog format, to flesh out the characters? Or do you do something else?

3. When writing a script for a game, do you only write the dialog parts, or do you describe the scenes in the game in a classic screenplay format?

Thank you for making amazing games and I'm looking forward to playing Psychonauts 2!

Hey Chris! Thanks for doing this AMA, your answers so far have been very insightful. Like many others here, I'm looking to get into the game industry, in game design and/or programming roles, and I'd love your advice.

1. How beneficial and crucial is it to work in a large game company before trying to make it as an indie developer? And what is it that is most helpful about doing that (knowledge, connections, credentials in the eyes of consumers)?

2. Do you feel a virtual studio environment is a good option for someone starting out in the industry, or would I learn significantly more by being in a physical location with experienced people?

Thank you very much :)

Thanks for your answers!