INDS B.S.: Video Game Narrative Design
Fall 2025 Capstone
My INDS Degree
My degree plan will focus on how to better create and deliver stories through the unique medium of video games. The International Game Developers Association describes the role of game writers as “those in the game industry who write dialogue scripts, construct overarching narrative structure, produce documentation and articles, and a myriad of other writing tasks.”(Game Writing – IGDA, October 8 2023) The responsibility of stories in video games is to give context and meaning to the player’s actions in the game as well as allowing them to feel as though they can shape the world, that they “can see, hear, and manipulate the environment, just as they do in the real world.”(Responding to Call of Duty, November 2017, Holtzman & Varlack, pg. 80) This is called immersion, and this experience is crucial to game enjoyment. When this immersion fails and there is a conflict between the narrative told to the player and the narrative experienced through gameplay, it is called “Ludonarrative Dissonance” and can cause critical damage to a player’s enjoyment of the game (Understanding Ludonarrative Dissonance as an Artistic Tool, Jun 26 2023,). For a long time, writing in video games has been treated as secondary, and even the IGDA states “the craft and process of game writing, and the quality that good game writing brings to game development as a whole, have been undervalued for too long.” I want to avoid my games failing as narratives and instead take advantage of the interactivity of video games in order to bring the stories within them to an even greater level.
Degree Mentors
- Elaine MacDougall, Assistant Director of the Writing Center, Academic Success Center
- Steven McAlpine, Individualized Study
Post Graduation Plans
I hope to use my degree to find employment with a game studio that I feel comfortable working for.
Courses In My INDS Degree
✅ To create and understand fictional narratives with purpose.
(ENGL 210, 271, 371, 375, 471, THTR 371, INDS 430)
✅ To gain a generalized understanding of coding and computer science so that I understand the capabilities of the field.
(CMSC 201, 202)
✅ To understand how people learn from and can teach through games
(INDS 399, 430, PSYC 210)
✅ Individualized Study: (INDS 330, 335, 399, 430, 480, 490, THTR 344)