Jedidjah Julia Noomen, Game Narrative Designer (Part 1)
Jedidjah Julia Noomen, photo by La Fille d'à Côté, @lafilledct
IN WHO GOT GAME’S CAREER SPOTLIGHT, THE*GAMEHERS TEAM INTERVIEWS WOMEN WHO HAVE FOUND OR CREATED WORK WITHIN THE GAMING INDUSTRY (OR ADJACENT TECH INDUSTRIES) IN AREAS OUTSIDE OF PLAYING, STREAMING, OR COMPETING.
This week we interview Jedidjah Julia Noomen, a game narrative designer, writer, and director based in Amsterdam. Julia has a background as a writer and director in theater, film, and immersive performance. We talked about the perspective she brings to game creation from those other mediums.
In PART ONE of this interview, we discuss the role of a narrative designer versus a game writer, collaboration in the game design process, and the skills needed to be a narrative designer/game writer.
This section is part one of a two-part installment. Find part two here.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity from a longer conversation.
The*gameHERs:
How do you mainly describe yourself when it comes to your work role in the field of games? Do you consider yourself a narrative designer or more of a writer? What’s the difference between those roles?
Jedidjah Julia Nooman:
It's a difficult definition. When you're in the narrative design realm, there are so many different descriptions – both in the gaming world, but also outside of that. So personally I tend to switch between descriptions.
The basis of what I do is write, so you could say I'm a writer, but at the same time throughout my whole career, I've always done something more than writing. Not that that writing per se is isn't enough already, but I've always done either like directing or developing productions in any way form or shape.
The way I see the difference between the roles of writer and narrative designer is when you're doing narrative design, you are heavily involved in the game play as well, and the total game itself, and when you're a writer, it could be that, or it could be that you're not involved in the whole experience, but you're just writing. It just sounds like it's smaller, right? You don't really discuss or decide on the rest of the game.
I guess I do both of them, but on the other hand I also design my own projects that are on the brink of gaming, theater, writing, immersive stuff, things like that. On my website I have writer, narrative designer, and event designer. To me those things are all intertwined, but that's because I know what I'm doing and not everybody is able to [do all three].
GH:
To elaborate a bit more on this distinction, how would you describe the duties of a game narrative designer or a writer?
JJN:
Again, just a warning this is sort of the distinction that I make and I know that there is a difference in the usage of those terms [of narrative designer and writer] in different companies. You can just see it by looking at job openings. For instance, I've seen narrative designer job openings that have nothing to do with writing. That can easily happen.
But either way, as soon as you use the word designer, to me that implies that you're thinking about the way something is structured.
I've written for games where I was the writer, and there was no narrative designer. The writer and the game designer just worked closely together. In a team like that, as the writer, your responsibilities are with the story, but you still discuss everything with the game designer, which means that you still have some sort of influence on whether [the writing and design] work together.
To me, having the writer be involved is one of the only ways where you can make sure that the design and the story are really one and the same thing.
I have also worked for mobile games that are free to play and just continue and get updates or new seasons. For those it's very well possible to write the story and not have any narrative design discussions, but that's mostly because all of the structures have been done already. So if there is already a game structure, you focus more specifically on just writing the story, writing the scenes, or writing the scenario than when it's something new that you start from scratch.
GH:
As we’ve already discussed a bit, the creation of games is a very collaborative process. You've already touched on the roles of the writer, the narrative designer, and the game designer. Who else are you working with in the process of making a game?
JJN:
That depends on the project. There are differences between writing for games that are new from the start and that the whole team has to develop together, or writing for a game that is already rolling and you just fit in there.
To me, the ideal version of being a writer/narrative designer is to at least know what everybody is doing. I think that as a writer you have the possibility to be inspired by others and also adjust sometimes to their ideas. So even though, for instance, I usually don't have a lot to do with programming, it is interesting for me to see what [the programmers] are doing and what they can do, especially when you're working with new systems. Sometimes [the programmers’ work] can spark an idea that I didn't know was possible in the story.
The link with game design is the most logical and the most easy one [as we discussed before].
Then there's the art, and that differs from game to game as well. Sometimes you write something and the artists will start doing some sketches, and especially with characters, they’ll come back to you and say: “This is sort of what I think this person looks like.” Or you will have a discussion beforehand to just go through the characters, go through the locations, brainstorm about how, why, whatever. Later, when you're implementing the scenes, that's a big part as a writer because you can see if it works – if the animations line up with the words. Especially, when you're writing for animated characters, it's great to be able to work with the people [animating them] to see if the characters have the right feel, right pacing, stuff like that.
I mainly work with smaller teams -- sometimes within a big company, but still the teams are small -- and that makes it easier to have those discussions. There are also large games and large teams where you will be further away from [each of these discussions].
GH:
Along with working with people, which is necessary for so much collaboration, and writing itself, what are some other skills you've built that have been useful to you in your career as a game writer and a game narrative writer?
JJN:
The fact that I started out doing theater and film made it easier for me to get into game writing because I knew the narrative structures, and I had done the base work in three-act structures, etc. I didn’t need to figure out “what's writing and how does that work?”
The field has become different in the last couple of years, which is great. Writing for games is now really a proper career. Before, it was often game designers who were interested in writing, and started doing that and had some stuff to learn. They obviously also wrote great games, but they didn't know the background [in writing], and I found that coming in and already having that experience really helped.
What also helped for me is the fact that, especially from the theater side of things, I was used to audience reactions. It's a weird thing – when you when you make theater or film you work for an audience, but during rehearsal and writing, you don't specifically think about the audience per se. Then, (especially with theater) you see and you hear and you feel how they react once you do [a performance].
In gaming it's the other way around: You think about your audience from the first moment, and everything is about [the audience]. What will the player do? How will they react? How do we want them to react? You do play tests. Then when the game is released, you don't see them do it.
Obviously you hear about it because, I mean, there's the internet. You can see Let's Plays and [other streaming sites] but that's further away from you. It's not next to you. But I found that the fact that I interacted with audiences so often [in my previous theater and film work] made it easier for me to incorporate that in game writing as well. I sort of already had that feeling of knowing there's an audience, especially because I've been doing immersive theater stuff — things that are even more confrontational with your audiences. So that [constant awareness of audience] was definitely a skill that that that I found really useful. I've heard other people say that they found it useful in me.
Interview to be continued in PART TWO.
Follow Jedidjah Julia Noomen:
Twitter and Instagram: @julianoomen
Check out her website at www.julianoomen.nl!
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