Want immersion in a story-driven game?

You need drama.

What's drama?

Drama is the glue that adheres an audience's attention to a story.

That's the short answer. I made it up all by myself. Here's a longer one:

Drama is a pragmatic form of story analysis and a bag of tricks, developed over thousands of years, that help one present a story in an emotionally engaging and spellbinding way.

Whew.

That means you need more than words.

And that means you need more than just a writer or content designer.

You need a writer or content designer who knows drama.

That'd be me.

Into the Fire
Developer: Yosemite Entertainment-Sierra On-Line

Babylon 5-based space combat sim featuring narrative-embedded missions, non-linear mission sequencing, "levels" as dramatic acts, an evolving, persistant universe populated by semi-autonomous NPCs with their own goals, dynamic biases based on player input, tactical and strategic agency. There was also a time-space anomaly that could reset the "game board"

Following are examples of content design documents and scripts. I was one of three game designers. One designer was the programming lead, one was the art lead, and I was the narrative lead. I was either primarily or solely responsible for the following documents (.rtf format) and the ideas they represent.