Class: The Art of Storytelling
Grade: Upper School
Teachers: Ms. Ellman
Cofounder of Riot Games Brandon Beck spoke to Art of Storytelling students to elaborate on the world of video game development and to share details about his work. Beck’s visit comes after the class studied Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, a novel about two Cambridge college students that are catapulted into stardom after creating a successful game together. Beck, a creator of the game League of Legends, answered questions about how the novel reflects the reality of the gaming industry.
By analyzing the gaming industry under the lens of literature, an emphasis was placed on aspects of video games that are often overlooked such as plot, character development, and environmental storytelling. Beck spoke to each of these storytelling elements and explained how he has seen them manifest in various games.
Students prepared the following questions to learn more about the connection between gaming and storytelling:
- What does your team consider when designing characters?
- Do you think video games offer any lessons in life?
- Is there a message you hope to get across to users of your games?
- When developing a new game, how much are developers influenced by other games in the market? Where is the line drawn between inspiration and appropriation?
Looking ahead, students will use what they learned about storytelling techniques to write books for children.
More about this course: Each of us has an inner world of images, memories, and dreams. This internal landscape holds unlimited possibilities for storytelling. This course will help you explore your personal mythology, discover your own voices, and polish your writing skills. Through a variety of exercises, you will shape memory and imagination into elements of the short story: character, setting, dramatic structure, point of view, and theme. You will workshop your work both in class and by making use of Buzzword, a web-based program that offers a comprehensive editing platform.