Any suggestions on a good scenario design book? Is that the right word for it? Apologies if I'm a tad off. Game design's not my field. I know the Obsidian devs and folks on staff from Troika, BI, etc are very, very good at this. I know - I own all your games, and all of Troika's games (yep, including ToEE), and all of Black Isle's games.
I'm working on something relatively unrelated to videogames (it's educational/training), but this would probably be helpful to know, anyway. Learn from the best, right? Technical is fine. I program and have a Master's Degree. Everything I've read is either theoretical, academic BS, or written for a third grader about "breaking into the gaming industry", which I have no desire to do. I'd like to read something by someone who actually does this for a living with some examples, preferably from actual games.
Broad strokes, I don't care about dialogue (not dialogue itself at least, just how it interacts with the scenario is of interest). I really only care about plotting unique to videogames, how it intersects with scripting. I'm using Flash, nothing as flashy as what you guys use, etc. It's going to be a small project in objective terms, even though it will be a decent sized undertaking for me. Can't use PowerPoint either. Not interactive enough.
Incidentally, I know your company never worked with FMV (at least that I can remember) but do you know a book on that and using greenscreen? Strongly considering using that since I'm completely unequipped to do modelling and cheesiness isn't a concern. I contacted some developers that have used FMV, they were quite friendly but most of them said they're not sure how you'd implement it with the newer technology (most FMV games are really old and DOS-based). It's fine if you don't know. I know that's a tad bit out in left field.
Have a nice day!
Mike