So You Want To / Write a Game Anime

So you want to make an anime about people playing games. Not to be confused with Anime Adaptations of games.

Creating The Game

Before you start writing the story for your anime, you have to create the game the characters are going to be playing. Establish the rules, exceptions, and overall format of the game. Once you have an idea how the game is played, then ask yourself: Would anyone actually play this game? More importantly, would anyone actually 'watch' anyone play this game? If the game doesn't look fun, then your audience won't believe anyone in the series would want to play it and they certainly wouldn't want to watch your characters play the game. Really take some time to tweak the mechanics in the same way a real game designer would.

Or you can use an existing game. Such as Go, Chess, Mahjong, poker, etc...

The World

Finally, once you have an idea for a game that seems exciting to play, you can then begin to write the setting it exists in. Every story takes place in some kind of world, so think about how your game has impacted this world.

Popularity: How many people are playing this game? Is it a super popular smash hit that everyone plays or is it only a niche thing kids are into? Is there some kind of competitive league for the game?

Meta game: What strategies are effective and common and what strategies are weak and underused?

History: How long has this game been out? How has it evolved over the years and are people happy with the game has changed?

Necessary Tropes

• To Be a Master - The protagonist should always be aiming to be the master of his chosen game.
• Absurdly High-Stakes Game - Players will act as losing a game is the most depressing thing in the world. Some players will cheat, blackmail, kidnap, and maybe even murder to win.
• Mundane Made Awesome - The game while mundane in a real life setting for some reason this world makes playing the game as important as any.

Choices, Choices

In regards to the genre you have to pick a game or genre of game to focus on. Yes, your protagonist can try to be the best of every game they come across, but you need to keep the story focused. Typically the games that work best are games where two opponents face head to head and is skill based.

• Card Games - The standard for many game based Anime. Benefits range from being able to produce the game in real life for cheap.
• Board Games - Equivalent to sports animes. Typically the hero is trying to become a grandmaster of chess or another commmon board game.
• Tabletop Games - Rarely used as most Tabletop Games are multiple players. But competitive tabletop gaming does exist in real life.
• Video Games - Not as popular as Card Games. Most of the times the game doesn't exist in real life.

Pitfalls

• Insane Troll Logic: Its tough trying to come up with plots for why a game is so important.
• Serious Business: The game is taken more seriously than anything else in the world. To the point where people use it to take over the world and not in a Disney monopoly way.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Common for protagonists to build their relationships by beating the crap out of their opponents.
• Fanservice: Common when talking about games marketed towards boys. This is dangerous as it alienates girls and
• Losing Is Worse Than Death: For whatever reason, people will do anything to win. This can change from the fairly mundane storylines of a player cheating in order to steal a tournament's prize money to a player systematically murdering opponents to thin out the competition.
• New Rules as the Plot Demands: Sometimes the rules of the game are too well known and writers find this removes a lot of tension. As such they'll throw in random rules and combos that might not exist in the actual game in order to create suspense.
  • Flexible Tourney Rules: When the tournament's rules deviate from the rules defined previously. Such as adding random modifiers that are impossible for players to know prior to the tournament.
• Inevitable Tournament: If there is a tournament mentioned inevitably the protagonist will be drawn into it.

Potential Subversions

• Merchandise-Driven: Often Game Anime are tied with a product that is being marketed to children. This can be subverted by having the game be a public domain game such as Chess, Go, or a sport. This can also be subverted if the game doesn't exist in the real world such as Sword Art Online, but this doesn't stop the studio from making a version of the game later down the line.
• No Antagonist: As the story is about gaming it is quite possible that there is no antagonist. As the story can be about the protagonist getting better at a game without having a villain trying to take them down a peg.

Writers' Lounge

Suggested Themes and Aesops

• Skill will triumph over intimidation.
• Power of Friendship/Love/Trust: Friendship will triumph over anything.
• Winning is not important.

Potential Motifs

• Mysterious history of the game is tied to an ancient civilization.
• Inexplicably popular game that everyone plays even though it would be niche in real life.
• Calling Your Attacks: A common way to add emphasis onto a powerful move or to highlight game mechanics for the audience.
• Rage Quit: A common reaction for players losing a game. Inevitable if your protagonist is "too good".
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: At least one person should be an example of the darker side of gaming, where they take the game so serious they don't have fun anymore.
• Deep-Immersion Gaming: When the game world is represented as real life as opposed to a game. Typically this is seeing the game via the eyes of the pieces, such as Dungeons and Dragons characters interacting with a fantasy world or chess pieces seeing themselves as armies fighting on a field.

Suggested Plots

• One of the Protagonist's family members and/or friends is kidnapped by the Antagonist, unless the Protagonist can defeat them in a match.
• A undefeatable opponent has been steamrolling other players. The Protagonist is the only one who can stop them and expose how they are cheating.
• Tournament Arc: The protagonist gains enough skill in the game to participate into a tournament; regionals, states, etc...
  • Not Just a Tournament: When the tournament organizers have a sinister reason for the tournament. Such as collecting all the best players in one place, seeking revenge on the protagonist, or some other nefarious purpose.
  • Blood Sport: For whatever reason, the tournament organizers have added death as a penalty for losing.
• 15MinutesOfFame: The one of the characters because famous for playing the game, but only for a limited time.
• Bottle Episode: An episode where the characters hangout instead of playing the game to help with pacing and to save on budget.
• {{Broken Win/Loss Streak}}: The protagonist has a streak of wins/loses that they are trying to keep/break. respectively.
• Brought Down to Normal: The protagonist gets a wake up call that they aren't as good at the game as they think.
• Character Focus: A good way to share the lime light with other characters. Good for ensemble casts that require seperate development.
• Cutting the Knot: When brute force wins the game instead of tactics.
• Deadly Game: When death is on the line, during the game.
• Grand Finale: The end of the season where all the protagonist's training leads to a game for all the marbles.
• Heroic Rematch: The protagonist loses versus a rival only to comeback in a rematch.
• I Wish It Were Real: The characters imagine what the game would be like if it were real and not just a representation.
• Lonely at the Top: The champion of the game is so good that they've alienated themselves from everyone.

Departments

Set Designer / Location Scout

• Severely Specialized Store: Typically a Hobby store that the protagonist spends most of their downtime at. However, the main game always seems to have overtaken the store's shelf space.
• Fan Convention: A special event held surrounding the game. Typically with cosplayers, tournaments, and usually centering around the one specific game the Anime is focused on.
  • The Tourney: For a Game Anime where the focus switches between the real world and the game world this trope may be invoked as a representation of the game.

Props Department

• Game pieces; such as dice, cards, board, etc...
  • My Little Panzer: When the game or toys used are extremely dangerous. So much so you wonder why parents allow their kids to play this game.
• Highly advanced technology to make the game more interesting, such as holograms or robots.

Costume Designer

• Anime Hair - It's not an anime without your protagonist having a unique and colorful hair style.
• Limited Wardrobe: The cast don't seem to change much between episodes as any change would cost too much money and you don't want to mess with the iconic look of each character. Though change ups are allowed between seasons to emphasis taking a level in badass.
• Cosplay: Depending on the game, cosplay will likely come up as a reference to nerd/geek culture. This may be for a simple scene or episode. And possibly used for Fanservice. Recommend using it sparingly unless a key aspect of a character's personality.
• Dress Code: If set in Japan, school uniforms are likely to be used a lot. Even if it wouldn't make sense for the cast to still be in school clothes on the weekend.
• Nerd in Evil's Helmet: Most villains in gaming anime could be categorized as badass, but only in context of the game they play. They may have a badass army of undead Death Knights while looking like a dweeb.
• Zipperiffic: For whatever reason, an unreasonable amount of zippers is a trend in this genre.

Casting Director

• Hero can be Endearingly Dorky, The Ace, Ascended Fanboy, Audience Surrogate, Badass Normal, Weak, but Skilled, and Nice Guy. They should never cheat and be able to overcome the obstacles of the game through cunning. By the end of the series they will reach Godlike Gamer status.
  • Defeating the Undefeatable: A common way to show how good the protagonist is at the game.
• The Rival who should be on par with the Hero, but not necessarily evil. Eventually they may even become friends.
  • Privileged Rival: That one rival who can spend money to get the best cards, models, etc... {{Screw the Rules, I Have Money!}}

Stunt Department

• The best wins often end with a Finishing Move.
• Signature Move: What better way to differentiate characters than for them to have a signature move/card/ability to cheer for.
• Xanatos Gambit: Nothing like a game of tactics to have a convoluted plan to make sure you always win.

Extra Credit

The Greats

• Yu-Gi-Oh! - Where a card game is based on Ancient Egypt magic and players regularly kidnap people in order to win.
• Beyblade - Battle tops anime.
• Accel World - Video game anime, where kids fight each other in online matches. If a players score is high enough they can spend points on speeding up their minds in real life. If their score reaches zero, knowledge of the game is erased from their mind and the game is permanently uninstalled.
• Medabots - Robot fighting anime. The robots are controlled by medals that contain the AI of each medabot. Allowing for parts to be swapped out to change fighting styles.

The Epic Fails

• Chaotic - A card game western animation, which while great fell off the map. The concept was solid with the players teleporting their minds to a parallel dimension, so they could justify why these kids aren't in school when they are constantly battling. However, the Chaotic property was owned by two companies. 4Kids owned the cartoon while a Danish company owned the card game. After a falling out the series was shelved indefinitely.