History VideoGame / TheWriterWillDoSomething

* RealityEnsues: The plan to scrap the opening and dialogue immediately falls apart when the audio department head, which wasn't even invited to the meeting, points out that the guy who voices the main character isn't available. As a big movie star, he's doing a movie with Wes Anderson, and won't be available for re-recording. The developers try their usual snark about how a movie star isn't all that important, implying they could just get rid of dialogue entirely, only for her to shut them down with profanity and insults.

''The Writer Will Do Something'' is a work of {{Gamebook|s}}-style InteractiveFiction written and programmed in Twine by Tom Bissell and Matthew S. Burns that satirizes AAA video game development. You play the lead writer of ''[=ShatterGate=]: Future Perfect'', an massive video game with just one teensy problem: according to the first round of playtests, it is completely terrible in every way. Can you, along with the creative director, lead designers, art director and lead producer, salvage the game and your reputations? Or will you fail catastrophically in the process?

!!''The Writer Will Do Something'' provides examples of the following tropes:

''The Writer Will Do Something'' is a work of ChooseYourOwnAdventure-style InteractiveFiction written and programmed in Twine by Tom Bissell and Matthew S. Burns that satirizes AAA video game development. You play the lead writer of ''[=ShatterGate=]: Future Perfect'', an massive video game with just one teensy problem: according to the first round of playtests, it is completely terrible in every way. Can you, along with the creative director, lead designers, art director and lead producer, salvage the game and your reputations? Or will you fail catastrophically in the process?

* ControlFreak: Erika.

* TheDilbertPrinciple: The PC ends up the lead writer on ''[=ShatterGate=]'' despite ''never playing the previous games'' and, it's implied, not being very good at her job.

* FantasyConflictCounterpart: Josh insists on calling the game’s "early, self-consciously studied war-is-bad desert battle — the second major combat encounter — as 'Afghanistan' so indefatigably that a panicked PR flack made him undergo emergency deprogramming right before E3 last year, lest he slip and actually say such a thing out loud to the press."

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The PC's primary problem with ''Future Perfect'': "'Grittier, tougher, meaner': Nothing else in the game actually supported these aspirations, even though Drew and Josh talked about them all the time. A single glance at the weapons, art, story, and milieu of this game leads any rational person to an inescapable conclusion: This is a willfully, obviously ridiculous world."

!!The Writer Will Do Something provides examples of the following tropes:

->"''You want a serious, sober, gray-skied story, but you don’t want to give up your gameplay. And I understand not wanting to give that up — it’s what everyone likes about [=ShatterGate=]. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re asking for something impossible. Don’t you get that? You want to have your cake and eat it too.''
->''Mike sighs. "The cake is a lie.''"

* BoldlyComing: The main character of ''[=ShatterGate=], Rix, is an "interplanetary Casanova," and a central mechanic involves sleeping with various alien girlfriends for stat boosts.

* TheDilbertPrinciple: The PC ends up the lead writer on ''[=ShatterGate=] despite ''never playing the previous games'' and, it's implied, not being very good at her job.

* ImpossiblyCoolWeapon: ''[=ShatterGate=]'s signature weapon is the Gunsword, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.

* OpeningScroll: Josh suggests this for the game's opening, and then defends it by saying ''StarWars'' "takes a giant lore SHIT on your ENTIRE FACE."

* TheDilbertPrinciple: The PC ends up the lead writer on ''[=ShatterGate=] despite ''never playing the previous games'' and, it's implied, not being very good at his job.

* CelebrityVoiceActor: Erika gets one of these, but he takes off to shoot a film with WesAnderson.

* DevelopmentHell: Pretty much "Development Hell: The Game."

* ExecutiveMeddling: One of the reasons ''[=ShatterGate=]'' is such a disaster.

* ItGetsBetter: Much of the meeting revolves around salvaging the first scene of the game, a six-minute lore-dense cinematic.
* MoneyDearBoy: Josh "cheerfully admits he dreamed up the game to make money."

* PlayTheGameSkipTheStory: Mike admits he's never watched an in-game {{Cutscene}} from start to finish.

* ShoutOut: Many, including ''DarkSouls'' and ''{{Portal}}''.

* TakeThat: To AAA development in general; according to [[http://gamerant.com/writing-games-destiny/ some reviewers]] (and the authors' backgrounds), to {{Bungie}} Studios and ''{{VideoGame/Destiny}}''.

->Mike sighs. ''The cake is a lie.''"

->"'You want a serious, sober, gray-skied story, but you don’t want to give up your gameplay. And I understand not wanting to give that up — it’s what everyone likes about [=ShatterGate=]. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re asking for something impossible. Don’t you get that? You want to have your cake and eat it too.'
->Mike sighs. 'The cake is a lie.'"

* TakeThat: To AAA development in general; according to [[http://gamerant.com/writing-games-destiny/ some reviewers]] (and the authors' backgrounds), to ''{{Bungie}}'' Studios and ''{{VideoGame/Destiny}}''.