![]() There’s a lot of craft that goes into that, and where to put cliffhangers, and moments that make you want to keep playing.” The story has to be very snackable and bite-sized, and a lot of repetition, so that players can pick it up wherever they’re at, and feel at home in the world, and pick up where they left off. “People are playing these games on the train, in the supermarket line. Whereas TV and film are “one experience and you’re passively digesting it”, Hamilton says that writers for TV and film must adapt when writing for mobile gaming, and develop an appreciation for pacing of side quests and the main story, meaning there’s something for players to do at all times: One challenge for writers is the need for mobile gaming stories to be bite-sized. The game two years from now I hope will be ten times better than it is right now, but we’re really proud of where it is, and how much it’s evolved over the years.” “In the next few years we’re going to continue to see it evolve a lot. Development of an ever-richer narrative is something Jam City are striving for in future: When the game first launched, the team at Jam City learned to tweak and lean in to parts of the games players particularly loved, meaning the game has changed “pretty significantly” since launch, according to Yguado. Now it’s getting a lot more nuanced and deep, and we’re having a lot of fun with it at Jam City trying to make great narrative-based games.” “Ten years ago, mobile games in particular, there wasn’t much story, it was 90% game mechanic and maybe 10% narrative. “There weren’t many interesting narrative-based mobile games [when we developed Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, and we wanted to do something that included some RPG, included some narrative, and was a little different in format than anything that was out there at that time. Josh Yguado, co-founder and president of Jam City, explained that the narrative-based element to Jam City’s mobile games are unique: Jam City’s writers work on several stories simultaneously - there’s even a team dedicated to Quidditch alone! ![]() This enables each players’ personal journey to be taken into consideration at each level of the game, and the opportunities to tell endless stories keeps the game feeling fresh. Creating a new quest for players involves keeping track of where the quest will fall in the main story, where the characters are, and how each player’s relationships with these characters may change, requiring conditional lines to cover this. The plot of the game is serialized, coming in stages, and this means writers are often planning ahead by a few months. You have to find the parallels in television that you know, and find them in tech.” ![]() “The biggest difference is that as a narrative designer you have to learn the language of tech. Those involved in creating the story are involved in writers rooms, which are very similar to those for TV, according to Hamilton, aside from the fact that writers, developers, engineers, artists and musicians collaborate at every stage to make the final product: ![]() The process of writing for such a narrative-rich mobile game is very similar to traditional television, Hamilton says, speaking on the collaborative nature of writing at Jam City. She is currently Narrative Director at Jam City, working on their games Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, Vineyard Valley, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, and new games in development. Kimberley Hamilton, multi-nominated recipient of a Daytime Emmy and Writers Guild Award, made the leap into mobile gaming in 2015 after working on traditional television series such as Guiding Light, All My Children, WWE and After Total Diva. The game recently surpassed 35 billion minutes of gameplay, and received the Google Play “Best of 2018” Fan Favorite award in five countries. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery takes players on a journey through their years at Hogwarts, offering them free-to-play access to their own custom Avatar, Hogwarts classes, Quidditch lessons, side-quests, the ability to make friends (and enemies) with other Hogwarts student characters, and progress through an ever-developing main plot line, with attributes earned throughout the game leading players on their own custom journey. ![]() Jam City’s awards include Facebook Game of the Year, and Best Game of the Year honors from Google and Apple. Founded in 2010, Jam City is an international mobile content leader with teams based in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Toronto, Bogota, Buenos Aires, and Berlin. ![]()
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