AMA 05×01: Clara Fernández-Vara

Clara Fernández-Vara is an academic, designer and game writer. His main interest is to explore narrative in games and how it can be integrated with game design, both through research and development. Clara’s work in video games is based in the humanities, influenced by her background in literature, film, and theater.

ASK ME ANYTHING

Questions asked during AMA:

• Can you tell us a little about your current context as a professional in interactive fiction storytelling, projects or recent career?
• What workflows are most appropriate for building a strong and viable narrative in an independent project?
• What are the key elements to create an engaging narrative in a video game?
• What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out in video game narrative design and wants to stand out in this industry using this discipline?
• Regarding your work on the taxonomy of elections, how often and intensively do you recommend planning this taxonomy in a commercial project with a small budget?
• Regarding the various narrative patterns that a video game can adopt in its ramifications and flows, are there any formats that you consider more appropriate for some specific genres?
• What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced when designing a game’s narrative, and how did you overcome it?
• With the rise of artificial intelligence and other technologies, how do you see the future of narrative design in video games?
• Do you recommend any courses, websites or documentation to learn about video game narrative?
• What skills do you consider essential in a narrative designer to be suitable to enter the industry?
• Have you seen Bluey? What resources do we have to generate such endearing stories and such a great emotional connection in just 7 minutes?
• What should a character have to be considered interesting to the audience?
• For a new project, how do you start structuring your work? Do you have a favorite tool?
• Each project has its nature and genre, just as a “point & click” is not the same as a “Hack & Slash” adventure. How do you deal with each of them?
• Examples of the use of kinesthesia for narrative? Any examples of moments where mechanics help or advance the narrative? What recommendations do you give regarding the implementation of a narrative when the core of it is the same mechanics (as in any Arcade game, or games like Journey, Exo One, Katamari, Qomp, Ibb and Obb, Flywrench, Ape Out, etc.)?
• How do we sell a game that is predominantly narrative at fairs and so on? How do we convey that to publishers?