This book says it's aimed at:- students wanting to get into writing for games- writers coming to games from other media- people with experience interested in another perspectiveIn fact， the author herself identifies with the second category and the text is written in an "advice I'd given myself 5 years ago" way。 The most interesting and refreshing parts of the book are all to do with her theatre background and experiences with other forms of art。Notably， one group that isn't mentioned is solo de This book says it's aimed at:- students wanting to get into writing for games- writers coming to games from other media- people with experience interested in another perspectiveIn fact， the author herself identifies with the second category and the text is written in an "advice I'd given myself 5 years ago" way。 The most interesting and refreshing parts of the book are all to do with her theatre background and experiences with other forms of art。Notably， one group that isn't mentioned is solo devs， hobbyists， or designers on small teams who also write。 The book does， unavoidably， talk quite a bit about design， but it's always couched in disclaimers like "look， I know the book is about writing and make no mistake， this is not writing， but you should still be aware of it even though it may be out of your control" - which I found off-putting after the first couple of instances。Which is too bad， cos there's quite a lot here that's worth sharing with my （non-writing） students in my game （non-writing） prototyping class:- exploring learning methods and setting up your own curriculum and exercises/targets- approaching feedback and critique （adapted from Liz Lerman's Critical Response Process: a method for getting useful feedback on anything you make， from dance to dessert）- psychological vs sociological storytelling （via Tufekci）- designing for empathy， and the dangers therein- the role of MVPs （minimum viable products） and horizontal & vertical slices- having a clear vocabulary （Nicklin's distinction between story and narrative might not be universally accepted but， as she likes to say， "that's OK" - what matters is that it's clearly formulated）- useful reference lists， e。g。 of process-related questions to be kept in mind when embarking on a project- curated links to other books and resources for specific areas （production/prototyping， dramatic writing， creativity etc）On the subject of story structures and narrative design， Nicklin points out （and I agree） that not all games need to be Hero's Tales， and directs us to a few different different perspectives （Ibsen， Brecht， Boal） which I need to read more of。 Unfortunately， her video game case studies aren't as inspiring。 Except for Inkle's 80 Days （where she sums up a GDC talk）， the other two are sooo far away from what I think of as interesting games。 It's kinda sad to go from avant-garde theatre to "make interactive soap operas" 。。。 Ultimately， Writing for Games isn't as approachable as it presents itself。 The repeated handholdy "here's how to read this book" bits don't really help。 Unless you're in the exact target group of people looking to get hired as writers on small-ish game teams （and even then？）， you might find yourself， like me， frustrated by superfluous contextualising and the occasional poorly-edited sentence。 Still， there's enough useful material here， and it's worth 4 stars if only for the Stewart Lee references。 。。。more