Writing a book vs developing a video game. How similar are they?

This post was originally published on September 20th, 2022 on LinkedIn.

In September 2021, I was approached by Packt Publishing for writing a game development book. They asked if the book could cover Blender and Godot Engine. I never inquired how they found me, but I suppose it was because I was using Blender and Godot Engine as well as Figma and other technologies during my live streams. I attributed their interest to the content I was putting out there when I was doing the work for Urban Farmer.

Urban Farmer

This article will go into some details about the process of writing a book and my relationship with the publisher. Hopefully, this investigation will show the similarities between writing a book vs. developing a video game.

Pre-contract details

The first order of business was to come up with an outline. This was a new process for me. I think there were cultural elements as to why I found it hard to come up with an outline. In Turkish culture, oral tradition is still very common, and we tend to narrate and embellish our stories. We are not too concerned about writing them down. Storytelling happens organically. Hence, an outline is often thrown out the window for the sake of spontaneity.

This is even true for writing assignments in high schools despite every teacher’s insistence on presenting an outline for essays. Since the scope is short in school projects, maybe, students have a point. Who knows? I’m not to debate that argument.

Although it seemed like an alien idea, doing an outline for a 300-page book also seemed logical. At the very least, I should have come up with the order of chapters. This didn’t prove to be too difficult. What was challenging was estimating the number of pages per chapter. I’ll bring up this again in later sections.

The similarity at this level is preparing a pitch deck for a video game publisher. After a brief deliberation, Packt and I signed a contract that detailed milestones for chapters.

Production process and QA

The book would have 3 parts and 14 chapters. In my mind, it made sense to start with five chapters dedicated to Blender followed by three transitional chapters that would be laying the ground for later chapters where we would solely focus on Godot Engine. In future articles, I’ll focus on individual chapters. For now, there is still a lot to say about the overall production process.

In an academic book like a physics or mathematics book, it’s common to start with easy topics. As the reader follows along chapter after chapter, the difficulty ramps up. I figured this would not be a good recipe to follow for two reasons.

Firstly, my book would cover two distinct topics. As a result, it quickly became apparent that I’d have to use the space carefully. Therefore, the level of difficulty approach wouldn’t make much sense when we transitioned from one domain to another because it would feel like finishing Blender off at a high level of difficulty only to start Godot Engine chapters with beginner material again.

Secondly, I didn’t want this book to turn into glorified documentation. This is a common complaint I see in book reviews that some books end up being a bit more appealing version of the official manual. Instead, I wanted the chapters to feel cohesive and serve a bigger purpose than just presenting concepts. Therefore, I decided to mix theory with practice and exercise pieces. This would let the reader see a bigger picture.

This created a bit of a problem though, at least on my end. I was expected to send a chapter for review as soon as it was finished. Although I’d start writing the next chapter, I was supposed to stop in the middle of it and go back to editing previous chapters as soon as they were requested by the publisher.

For those of you who practice software development, this was a mix between the waterfall model and Agile practice. Sometimes, I would notice that something in the previous chapter should have been worded differently for the sake of tying it all together in the chapter I was working on. At other times, the changes that were requested for an earlier chapter would change the course of later chapters. Luckily, the review and editing process on both ends was fast enough that it didn’t cause any problems; at least for the first half of the book.

In later chapters, from nine to the end of the book, the focus is on building a point-and-click adventure game. In retrospect, this was an ambitious idea since it would be prone to going all wrong should there be a bug in the code that would span several chapters, but I don’t regret it. The implication would be that the writing should be edited again, but also the code would have to be tested again and again for cohesion's sake. More bugs would necessitate more edits, and it may have quickly become a vicious cycle. However, I believe we pulled it off with only a few iterations. It’s yet to be seen if it will pass the test of readers. Speaking of which, the book should be out soon on your favorite platforms.

Amazon Page

As far as similarities go during this phase, a video game publisher would hold your feet to fire if you are including sketchy and unlicensed content, for example. Additionally, if your agreement with them involves the release of your game on consoles, then you’d also have to abide by third-party rules. In comparison: using the proper styles for the content, page limit, picture dimensions, or the text legibility on said pictures. The list goes on and it’s a road you walk with your publisher.

Earlier, I briefly mentioned that estimating the number of pages was difficult. There were times I found myself amazed at the fact that I had gauged correctly the approximate number of pages a chapter would take. To put it in the right context, when you find out during your writing in May that the original plan of dedicating 15 pages to a chapter back in October the previous year turns out to be exactly true – sometimes 14 or 16, but still – then you feel good. On the other hand, in later chapters where the number of pages is quite high compared to the rest of the book, then I had to be economical about the way I described certain details.

Nevertheless, by sticking to the outline and carefully trimming the content without sacrificing the spirit of a chapter, I was able to convey what was necessary. I suppose this is similar to feature creep, and you've got to keep that deadline in your sight.

Post-production phase

While I’m waiting for the release, I still have post-production duties. I spend some of my time visiting user groups for talking about the book. Writing this article is part of it to create awareness. There will most likely be events where I sign my book or do a giveaway.

Remembering the title, the similarity you may draw between a book and a video game production is that readers, as opposed to potential players, are not that much involved. From an Agile perspective, if you consider players either stakeholders or users, it makes production or at the very least financial sense to gauge their interest early on. This isn’t the case with writing. At least, it seems so. Readers find out about the product only after the product is finished and released as opposed to how most things are marketed these days.

I did my best to announce my progress on Twitter and sometimes on LinkedIn to spark attention. However, the reach was so little because it might not have been the best platform for people to find out about upcoming books. If only - hint, hint - book marketplaces out there would notify their customer base of the new books with topics they are interested in. This is similar to Steam wishlists. Although some of the wishlist clicks might go stale over an extended period, it might still be a good indicator for the publisher and the writer (developer) to continue the effort.

Conclusion

Consequently, developing an ambitious video game over a long period has started to look more and more plausible. Even key figures in this whole effort now look familiar. I, as a developer or writer, developed a product with the help of – a video game or book – publisher for gamers or readers.

So, what did I learn in the end? I learned that despite what seemed to be a monumental effort to write a book of about 300 pages, it could be done; little by little. You put one word in front of another, one more chapter; then you have a book almost a year later after a hundred thousand words and fourteen chapters.

It’s now customary to state the obvious. Go and buy my book, please, for yourself or for a friend or family member who might benefit from it. Thank you.

Amazon Page