Summary
Games with great writing stand out from the crowd, elevating everything else about the game for the player and garnering critical acclaim as well. Writing is undoubtedly celebrated, but are writers? You might struggle to even think of many games where you play as a writer, with one obvious exception.
There are more than you might think, and they deserve their time in the sun. If video game writing can be celebrated, so can playable writers in games. Read below to find some of the best video games where you get to play as a writer.
Loco Motive is a love letter to classic point-and-click adventure games like the original Monkey Island or Broken Sword games, indulging in pixel graphics, madcap characters and puzzles with obscure solutions.
There are three playable characters, but the absolute standout is Herman Merman, detective novelist. He’s almost absurdly over the top and a lot of fun, with fantastic novel titles like Herman Merman And The Suburban Burden.
7Writer’s Rush
Author Simulator
Some people question why you would want to play a game simulating a regular job, like a retail simulator or a mechanics simulator, although these games have a lot to offer. There are plenty of simulation games that simulate the fantasy of a harder to achieve career though.
Writer’s Rush is an author simulator, pitting you against other authors and tasking you with writing the best book possible within the deadline. It’s a very different approach to playing a writer and worth taking a look at.
When you think of a game where you play as a writer, it’s easy to imagine a novelist first, but don’t overlook the not-so-humble journalist. In Bugsnax, you play as an unnamed journalist investigating the vanished Elizabert Megafig, bugsnax expert.
Although the stars of this game are the culinary critters, you’ll be interviewing island residents and chasing down leads too. Bugsnax is an almost singular experience and one that more people need to take a big bite out of.
A game where you play as a writer can be great even while the sections where you play as that writer are… not so great. Marvel’s Spider-Man is an amazing experience, putting you in the tights of the famous webslinger. Except for when it doesn’t.
Sometimes the game yanks you out of the action and puts you in the shoes of journalist MJ Watson for a forced stealth section. She’s a great character, but no one wanted this. Everyone wanted to be fighting crime with superpowers, not creeping around crates.
You don’t have to be sitting at a desk to qualify as a writer, and freelance journalist Jade is one of the best examples of this in any video game. She doesn’t wait for the story to come to her; she gets out there and finds it.
Compared to other journalists you might play as, Jade isn’t just relegated to conversation and stealth options. She gets into the thick of the action when she needs to, making good use of her staff to fight her way to the truth.
3The Monkey Island Series
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Guybrush Threepwood is many things. A sort-of pirate, a surprisingly goodinsult sword fighter, and perhaps most shockingly of all, a writer. Guybrush has written memoirs of his experiences in the games, which, in line with his general luck, probably didn’t sell well.
The Monkey Island games are undeniable classics, the cornerstone of the point-and-click genre. Guybrush bumbling his way through epic nautical adventures will never lose its charm. If only those memoirs were real, they’d be a great read.
Given everything that happens to Harry Mason in Silent Hill, it’s easy to forget that he does have a life outsidethe horrors and monstershe encounters in the titular town. He’s a writer, although nothing he could write would compare to his real life experiences.
Not a great deal of information is shared with the player about his career as a writer, but it isn’t needed for the unbelievable experience that is Silent Hill.
Some characters carve out such a distinctive space for themselves that they take full claim over something. Alan Wake in his titular game andthe amazing sequelhas done just that. No conversation about writers in video games is complete without discussing him.
Not only is he one of the best playable writers in video games, but his writing is central to his games in a way that no other game could realistically hope to achieve without just seeming like a ripoff. Most people envision Alan with a flashlight, but sitting at a typewriter is where the real action happens.
