I have a few spare moments while i'm building the game, and I thought in my first proper blog, I'd explain what scripting is, and the process we go through to get our stuff in the game.

What is Scripting?

Well, you could go to 20 different computer games companies, and probably get 20 completely different answers and this is because Scripting is still a relatively new department as opposed to Code, Art, Animation or Level Design.

In some companies it is a simple level design task, placing markers, triggering ambushes etc, in other companies, scripting is almost a writing job, putting the dialogue in the game.

For Lionhead specifically, scripting is a lot more than that. The script department takes all of the game elements from code, the assets from art and animation and the design from well, design, and puts it all together in a contextual form that you guys see as a quest. Without script the game would have random creatures, a.i. villagers, shops, but not really much else to do.

The tools scripters use are a combination of our in house editor, Concrete (the specific Fable Editor excitingly enough called FableEd) and the scripting language lua. All the scripting in lua is much like coding in C++ and is therefore quite coding-heavy. Therefore to be a scripter, you need to be part Designer, part Coder, part Level Designer.

The process of getting a script into game is as follows:

The Quest is Designed; Dene comes up with a basic design for a script, and then working with Alex (one of the other scripters) and myself, we flesh it out and come up with a detailed design doc.

The Entities Are Placed; The scripter assigned to the quest takes the design doc and places the relevant creatures, markers, characters, everything used within the quest.

The Script is Written; The scripter then starts writing the meat of the script in lua, referencing all the entities they have placed, and then adding the dialogue from the text document.

Playability Testing; Design then take the script and play the basics, see if it works as an idea. If so, it gets passed, otherwise it gets redesigned.

Script Refined; After this point, all the elements of the script are refined, gradually getting closer to the final product. The correct creatures are added, the dialogue is re-written by a professional writer, a first pass of the dialogue is recorded (by a few of us in the company), the regions are prettied, and the quest generally looks a lot better.

And that’s pretty much it.

This milestone we have pretty much been doing some of the last stage on our first script, bumping into many problems with Navigation, animation, cameras and cutscenes. Still, the highlight of the week was having Debbie have to record a version of one of the characters singing a song in the game, I think she’d kill me if we posted it on here though…. Ha ha ha…

And I’m only 4 songs off completing Guitar Hero 2 on Expert…..Sooooo Close!!!!