Ten Years in the Game Industry

This writing lesson didn’t come from a class. It that came from a decade-long career making computer games.

People often assume that experience taught me about graphics, programming, or marketing. It did. But the biggest lesson was something much simpler.

Computer games are great teachers, and one of the first things you learn is to play by the rules.

My first project at GameTek was entering the database for the first video-game version of Jeopardy! I’d actually been a contestant on the show a few years earlier, so I knew correct spelling didn’t matter. Working with the programmer, we had to make sure the game accepted right answers even when players misspelled them.

When I finished that database, I had to test the game to make sure everything worked properly, and communicate errors back to the programmer. Then I had to write the instructions for consumers.

The game was teaching me at every step.

I play a lot of casual games myself, and the best ones are those that teach you the rules as you play, rather than requiring you to read a whole instruction manual before your first keystroke.

Every mystery novel is secretly teaching the reader how to solve itself. Readers might think mysteries are about hiding clues. But they’re actually about teaching readers what kinds of clues matter. That lesson shaped the way I wrote Dog of Secrets, the golden retriever mystery debuting at the end of this month.

Daniel Farahani is twenty. He’s recently immigrated to the United States. Although he speaks perfect English, bureaucracy has delayed his entry into college. While he waits, he disappears into a survival game I invented called Disasteroid.

An asteroid has obliterated big parts of Earth, and characters in the game must learn to survive. It seemed like a fitting metaphor for a young man whose life has been overturned, first by immigration and then by the murder of his parents.

Daniel has to learn to collect things to help him survive while avoiding other players who want to kill him or steal from him. These skills turn out to be very relevant when Steve Levitan and Rochester come into his life after his parents are killed.

Steve helps Daniel take the skills he’s learned in the game and apply them to gathering information about his father, and what caused his parents’ deaths. But Steve is a semi-reformed hacker, and he’s determined to steer Daniel away from that path.

One of the metaphors in the book is “protect the perimeter.” As Daniel learns more about his father, that perimeter keeps expanding, and Steve has to be sure he doesn’t step beyond it—into the kind of hacking that could derail the Federal investigation, or send Daniel to prison.

The lessons are useful for mystery readers as well. Collect information, watch out for the villains, use your assets (like your golden retriever’s instincts and nose for trouble) to reach your goal.

I worked on foreign-language versions of American games, crossword creators, children’s games like Firehouse Rescue, and licensed sports titles like Harlem Globetrotters Basketball. I learned that a good game teaches you through failure. You lose. You try again.

Eventually you stop asking “What happened?” and start asking “What did I miss?”

This is storytelling.

One of Disasteroid’s rules is simple: You don’t win. You outlast.

I think that’s true of life, too.

Whether you’re rebuilding after an asteroid strike, recovering from grief, or simply trying to write your next chapter, sometimes survival comes before victory.

That’s true of good mysteries, too. The detective doesn’t succeed because he’s stronger than the villain. He succeeds because he keeps learning.

Maybe that’s the lesson games have been teaching us all along.

Behind the scenes, I’m hard at work preparing Dog of Secrets for its July 26 pre-launch. I’m creating maps of Stewart’s Crossing, character guides, and an exclusive short story that early readers will receive. I’ll be sharing more about that in the weeks ahead.

With love and gratitude,

Neil