This week on the Game Developer Podcast, senior editor Bryant Francis sits down with narrative designer Harrison Pink and game writer Emma Kidwell for a conversation about the craft of creating narrative content in games that don’t strictly have a narrative focus. Between Pink’s work on Diablo VII and Kidwell’s work on Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, the pair both have plenty of experience crafting stories for games where storytelling takes a backseat to complex, systems-driven gameplay.This kind of narrative design leans into the “educational” aspect of game writing—the art of using storytelling to teach your player about the rules of your game, and guide them through different segments of the experience. From tweet-length text to explicit instructions, Pink and Kidwell share plenty of tips and thoughts about this rarely celebrated element of the game development craft.Learn more about Harrison Pink: https://www.harrisonpink.com/Learn more about Emma Kidwell: https://emmkid.info/Game Developer and GDC Festival of Gaming are sibling organizations under Informa Festivals- - -The Game Developer podcast is a bi-weekly podcast chronicling game development triumphs, catastrophes, and everything in-between, as devs from all sides of the industry share lessons and strategies fellow game makers can use to hone their craft.Learn More at https://www.gamedeveloper.comFollow Game Developer for more game dev Podcasts, News, & InterviewsBluesky: https://www.gamedeveloper.bsky.socialLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gamedeveloperofficialMusic by Mike MeehanEdited by Pierre Landriau