I’m Aaron Greenbaum, and I’m currently in charge of the codex entries for WolfPack Game Design’s upcoming RPG World Soul.
In the off-chance you’ve never played an RPG before, you might ask what codex entries are. They are in-game documents that inform players about various aspects of the game world. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules on what should be covered. Some games only include entries on enemies, locations, and NPCs, while others focus on resources and items. Since World Soul is an RPG with survival elements, I’m covering all of the bases by building entries on healing and crafting items, organizations, special in-game terms and acronyms, and everything in between.
Now, writing codex entries isn’t as simple as just making up something and calling it a day – codex entries have to stick to the established canon of its property, reveal more about its game’s world, and tell a story. Thankfully, WolfPack Game Design uses Atlassian Confluence, so everything I need for the entries is collected under one roof and is clearly organized. With all this information at my fingertips, I can easily see if my codex entries are consistent and present the director’s vision. However, that doesn’t mean writing codex entries is easy.
As I previously said, since World Soul is a survival-oriented RPG, I have to write codex entries for just about everything in the game, which means a lot of entries. A lot of entries. The world bible helps make that easier, but I still have to condense what could be paragraphs of information into small blurbs. And that’s when I can refer to the world bible. Since World Soul is undergoing development, some world bible entries are incomplete or even missing. When that happens, I fill in the blanks with my own imagination. How does a trap work? Has a particular animal been mutated? I come up with these answers on my own, but I’m not complaining because that’s what I like most about my job. I joined WolfPack Game Design to help tell a story, and getting to add my own ideas makes the project feel more personal.
Of course, writing codex entries (or anything for that matter) is an iterative process, so while a creative spark is a key feature of any writer, a willingness to look over your work and criticize the heck out of it – as well as a willingness to accept input from others – is just as important. After I create each entry, I make sure it isn’t just grammatically correct but that it also maintains canon and sounds like something the protagonist would write. And even when my work passes that test, I still am not done. For example, after I completed the first draft of a few entries on enemies, I was told that my work also had to include combat strategies. I added that but then thought to myself “How could I implement similar information into other codex entries?” (e.g., where to find crafting items and how to avoid traps). My time at WolfPack Game Design is one constant learning process that refines my writing abilities and teaches me what my fellow WolfPack narrative designers expect from small worldbuilding documents.
Before I end my portion of this dev blog, I might as well answer a question currently itching at the back of countless minds reading this, especially those who want to get into game development: How did I get this position? Networking. It started, as most jobs do, by looking on job posting boards. During my search, I found Cave Bear Games. While they didn’t have any jobs for me, I joined the studio’s Discord server, which has a section devoted to networking. As I looked through that, I found several companies with job openings. One of these studios was WolfPack Game Design. I sent in an application, and the rest is history. Never be afraid to stay in touch with companies you apply to, even if their hiring managers don’t think you’re a right fit for an open position. You never know where that might lead.
