The whole idea of "show, don't tell" is the very basis for writing a script for films or games. The reason is that it's mostly a waste of paper every time you write something that the player / viewer cannot see or hear.

Explaining backstory outside of dialogue is wrong. Explaining useless facts about an object is wrong. Explaining the inner thoughts and emotions of your characters is wrong.

When you are describing a character, the description should be short and to the point. You do not explain the character's childhood or motivations. You explain what they look like and who they are. Their actions and dialogue will do the rest.

When describing a location, your description should again be short and to the point. No indepth explainations. Just tell us how it looks.

Now your main storyline should always follow a solid 3-Act story arc with a definitive beginning, middle and end. As long as you follow that basic principle, you will do just fine.

Yes you can. But you have to remember that you aren't writing a novel here. You are writing a blueprint for the design team to follow.

That's a bit extreme. I personally think there are times when it is appropriate to tell instead of show. One case is things that the reader needs to know to understand the story but aren't in themselves important or entertaining. You can also tell and show at the same time for maximum clarity of an important point.

I agree. "Show, don't tell" is an over-quoted mantra, and nothing like some sort of secret to awesome writing. Some situations require telling, and some showing, and a good writer learns to identify which is required.


Also, the assertion that telling passing plot information in dialogue is good writing practice is completely false. There are all sorts of satirical and derogatory terms for such. From a script perspective, it makes sense in many cases because a script-writer has mostly dialogue with which to convey their story. But scripts don't address every aspect of a movie, as a lot is left to the director and cast. In reality, there is an enormous amont of showing in movies that is not present in the script.


Many aspects of the background will not show up in the game in the same format due to the tools available in games as a medium, and if you are strictly writing a design document, you can leave a lot of stuff you would put into a novel out. But not every game is developed in the same way. An indie game and an AAA game with a design team and a huge staff are going to be done differently. Also, original writing and final presentation are different. A great deal may be delivered in dialogue in-game, and text may be translated entirely into visuals in many cases, but that doesn't mean that creating the source text is "wrong".


There are also different levels of immersion in different games. A massive rpg like Mass Effect or Morrowind, and a platformer like Mario or a puzzle game like Zelda are all going to be handled differently, and players will ave different expectations from each.

I agree with a lot of the above; "show, don't tell" is is not a creative constant.

It is a strategy to avoid unengaging flat assertions. It's about engagement, and basically all sorts of things from backstory to exposition to computer manuals can be engaging if you're smart.

If you're new, adopting the "show, don't tell" mantra will likely improve your writing by forcing you to avoid certain unengaging flat assertions, however if you go a bit deeper into it, you can do a lot of things that could be described as "telling" and it will, in fact, work perfectly well no matter what your format is.

Depends on the game, really. Something like the Myst series with all those journal pages is a bit like a novel. I've seen several games that take a slide-show approach, pairing a paragraph of narrative with a still image, using several of these in a series to tell a story. More cinematic games may have a voice-over spoken by a narrator. A game writer writes the exact wording of all those sorts of things, not just guidelines for others to work from.

Yes. But the player can still see or hear these things. So it does follow the "show, don't tell" format.