Seeing narrative designers say (correctly) that one thing they’d like to see more of in portfolios is barks, so here’s a thread of some things I’d want to see in those portfolio barks.

Give me a short bit of context—doesn’t need to be more than a few lines—about the game & situation that these barks would be occurring in. Grimdark or light fantasy, etc? I want to see how you capture tone and background of the game in how characters react to their world.

Who’s speaking? If you briefly tell me a character’s personality, I can see how you’ve depicted that in limited space. This isn’t strictly necessary; I should be able to tell who a character is *through* their barks. But it helps me evaluate your called shot & how it landed.

At least 4-10 variations on the same bucket of triggers (e.g. fight start, win condition, entering a new area, NPC repeated interaction). (More than 10 is fine too; but that’s a good start). Show me you can give a range of dialogue that won’t irritate players to hear too often.*

*this is what Katie was getting at here: the “arrow to the knee” bark isn’t necessarily bad on its own, but it definitely suffers from a system that implements it poorly. Your portfolio barks should demonstrate you understand ear fatigue and can avoid it. https://twitter.com/kchironis/status/1320444959158267904?s=20

But also, your barks should be relevant to the needs of the game they’re for, and that’s where providing context comes in. If you write Hamlet’s soliloquies for a fighting game I will assume you don’t understand how to work within parameters, no matter how cool the lines sound!

My writing sample for Riot had lines that would *never* work in League; but I was clear about the parameters of the project they came from: what it was for, who the audience was, when the lines would be seen. Just a few sentences of clarifying context.

This shouldn’t be a whole page, either; just enough context around the game’s genre, the specific scene, who’s speaking. Maybe sometimes what the player’s expectations are here, but that way lies rambling, so be watchful of that.

This isn’t a thread about how barks function or how to level up writing them, just how to frame them when you *do* have them. For more of the how-to, Katie Chironis has an excellent thread here: https://twitter.com/kchironis/status/1320425206632960001?s=20

One last thing: if you are submitting barks using a spreadsheet, I’d recommend blocking out the first few rows/columns & writing your context there. Unmissable and shows me you know basic excel which you will almost certainly be using at one point or another.