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I need the Final Fantasy communities opinion on something. I want to share the stories of Final Fantasy with my friends/family who aren't video game players. What do you think is the best medium to translate the Final Fantasy stories to? Transcribe the script and actions into a novel/story? Jack the sprites and backgrounds (or screenshots) and make a comic book, or movie.
Some new crazy way of telling stories? How should I go about converting this into laymans tales?

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Come on boys, lets boogie. - Matt "Guitar" Murphy [The Blues Brothers]

The Frosty Lilypad of the Philosopher's Frog

Well, I don't know about ripping sprites or making game-related movies, but I have transcribed a game script before, so I'd probably recommend against you doing that. In the one I wrote, I just did the normal and video text and it wasn't a very fun process; others I've read actually roleplay the transitions from area to area.

So, best medium...depends on how in-depth you want to go. Picture books only say so much, comic books might work if you're up for both text and pictures...my advice is to play your game until you understand the bulk of it, summarize it for yourself in some outline manner (or whatever you may choose), and write a story. This works well for games like FFT where the story's already sectioned off into chapters, but for others it might not be as easy.

So I recommend a slightly detailed "novella," I guess. It's up to you whether it should be spoiler-free, but if you're looking to incite people to play your games, you should probably only throw them a hook and hope it drags 'em in.

Cheers.

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

I think a well-detailed and rich synopsis is the best way to go, myself.

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Some ghost of me might greet my son
the day he is delivered.


Eternal Sleep, Track 1-1: The Blue Planet

Yeah I did write a synopsis of FFT which was very loosely written and that came to about nine pages. I started to write a novella with almost no dialogue but after 8 pages of that I switched to a more dialogue oriented style (based off some wonderful person who actually transcribed the game) which lasted another ~19 pages. I can't decide which works better. The dialogue oriented story provides more character but is longer and harder to wade through. The narrative style is quicker and easier to read but lacks detail and the character development that makes it good. Ultimately I think a large part of the problem resides in the fact that FF's were designed to tell stories (at least in part) visually, and I think completely abandoning the visual element loses a vital part of what each FF is. Thanks for responding, keep the creative thought coming.

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Come on boys, lets boogie. - Matt "Guitar" Murphy [The Blues Brothers]

The Frosty Lilypad of the Philosopher's Frog

Unless you really want to make your project a formal novelization or something, a simple synopsis of the plot will probably do. If you're good at remembering things and telling stories, you might as well just tell the story live to your friends/family/colleagues. If you don't want to do that, you can simply summarize the plot of a game on a few pages of text. Take care to write convincingly and to only go into as much detail as you need to--some people may become bored easily and not want to read on. Keep most of the dialogue out, except for key phrases ("YOU SPOONY BARD!" comes to mind).

The more story-oriented the game is, the easier it is to summarize it in a presentable text for people to read (for obvious reasons). While a game like FFIIIj might seem more like a chain of events, FFVI will probably feel more coherent when interpreted purely as a story, for example.

Keep presentation in mind when you write. Whom you're writing for determines how you should present it to them--that includes wording, sentence structure, use of slang and informal language, etc..

If you want to add your personal sprinkling of humor to the story, also be sure that your audience will appreciate it. I've been hit with jokes before that I hated due to my taste (such as sex jokes), and needless to say, I didn't have a good time hearing them. Sarcasm is sometimes a good idea, but do NOT overdo sarcasm.

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Now, from what I could foresee, if you're going to make a picture-book or a movie of the game, you might as well just screenshot a sequence of important scenes while you're playing the game, and then explain them live or with captions or text. There's no real point in drawing new characters when the sprites are available, and there's no real point in creating scenes anew when all you're doing is summarizing a game that already has scenes complete with relevant sprites in them.

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