Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lead Story Designer Talks About Creating the Video Game – “The Way I Got Into This Was Dumb Luck”

Some people might call Graham Goring – lead story designer of the video game Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens – lucky to get the opportunity to write video games for a living. However, according to Goring, his path towards this career "was dumb luck — with the emphasis on dumb."

In an interview with The National, Goring tells all about his job and what it's like working on the parody Star Wars game. He said:

Get bullied at school, develop a sense of humour as a self-defence mechanism, get seen doing stand-up comedy by your boss at a point when a script for one of the company's projects is going well, and then get asked — hey, do you want to have a go at this script?

The way I got into this was dumb luck — with the emphasis on dumb.

Apart from being the lead story designer for TT Games' Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Goring also got to work on the hilarious trailer of the game:

On creating the trailer, which adds "daft visual jokes" and parodies the actual Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens, Goring has this to say:

It was really cool to be able to … write the trailer in-house. The reaction was really positive, and we had those videos on YouTube where people compared it shot for shot with the original trailer. When you inspire people to do things like that you know that they're interested.

Despite all the fun Goring is obviously having though, the con to it is that he already knew what's going to happen in The Force Awakens since the game's production started a year prior to the J.J. Abrams film's release.

He shared:

The animators would come in and say something like, ‘Can we have a scene where Chewie does his taxes?', and I would say, ‘No. Don't spoil anything for me'. But, fortunately, the first place I got to see it was in the cinema.

It wasn't all fun and games as well, Goring said he feels the "big responsibility" that comes with crafting something related to the massive franchise:

It's a massive thing, quite scary when you hear you are going to be writing the script — you don't want to be the guy who messes that up.

On making the jokes to Star Wars that will cater to the masses, Goring says:

I like wordplay, I like writing really dumb characters. If I think a child will find it funny — and I have an immature sense of humour — I put it in. And it's a bit of a scattershot approach, too — we throw everything in there. If one joke doesn't stick, there's always another in a few seconds.

There's a cutscene department doing this as well, coming up with jokes. We sent around a few emails asking people to think of a few daft animations, and we'll sprinkle them through the game.

Adding to the difficulty is that The Force Awakens itself is already "really funny," with "loads of great, sparky dialogue," says Goring.

The Lego game will also incorporate story tidbits like how Han Solo and Chewbacca seized the Rathtars and the story of C-3PO's red arm.

Goring said:

We're the first ones to tell the story of some of these events, and it's insanely cool to be entrusted with that.

Creating a parody out of a famous franchise, especially one like Star Wars, is not as easy as it seems. From the looks of it though, the Lego Star Wars video game is in good hands with Goring.

You can check out the full interview with Graham Goring here.

Are you excited to play this game?

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be released on June 28.