Game Writing vs. Narrative Design

This is another planned sample post about the differences between Game Writing and Narrative Design.  In a nutshell, Game Writing focuses on dialogue for NPCs, making interesting side characters, and generally trying to create an interesting world for the player to run around in – but, again, with a focus on the NPCs.  You could contrast this to Narrative Design to some small degree by saying that Game Writing is almost like working on a microcosm, where Narrative Design is focusing on the macrocosm, which is the player experience, making sure the story is player-driven and not NPC-driven, that the narrative integrates well with the game systems/mechanics and that it also complements the game’s aesthetic.  Narrative Design touches on a variety of game dev disciplines, not just writing and game design, but other things you may not expect, too, such as UX/UI.  At least, this is my understanding of the differences as a novice student, as of this posting, on these subjects.  I’m very much looking forward to getting my hands dirty in this field.