Building Games by Design

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Building Games by Design
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Game Development Process Revisited

• The RoadMap
• initial description and analysis of all aspects
  of the game
• initial starting point for
• pre-production
• production
• quality assurance

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The RoadMap

• Used to iteratively define
• A solid game design.
• Identify/classify Star features
• A realistic schedule.
• The technical feasibility of the game design.
• Alternate scenarios
• Changes in release date
• Different set of key features
• Different set of resources

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The RoadMap Contents

• Game Design
• Feature List
• Art, Sound, and Design Components
• Art Assets (Sketches, Storyboarding, Animations,
  etc.)
• Sound Assets (Voices, Ambient Sounds, Special
  Effects, etc.)
• Technical Requirements/Design
• Game Component Overview
• Prototyping
• Tools and Libraries
• Platform Issues
• Resource Allocation
• High-Level Schedule

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Feature List

• List of all of the known major features
• Each feature includes
• Description
• Rating of each component
• Star Feature Game design has priority over the
  schedule. High quality has priority over the
  Schedule.
• Require Feature Game design has priority over
  the schedule. The Schedule has priority over high
  quality.
• Optional Feature Nice to have but Schedule has
  priority over the game design.

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Art, Sound, and Design Assets

• Directly related to the features
• Broadly classified
• World
• World Objects
• Characters (Player and Non-Player) accessories
• Menus/Overlays
• Animations
• Etc

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Technical Design

• Game Component Overview
• lists all of the game components and their
  pipelines needed to fulfill the game design
  requirements.
• may not exactly represent the game architecture
• represent the technical components required to
  build the game.

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Example Components

• AI / Controller / Camera Front End and Overlays
• Game Architecture / Game Flow / Game States
• Graphics Rendering / Load and Save / Movies
• Non-Interactive Sequence (NIS) / Replay
• Scripting Engine / Sound Rendering / Special FX
• Sound music, dialogue/voices, special effects
  (front-end, overlay, and game), sound pipeline

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Prototyping

• Determine what features need to be tested
• For each prototype area
• Description ltDescribe the domain that is
  intended to be prototyped.gt
• Rationale Explain why this area requires
  prototyping (i.e., new technologies,
  proof-of-concept, visual, algorithmic, high-risk,
  etc.).gt
• Objectives ltDescribe what the objectives of the
  prototype are.gt

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Tools and Libraries

• Describe all of the tool, library, and
  third-party solutions that are required or need
  to be investigated for potential use during the
  development of the game.

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Platform Issues

• Describe the target platform(s)
• For each platform
• provide a technical overview
• describe any major development issues

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Resource Allocation

• All the people and all their tasks
• Game Designers
• Programmers
• Artists
• Sound Engineers
• Internal support teams
• Hardware/Software Resources

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High-Level Schedule

• Describes the time allocated to the development
  of the game from start to finish
• Used to create an initial project schedule
• stage/phase,
• milestone,
• deliverables,
• dependencies

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Pre-Production Phase

• Schedule (task specification and resource
  allocation) for Pre-Production
• Creation of Art Design Specification
• Creation of Game Design Specification
• Prototyping
• Requirement Specifications
• System and Architectural Design
• Technical Design Document

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Production Phase

• Schedule
• Implementation
• Unit Testing
• Code Review/Inspection
• Integration Testing
• (combining art/data/code for initial playable
  game)

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Quality Assurance

• Determine time required for
• Game testing (at alpha/beta/final stages)
• Polishing
• Post Mortem

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Milestones and Deliverables

• For each milestone
• Date
• Deliverables
• schedule, art, design, and technical
• Dependencies (and delivery date)

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Game Development Docs

• High Concept Game Design
• Game Design
• Requirements
• Technical Design

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High Concept Game Design

• A Game Concept Statement (two to three sentences)
• Game Goals
• Game Information (genre, type, style)
• License / Brand / Competitor Analysis
• Target Audience (who the game is aimed at)
• Expanded Game Concept (two to three paragraphs)
• Game Structure (modes, levels, how parts fit
  together)

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High-Concept Game Design (cont)

• Game Play (2 sentences on basic gameplay)
• Expanded Gameplay (2-3 paragraphs of gameplay
  experience)
• Key Game Features / Back of the box features
• Concept Summary

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Preliminary Game Design Doc

• Start of full Game Design
• Collect all the ideas
• Assess them from a design, art and technical
  perspective,

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Preliminary Game Design Doc

• Should answer
• Concept Issues have any of the concept issues
  changed?
• Scope of Game What is the intended scope
  regarding characters, levels, environments,
  sound, dialogue etc.?
• Feature lists is every intended feature listed
  with an example?
• Game Structure what is the intended structure
  of the game? How will it fit together?
• Gameplay is every possible type of gameplay
  represented by a micro example, storyboard etc
• Game Strategies are all the intended strategies
  (i.e., saving the game, HUD, checkpoints,
  difficulty levels, ramping) sufficiently
  explained to assess their impact on development?

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Final Game Design

• Repeated iteration of preliminary design that
  solidifies of all the ideas and concepts.
• Used as the definitive design reference
  throughout production.

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Technical Design Document

• Explanation and diagram of the static/dynamic
  behavior of all of the major entities in the
  design
• Used to determine risks, dependencies and
  scheduling.
• Iterative development (Design, review, repeat)

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Why?

• To determine the technical scope of a component
• Low-cost way to create, iterate and review a
  design
• A reference for maintenance/extension and use
• Measures scope of project
• Helps ensure that all game requirements are met
• Basis of implementation, testing and quality
  assurance

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The GDP

• Stages are iterative
• The earlier a problem is found the less it costs
  to deal with
• Circumstances will change.