Identifying Mechanics in a Team Setting

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by JamesAtBoxCat, Jul 3, 2013.

  1. JamesAtBoxCat

    JamesAtBoxCat Active Member

    Dec 6, 2012
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  2. Blackharon

    Blackharon Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2010
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    Game Designer for Ludia
    Canada
    #2 Blackharon, Jul 3, 2013
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2013
    Loopycube's design process was a little loosy goosy. During the previous project we add ideas to our 'garde manger' (cupboard).

    I've taken the liberty to do a list like yours:

    1) List all the game ideas we loved and debate them.
    2) Each team member defines the top 3: If there is one idea that is in everyone's top list we start a preliminary design.
    3) Preliminary design document: 2-4 pages listing features, general gameplay, timeline and target audience.
    4) Assign Priorities to feature in preliminary design: "Must have", "Nice to Have", "Not needed"
    5) Revise preliminary design
    6) Evaluation of schedule, costs, team commitment, and feasibility.
    7) It's feasible and everyone agrees? If not, go back and redo Step #1.
    8) Draft a design document. (DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP).
    9) Review document, everything okay? Very similar to step 4.
    10) Edit Design document removing everything "Not Needed" and rebuilding
    11) Start work under one unified vision.

    Edit to add:

    I like your questioning process to the game design document. I do something similar except the first one I always ask is "What happens if..." and try to come up with a list of unexpected things that might occur with a feature.

    I also find it interesting you separate the details from the rest of the design. We make a bullet list of features but clicking on the feature links you to a point later in the document where it is described in full. Do you have separate documents for each feature?
     
  3. JamesAtBoxCat

    JamesAtBoxCat Active Member

    Dec 6, 2012
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    I like your top 3 system. We'll have to incorporate that. =)

    Yes, we have separate documents but it depends on the complexity that the feature. We try our best to make diagrams if we can.

    Here's the original game flow diagram, same as the one in the article.

    [​IMG]

    Here's the final game flow diagram (wasn't included in the article). This one was updated in month 5 of dev so we could reunite ourselves.

    [​IMG]

    Other features that needed their own document was the character emotion milestones. We wanted to make sure the characters weren't boring and always had some new personality elements every few cutscenes.

    Something we didn't go into detail about was Bitcoins.... er... I mean ByteCredits. :D

    Are you guys all local to each other?

    We're a local team and have always done these processes face-to-face. We're thinking about taking on remote partners, but a bit hesitant.
     
  4. Blackharon

    Blackharon Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2010
    978
    0
    16
    Game Designer for Ludia
    Canada
    We are all local yes. Often the programmers would take days to work from home but in the end a 95% of what we did was face to face.
     

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