Rogues’ Rendezvous: Vertically Sliced - The Game Maker's Companion: Game Development - page 273

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Rogues' Rendezvous:
Vertically Sliced
We're aiming to produce one complete level for Shadows on Deck , or what is often called a
“vertical slice” of gameplay. In a professional game development studio, it is quite common to
create a small section of a game like this in order to prove the concept's worth to a publisher.
Console games often cost many millions of dollars to develop, and these days it is usually only
the big-name publishers who can afford to pick up this kind of bill. Nonetheless, they don't just
hand over that kind of money based on a design document, however good it may be. Publishers
are always looking for AAA titles, 1 but the truth is that it is actually impossible to design such a
game on paper! The art of game design is an interactive, step-by-step process and quality
games evolve into being; they are not simply implemented according to a meticulous plan.
Consequently, publishers often fund an initial, short period of development called
preproduction in order to try and find the fun in the concept. In that phase, the designers
compile the game design, the artists create concept art for the characters and environments,
and the programmers create game play and technology prototypes. A vertical slice is often seen
as a single complete level that has the feel of the finished game, but exists in isolation. The
success of this initial prototype will determine whether the publisher decides to continue to fund
the development of the project, and whether the team's hard work and enthusiasm for their
concept will ever see the light of day….
Animated Driving
Large, well-defined sprites may look great, but they bring with them a whole range of additional
problems. We've already seen some of the issues it can create with collisions, but there are
animation problems, too. Sliding feet in walk cycles, sudden transitions between different
animations, and the synchronization of sound effects are all issues that are much harder to ignore
with larger character sprites. The hierarchical animation systems used in 3D games typically have
the ability to dynamically access or modify animation data on the fly, so they do not suffer from
1
Pronounced, triple-A . Refers to the very best games that have been both critically acclaimed and
commercially successful.