Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
System Planning
The first step in the development of any system, of course, is to define
what it needs to be able to do. As part of this specification and planning
process, up-front collaboration between Design, Narrative Design, Audio,
Engineering, and Tools Development is essential.
While defining the goals and functionality of the barks system, it can be
helpful to evaluate games that might have a similar system running “under
the hood.” Meticulously documented playthroughs of games featuring as-
pirational VO functionality will help yield a shared understanding of what's
really desired from your own system.
As these systems can be complex to develop, the technical members of
this sub-team might want to investigate the repurposing of existing tools
and tech already present at the studio. And if that's not feasible, they'll def-
initely want to account for plenty of development time.
One of the most illuminating parts of this phase can be generating an
initial list of trigger events that it's hoped can potentially cause certain
kinds of VO lines to play. A solid understanding of the current game design
will be important here, as will research into other titles on the market, to
see what works well and what doesn't. The trigger list not only helps
define the scope of the barks system, but the systems designers can also
use it to begin putting “hooks” into the code that will later be used to actu-
ally fire the appropriate VO lines when these predefined conditions are
met.
This process will also start to reveal scope: of writing, recording, and im-
plementation. All three are related, though not exactly the same. (For ex-
ample, a certain line might be written just once but recorded by five differ-
ent actors to allow for audio variety.) It's never too early to start getting a
handle on the size of the job.
Placeholders
Voiceover lines generally aren't recorded until fairly late in the develop-
ment process, since actor and booth time can be expensive, and most
lines end up being rewritten as the game evolves through production.
However, for a multitude of reasons, it's essential to hear at least rough
versions of the game's VO lines pretty early on—thus the importance of
placeholder lines and your system's ability to integrate them quickly and
easily.
