Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
when planning a game project, it is easy to underestimate how much work tuning
actually is. In our experience, polishing and tuning can take anywhere between one-
third and half of the entire development time.
documentinG desiGns
Game design documents are used to record designs as games are being built. every
game company has its own standard for these documents, and every game company uses
them in a different way. Typically, a game design document starts with a brief descrip-
tion of the game's concept, target audience, core mechanics, and intended art style.
many companies keep the design document up-to-date. every mechanism that is added
and level that gets designed will be added to the document. For this reason, design
documents are often called
living documents
: They grow as the game grows.
documenting the design process is important for many reasons: Writing down goals
and vision will help you keep on track during later stages of development. Writing down
your design decisions during development will prevent you from having to reconsider
past decisions over and over again. Finally, when working in a team, it is very useful to
have one document that specifies the collective goal. This reduces the chances that the
team effort diverges and that you waste too much energy on features that end up being
incompatible.
For now, we suggest that you do get into the habit of documenting your design by
whatever method works best for you. You'll find a longer discussion and some useful
templates for design documents in
Fundamentals of Game Design
.
Designing Mechanics early On
Game mechanics are not easy to create. We advise that you start working on your
game's mechanics early in the elaboration phase. There are two reasons for this:
n
Gameplay emerges from game mechanics. It is difficult, if not impossible, to tell
whether your gameplay will be fun simply by looking at the rules. The only way to
find out whether your mechanics work is by playing them or, even better, by having
somebody else play them for you. To make this possible, you may need to create a
number of prototypes. We will go into this in more detail in later chapters.
n
The game mechanics that we focus on in this topic are complex systems; game-
play relies on a delicate balance within this system. Once you have mechanics that
work, it is easy to destroy that balance by adding new features late in the develop-
ment process or by making changes to existing mechanisms.
Once you have the core mechanics working and you are sure they are balanced and
fun, you can start working on levels and art assets to go with them.
