Basic Game Art Concepts - Game Character Creation with Blender and Unity - page 3

industry. In this process, departments operate separately but on a linear schedule that
works toward final release of a game. The game goes from early concept stages to the pro-
duction, or “alpha,” level. Playtesters are then brought in to play and evaluate the game
in the “beta” stage of development. Finally, the game is polished and sent for release, the
“gold” stage.
Although many great games have been developed using phase-based design, other
games have been deemed failures, often due to the separation of departments trying to
create a cohesive product and the lack of early playtesting. While an industry standard,
designing in this way also runs the risk of the design team suffering from poor communi-
cation and developing a game to near completion before someone realizes that it is no fun
to play! Individual studios have, over time, developed their own methods for resolving
these issues. All of the following methodologies follow the “alpha, beta, gold” standard
but differ from phase-based design by attempting to address its intrinsic weaknesses.
The Cabal
Valve Corporation employees created this method while working on the original Half
Life. The Cabal is a collaborative design method where several representatives of various
design departments, such as programming, writing, animation, and level design, work
closely on one part of a game. The crux of this method is teamwork among departments
that may otherwise work separately. In this way, game elements fit together in a more
cohesive manner and mechanics work together with art to create a livelier world.
This process is further discussed in the Gamasutra essay, “The Cabal: Valve's Design
Process for Creating Half Life ” ( http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3408/the_cabal_
valves_design_process.php ).
Playcentric Iterative Design
In her topic Game Design Workshop (Morgan Kaufmann, 2008), game designer Tracy
Fullerton describes a design process that initiates playtesting as early as possible.
Fullerton argues that designers, upon conception of a game idea, should decide what the
basic gameplay mechanics will be and create paper prototypes right away. The reason-
ing of this method is that if core gameplay of a game is fun, then it is worth developing.
Further prototypes are developed as features are added to the game. Fullerton argues that
a game should pass through several phases of paper prototyping before a design docu-
ment is even written. In this way, the document can become a more effective guide for the
further developing of the game.
The structure of this method is based on iterative design methods of software devel-
opment, where software is prototyped and then tested. If any bugs or difficulties of use
are found, they are documented and another phase of rebuilding and testing is done.